a measure of how many hashes must be attempted before one would be expected to successfully mine a block. Indirectly, it measures the total hashing speed of all miners for a given crypto-currency.
2
votes
1answer
62 views
What is the hash-rate of the Bitcoin network that results in the maximum difficulty?
According to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Target the target is a 256-bit number.
As the total hash-rate of the Bitcoin network rises, this number decreases to increase the difficulty. How much hash-rate ...
0
votes
0answers
33 views
Matching pushpool difficulty with stratum's
I have a new question for you.
I have setup the stratum mining proxy, and all is working fine. (Actually found our first block recently!)
However, I have pushpool running as well, and some of my ...
1
vote
1answer
80 views
block must mature 120 blocks to be spent
I mine bitcoin testnet blocks and I find some blocks with difficulty 1.
Some examples: I mined these blocks:
Block 1
Block 2
Why must generated coins mature 120 blocks before they can be spent?
1
vote
0answers
104 views
How to calculate litecoin pool difficulty from cgminer diff value?
How could I get litecoin pool share difficulty from the diff value reported by cgminer?
For example when cgminer reports diff 16 pool diff is 2^-20. But i am interested how to calculate it?
0
votes
0answers
67 views
Litecoin - how to calculate the difficulty from 2^-N
In the following list I always see difficulty values like 2^-12
How to calculate the actual difficulty from it?
Comparison of mining pools
1
vote
1answer
144 views
How is the probability of winning a block calculated from the difficulty?
I have problem finding this. The Bitcoin wiki mentions the probability here, but only with a link to the current value on BlockExplorer.
The wiki page on difficulty doesn't mention the formula for ...
5
votes
2answers
104 views
Is it possible for the network to stop finding valid blocks?
The hashing problem is by design computationally hard, because SHA-256 hashes are for all intents and purposes random strings with no direct link to their inputs, and there's no (known) way to ...
1
vote
1answer
51 views
Does difficulty ever stop increasing?
I know we don't have to worry about this for a very long time, but...
One argument against Bitcoin, and really, digital currencies as a whole, is that, in order to time blocks with reasonable ...
0
votes
1answer
175 views
What happens if everyone suddenly adops bitcoins, or it becomes very easy to create blocks [duplicate]
I understand that bitcoins are currently produced at ~25BTC/10 min
If I understand correctly how fast a block is created is what determines how fast bitcoins are created.
If everyone starts using ...
4
votes
3answers
109 views
Why not retarget on every block?
Should make things smoother and result in less oscillation. Is there a reason why retargetting is only every 2016 blocks?
7
votes
3answers
2k views
Do these new ASIC miners really pay for themselves in 5 days?
The Bitforce 50GH/s miner costs $2,500 today, and according to the following calculation it would mine enough coins in about 5 days to pay for itself.
I am sure I am missing something here. Why would ...
0
votes
1answer
184 views
What does difficulty indicate for litecoin mining?
For bitcoin, it's the inverse of the target that the hash must be less than. Litecoin uses scrypt instead of SHA256, so I'm unsure what the difficulty indicates.
4
votes
2answers
2k views
Litecoin difficulty and reward
How can I know difficulty value and reward for Litecoin network ?
I'm looking for website such as
http://blockexplorer.com/q/bcperblock
http://blockexplorer.com/q/getdifficulty
to get ...
1
vote
2answers
171 views
What is “difficulty” and how it relates to “target”?
I don't understand what "difficulty" means and how it really relates to "target".
I understand what "target" is - it tells the miners, how small the resulting hash should be. (Basically, how many ...
2
votes
0answers
65 views
How many confirmations is enough if block creation rate is volatile?
Right now, the number of blocks created is increasing at a rapid rate. In addition I tried to import coins into a MtGox account and noticed that even after 8 confirmations the funds aren't available.
...
1
vote
1answer
84 views
Feasibility of a “High horsepower” attack (based on difficulty -4x adjustments)
This is really Part 3 of this earlier question.
Given that the QT client is hard coded to never adjust difficulty more (or less than) a factor of 4...
What realistic scenario would cause the ...
0
votes
2answers
484 views
Why to mine with a high difficult on PPLNS
I'm trying poolmining ob btc-guild with the cgminer and try to calculate by testing if it is worth it or not.
One thing I wondered is: Why should I want to set a high difficult / not the lowest one, ...
0
votes
1answer
110 views
How many shares will be found for a given hashrate?
Many pools offer a difficulty of 1 per share.
Since variable difficulty is a feature of a couple of pools, I'd like to understand how many shares would be created at varying levels of difficulty.
...
3
votes
3answers
321 views
Are Bitcoins “created” by a miner or the Bitcoin Protocol (from a legal perspective)
The recent FinCEN announcement said explicitly that virtual currency isn't a "currency" by the standard sense of the word, and shouldn't be regarded as such.
Should Bitcoin ever be considered a ...
0
votes
0answers
198 views
Are there numbers on how many pre-orders (or total GH/s) ButterflyLabs already received?
The whole Bitcoin world is waiting for ButterflyLabs' entree in the mining scene.
Their promised products are quite revolutionary and so they can cause great fluctuations in the BTC price when they ...
0
votes
2answers
245 views
Possible to estimate next difficulty based on terahashes?
Here is what I have estimates on: There exists hardware capable of 60 gigahashes per second. Over the next few months, X amount of these will be mining bitcoins.
Difficulty is recalculated every 2016 ...
1
vote
2answers
483 views
Is PPS or DGM better for pooled mining when difficulty has a high “beta”
According to this thread on BFL, BFL_Josh says
PPS may be a better bet for you if you don't like variance. However if you are mining for the long haul, DGM will pay out more but your variance will ...
1
vote
1answer
66 views
Looking for unit testing data for Block.Bits to & from a JSON-RPC string
I'm trying to convert the JSON-RPC result of a Block's compressed bits property into a C# float with the following constraint
//3 bytes mantissa, the leading byte as exponent (where only the 5 ...
2
votes
1answer
39 views
What was the intended benefit of truncating the Target?
I'm thinking about how the Target value is truncated to and later compared to the SHA-256hash of the Block Header.
Given that
The maximum target (lowest possible difficulty) is
...
2
votes
2answers
310 views
Given the probability of finding a block, and time taken, can I infer hashrate?
I'm trying to externally calculate the hashrate of a given miner based only on an arbitrarily defined target that I assign, then calculate probability it will be found. Once this probability is ...
2
votes
1answer
5k views
Is CPU mining worthwhile for Litecoin? FPGA? GPU?
I'm interested in solo mining on Litecoin. Where can I learn about (or what math is required) two tell if this is feasible/profitable?
Currently I have 30+ CPUs running as solo miners for 40 hours ...
10
votes
1answer
358 views
How is difficulty calculated?
Can anyone explain me in the plain English how difficulty is calculated. I have a very approximate understanding that it is calculated based on the amount of hash power in all the bitcoin community ...
2
votes
1answer
72 views
How does blockchaininfo find out the difficulty?
Do they have a client installed on their servers that pulls the info out of block headers? How does it do it? What's the command?
2
votes
2answers
118 views
What makes difficulty more difficult?
Miners attempt to hash block data such that it is below a certain target value? By Cantor's diagonal proof aren't there infinitely many successful values below any given target?
3
votes
3answers
101 views
Difficulty based derivatives and insurance
What would the basis of difficulty derivatives and insurance be? Like how could we structure someone such that if the difficulty goes above a certain amount there's a payout to protect miners, & ...
4
votes
1answer
697 views
Relationship between Hash-Rate and Difficulty
What is the algebraic relationship between Total Network Hash-Rate and Difficulty?
5
votes
3answers
356 views
Bitcoin inflation in 9/12 doesn't seem to have been corrected. Why not and will it be fixed?
I'm looking at the Total Bitcoins in Circulation graph and don't understand why there is a spike of coins being generated in Sept '12. What caused this to happen?
Also, since there is a fixed ...
14
votes
4answers
11k views
Can casual people still mine for bitcoins, now that the difficulty is much higher than it was?
Can casual people still mine for bitcoins? As of October 2012, the difficulty seems very high, being over 3,000,000.
I've seen a ad for bitcoins, and watched the video. It said I could mine for them ...
4
votes
1answer
102 views
Does variability of block solution time change as difficulty increases?
We know that the expected average time to solve a block from any given point in time is 10 minutes when the network hash rate matches the current difficulty.
However, as difficulty increases are we ...
7
votes
6answers
653 views
Can more than 1 block be solved per 10 mins on average (LONG TERM)?
I am wondering whether it is possible for a supercomputer to find the next 1000 blocks in a very short amount of time. Hypothetically, if a government agency concentrated a supercomputer on hashing, ...
0
votes
1answer
1k views
How to convert Litecoin difficulty of 6 to an expected time per block solved?
The current difficulty for mining Litecoins is about 6. If I mine them at 25kh/s, how often should I expect to solve a block with a difficulty of 6?
I'd also appreciate an explanation (or formula) of ...
6
votes
2answers
372 views
Is there a maximum factor by which difficulty can change?
I seem to recall, long ago, being told that difficulty couldn't change more than a certain amount at each retarget, but I can't seem to find what that factor is (or even confirmation that such a ...
4
votes
2answers
262 views
What is the highest recorded difficulty in the main net?
What is the highest recorded difficulty in the main net and which blocks was it used for?
2
votes
1answer
250 views
How does the rate of getwork requests correlate with the hashrate of a miner?
In a setup where a standard bitcoind serves full difficulty targets to some mining nodes, how can I calculate the hashrate of a mining node from looking at the rate of getwork requests? Does this ...
6
votes
1answer
325 views
Reduce difficulty on testnet-in-a-box?
I'm doing some testing and often find myself needing to generate 6 blocks quickly to confirm some tx. Each block takes a few minutes to generate on my macbook so this slows things down considerably.
...
2
votes
2answers
639 views
Pool getwork “target”?
In a getwork request, bitcoind sends a target corresponding to the current block's bits value. Do the major pools send the same target as one would expect from bitcoind, difficulty of "1" target, or ...
5
votes
2answers
523 views
How to calculate new “bits” value?
Every 2016 blocks one needs to calculate new bits value. What is the formula to calculate it?
5
votes
3answers
203 views
What is the ecological effect of increase work for the bitcoin chain?
As more users use bitcoin and "forced work" difficulty increases what effect does this have ecologically? It is a silly question I know. I'm just comparing lets say value or effect of using ...
7
votes
1answer
214 views
How does one know they solved a block?
Having the difficulty (either in the "bits" form, big integer form, or human-readable format) and a given block hash, how does one know if they solved that block? What is the formula or algorithm for ...
4
votes
1answer
140 views
Web API to retrieve difficulty changes
I am looking for a website that allows me to retrieve the time at which each difficulty change happened. The time doesn't need to be accurate so a time stamp from the block will do. I want to fetch ...
5
votes
2answers
327 views
Is there a uniform measure of “difficulty”, that when multiplied by price, will give “profitability of one hour of mining”?
I recently open Bitcoin Pie, a site that compares crypto-currencies.
Given the exchange rate in BTC, I would like to add another column that tells "relative mining profitability", regardless of the ...
11
votes
2answers
370 views
How many Integer Operations on a GPU are necessary for one Hash?
I thought it was the ALU OPs like here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7964.0
ArtForz speaks of much higher values, though:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4689.msg68933#msg68933
...
11
votes
4answers
492 views
Is there empirical data about a relationship between bitcoin price and difficulty?
There have been claims that Bitcoin price and difficulty correspond. Is there empirical data to support or refute this?
