Bitcoin mining just became easier and more profitable, reports CNBC:
The world has known for months that more than half the world’s bitcoin miners would be going dark as China cracked down on mining. Now that it’s happened, the bitcoin algorithm has adjusted accordingly to make sure miner productivity doesn’t continue to fall off a cliff. That adjustment — which took effect early Saturday morning — also means that way more cash is going to the bitcoin miners who remain online. “This will be a revenue party for miners,” said bitcoin mining engineer Brandon Arvanaghi. “They suddenly own a meaningfully larger piece of the pie, meaning they earn more bitcoin every day…”
“For the first time in the bitcoin network’s history, we have a complete shutdown of mining in a targeted geographic region that affected more than 50% of the network,” said Darin Feinstein, founder of Blockcap and Core Scientific. More than 50% of the hashrate — the collective computing power of miners worldwide — has dropped off the network since its market peak in May. Fewer people mining means that fewer blocks are solved each day. Typically, it takes about 10 minutes to complete a block, but Feinstein told CNBC the bitcoin network has slowed down to 14- to 19-minute block times. This is precisely why bitcoin re-calibrates every 2016 blocks, or about every two weeks, resetting how tough it is for miners to mine.
On Saturday, the bitcoin code automatically made it about 28% less difficult to mine — a historically unprecedented drop for the network — thereby restoring block times back to the optimal 10-minute window…
“We are expecting a period of much higher mining profitability for Compass Mining clients,” said Whit Gibbs, CEO and founder of Compass, a bitcoin mining service provider. “We expect miners to be approximately 35% more profitable.” Blockcap’s Feinstein agrees. “We are expecting a revenue and profit increase for the foreseeable future. This was an unexpected gift to the network, not just on revenues but on decentralization and sustainable energy metrics.”
CNBC also spoke to the former Chief Mining Officer at Greenridge Generation, the New York-based, coal-fired power plant that converted to large-scale bitcoin mining.
“Zhang estimates revenues of $29 per day for those using the latest-generation Bitmain miner, versus $22 per day prior to the change.”
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot