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> The only reason competition matters at all is because of the difficulty adjustment. Which seems relevant here (I think you’re both right?) because with more
by geertj 4y ago
> The only reason competition matters at all is because of the difficulty adjustment.
Which seems relevant here (I think you’re both right?) because with more competition the next adjustment will be very quick, and will adjust your expected returns to your hash rate fraction of the competition?
- jstanley 4y agoThe contentious claim was: > At difficulty X you are expected the same number of blocks regardless of how many others are mining, so others' dropping out doesn't increase your bitcoin income per hour. So, yeah, you're right. Others dropping out increases your total income because you get to mine at low difficulty for longer. But the claim was about income per hour.
- geertj 4y agoThanks for digging up the original quote and clarifying what I was replying to. Agreed, income per hour indeed doesn’t depend on competition until the next adjustment.
- jcbrand 4y agoThe grandparent was talking about blocks mined per hour, and I was thinking of blocks mined per difficulty period (I guess because I didn't properly read the grandparent's post). Given that the difficulty period is variable, and becomes shorter when more hashing power comes online, the amount of blocks you'll mine for the current difficulty period does decrease, even if the amount of blocks you mine per hour stays the same.
- eterm 4y ago> Others dropping out increases your total income because you get to mine at low difficulty for longer But not if they only drop out when the difficulty swings high and rejoin when it swings low.