Difficulty and returns
Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2017 12:28 am
So this isn't a clearly applicable dataset, because I let the pool choose which coin to mine, then pay myself in LTC. However, since I keep spreadsheets of, well, everything, I noticed something that I think is interesting:
For the week August 18th to August 24th, I made 86 LTC and change. That contrasts sharply with the week of Sep 8th to Sep 14th, where I made roughly half that at 43 LTC and change. We all know difficulty grows, but since I created the difficulty-tracking-and-predicting website http://ltcwisdom.net/, I was pretty sure that difficulty hadn't doubled on those periods. Here's the data:
Take home message: The return is almost exactly half in the second period. The difficulty only goes up by 1.7x
Now it's possible the various other coins I mine (predominantly bitconnectcoin) went up by more than LTC did, and I'd be interested to see that graph. It's also probable that the coin price I want to be paid in didn't track the difficulty of that coin, and that relationship could in fact be reasonably variant over time. I'm not alleging any foul play or anything like that, I'm more pointing out that prediction of future profits is more difficult than it would appear at first glance when you profit-mine the "best coin to mine".
For the week August 18th to August 24th, I made 86 LTC and change. That contrasts sharply with the week of Sep 8th to Sep 14th, where I made roughly half that at 43 LTC and change. We all know difficulty grows, but since I created the difficulty-tracking-and-predicting website http://ltcwisdom.net/, I was pretty sure that difficulty hadn't doubled on those periods. Here's the data:
| Period | Return in LTC | Average LTC difficulty |
| Aug 18 -> Aug 24 | 86 | 446265 |
| Sep 8 -> Sep 14 | 43 | 766384 |
Now it's possible the various other coins I mine (predominantly bitconnectcoin) went up by more than LTC did, and I'd be interested to see that graph. It's also probable that the coin price I want to be paid in didn't track the difficulty of that coin, and that relationship could in fact be reasonably variant over time. I'm not alleging any foul play or anything like that, I'm more pointing out that prediction of future profits is more difficult than it would appear at first glance when you profit-mine the "best coin to mine".