Quote from: dinotom on January 12, 2018, 06:16:41 PM

Quote from: MattMell on January 12, 2018, 07:02:55 AM

Quote from: MattMell on January 11, 2018, 08:16:17 AM

For the current difficulty period the network is through ~82% of blocks in ~73% target period

At current rate next difficulty estimate : 2 160 024 151 004 11.85% 18/01/13 12:06

For the current difficulty period the network is through ~91% of blocks in ~79% target period

At current rate next difficulty estimate : 2 184 039 845 865 13.10% 18/01/13 07:56

Difficulty change in ~24hours

Given the average rate over the past month or so, we are going to be approaching a difficulty number with a 5 handle, from its current 2 handle.

This will absolutely crush even the Antminer S9 profitability unless bitcoin doubles or more from here.
This is the single biggest issue I see in mining now.

When I first decided to buy the Antminer S9 in late November, I noted that slushpool had about 48,000 workers (Early Dec.), I will be getting my miners shortly, but now slushpool has almost 74,000 workers and in the next two months that's probably going much higher. And I'm sure its the same at every pool, including Kano which I'm likely to be joining. But I can't see how these miners stay profitable past July-Aug at current rate of increase of mining machines and difficulty.

What are you long term miner's thoughts on this subject?

And therein lies the rub...a better miner needs to come out, and soon...otherwise short-term profitability drops for everyone (unless $BTC rises).