Difficulty – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

A bitcoin mine near Kongyuxiang, Sichuan, China on August 12, 2016.

Paul Ratje | The Washington Post | Getty Images

It just got a lot easier and more profitable to mine for Bitcoin.

The world has known for months that more than half of the world’s bitcoin miners would go dark if China cracked down on mining. Now that it has happened, the Bitcoin algorithm has adjusted accordingly to ensure miners’ productivity doesn’t drop any further from a cliff.

This adjustment – which went into effect early Saturday morning – also means more money will be available to the bitcoin miners who stay online.

“This will be a source of income for miners,” said bitcoin mining engineer Brandon Arvanaghi.

“They suddenly have a significantly larger piece of the pie, which means they are making more Bitcoin every day.”

Mining made easy

A bitcoin miner runs a program on a computer to try to solve a puzzle before someone else does. The solution to this puzzle completes a block, a process that both creates new bitcoins and updates the digital ledger to keep track of all bitcoin transactions.

China has long been the epicenter of bitcoin miners, with previous estimates suggesting 65 to 75% of the world’s bitcoin mining took place there, but government-led crackdown has effectively banned the country’s crypto miners.

“For the first time in the history of the Bitcoin network, we have completely stopped mining in a specific 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 fallen off the network since its market high in May.

Fewer people mining means fewer blocks are being solved every day. It usually takes around 10 minutes to complete a block, but Feinstein told CNBC that the Bitcoin network has slowed to 14 to 19-minute block times.

Precisely for this reason, Bitcoin recalibrates and resets every 2016 blocks or roughly every two weeks about how difficult it is for miners to mine. On Saturday, the Bitcoin code automatically made mining easier by about 28% – a historically unprecedented decline for the network – and thus set the block times back to the optimal 10-minute window.

According to Mike Colyer, CEO of digital currency company Foundry, the Bitcoin algorithm is programmed to deal with an increase or decrease in mining machines. “It’s a self-regulating market that doesn’t need an outside committee to determine what to do. This is a very strong concept, ”he said.

Fewer competitors and fewer difficulties mean that any miner with a machine connected will see a significant increase in profitability and more predictable revenue.

“All bitcoin miners have the same economics and mine on the same network, so both public and private miners will see revenue growth,” said Kevin Zhang, former chief mining officer at Greenridge Generation, the first major US power plant to begin with mining on a grand scale behind the counter.

Assuming a fixed cost of electricity, Zhang estimates sales of $ 29 per day for those using the latest generation Bitmain miner, up from $ 22 per day before the change. Longer-term, although mining income can fluctuate with the price of the coin, Zhang also noted that mining revenues were only 17% lower from the Bitcoin price high in April, while the price of the coin was down about 50%.

Six month increase

It is difficult to predict how long the hashrate deficit will last. Barbour said it was entirely possible that Beijing could simply reverse its policies and this could only be a short-term hiatus.

If not, most mining crypto experts agree that it will take anywhere from six to 15 months for all of the idle and displaced mining hardware to migrate. “It will be a long time before the surplus finds a home,” said Barbour.

Gibbs believes the miners should generate higher revenues for at least the remainder of 2021.

“Every day, the Chinese miners around the world look for places where they can turn their machines on again. Space is very limited right now, ”said Colyer.

Part of the problem, according to Feinstein, is that even before mining stopped in China, there was a lack of infrastructure to accommodate the new-generation miners deployed monthly by Beijing-based manufacturer Bitmain.

Now that the market is inundated with an oversupply of used mining rigs, it’s hard to say how quickly countries can absorb the influx of equipment.

“Some mining companies built everything and were just waiting for these ASICs to plug in, which would only take a few days,” explained Arvanaghi.

“Others may need to build containers, expand warehouses, or increase their electricity capacity. We won’t see the hash rate hit what it used to be overnight, but we’ll see it rise again over the next few months, ”he continued.

Of all the possible destinations for this gear, the U.S. appears particularly well positioned to absorb this stray hashrate. CNBC is told that major U.S. mining operators are already signing contracts to patrol some of these homeless Bitmain miners.

Bitcoin mining in the US is booming and venture capital is flowing so they are ready to take advantage of miner migration, Arvanaghi told CNBC.

“Many US bitcoin miners who were funded when the price of bitcoin began to rise in November and December 2020 meant they were expanding their power capacity when the Chinese mining ban went into effect,” he said. “It’s great timing.”

However, Barbour believes that much smaller players in the US residential areas also have a chance to catch these surplus miners.

“I think this is a signal that bitcoin mining will inevitably be more distributed in the future,” said Barbour. “Fewer mega mines like the 100 megawatts we see in Texas and more small mines in small commercial and ultimately residential areas. It’s much more difficult for a politician to close a mine in a garage. “

Hanane Saoui is used to death. Sudden and slow deaths. Painful Deaths and Peaceful Deaths.

This year was different.

The coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed Ms. Saoui’s work as a hospice nurse in New York. Security measures created physical distance between her and her patients and even separated some of her hospice colleagues from their clients’ homes last year. It deprived families and caretakers of opportunities to grieve together, and faced hospice workers familiar with death with astonishing levels of loss.

Despite the pressure, Ms. Saoui and other staff continued to give comfort and even moments of happiness to dying patients and their families.

“You sit down and listen,” she said. “You express your fear, you express your feelings, and you guide them and tell them what to expect.” After a patient died, she added, “I want to hug family members a lot, but now I can’t.”

Instead, Ms. Saoui said, “I pray and do the best I can.”

More than half a million Americans have died from the coronavirus, and many have died in pain, isolated from their families. Ms. Saoui contrasted these conditions with what she called a good death: “peaceful, pain-free, at home and surrounded by loved ones.”

While the nurses continued their personal home visits, some chaplain, social work, and therapy sessions went online as the families preferred. By August, most of this care was returning to face-to-face visits, but with strict precautions, including temporarily wearing full PPE and being six feet apart whenever possible.

Although the vast majority of Ms. Saoui’s patients did not have the coronavirus when they entered the hospice last year, challenging restrictions were placed on all patients and caregivers. Hospice home care can last for many months, and workers often develop close relationships with patients and their families.

However, the pandemic has left fewer occasions for families – and hospice workers – to grieve in person at funerals or memorial services. For over a year, the size of these gatherings has been strictly limited by many states in order to contain the spread of the virus.

When hospice patients die, their caretakers often work with their own grief and loss in weekly staff meetings and meetings with colleagues who share the same customer. These staff meetings are now online, but the loss of holding each other on and shedding tears has hit hospice workers deeply, said Melissa Baguzis, a social worker who specializes in pediatric cases. She has developed her own ways to deal with the loss of her young patients.

“I’ll take a moment, light a candle and read your favorite book or listen to your favorite song,” she said. “I have my own time for her. We are connected to their families, but when I am in their homes it is their grief and I will support them. In addition, I have to come to terms with my own loss. “

The hospice workers at MJHS Health System, a nonprofit based in New York and Nassau Counties, are as comfortable about death as many Americans are not. But the pandemic has placed an additional burden on her and her patients, said Ms. Baguzis. “We all share each other’s grief now more than ever,” she said.

Rev. Christopher Sigamoney, an episcopal priest who is a hospice chaplain, said he tried to be there for his patients “despite their frustration, anger, hopelessness, depression and fear”.

He often told the patients’ family members that it was “okay to be angry with God” because their loved ones were lost. But he said the death of a beloved cousin from the coronavirus changed his understanding of his work.

Father Sigamoney and his family could not be with his cousin, a retired doctor from India, during the three days she was hospitalized on a ventilator at the end of her life. He and a handful of relatives said “a few prayers” at the funeral home, but virus restrictions prevented them from having a “proper burial” or sending the body home to India.

“I didn’t really understand when people would ask, ‘Why me and why my family?'” He said of the time before his cousin’s death. “Now I’ve asked the same questions. I said to God, ‘Now I’m angry with you and I hope you can forgive me. ‘”Father Sigamoney said he was slowly recovering through prayer and helping his patients.

Last month, Josniel Castillo was hooked up to a series of medical equipment and monitors, surrounded by his parents and a variety of stuffed animals, when Javier Urrutia, a music therapist, and Ms. Baguzis entered his cramped bedroom. Despite his deteriorating health from a rare genetic disease, it was a happy day. It was Josniel’s 11th birthday.

Mr. Urrutia started “Las Mañanitas”, a traditional Mexican birthday song. Josniel’s mother and father, Yasiri Caraballo and Portirio Castillo, took part. Frau Caraballo wiped away her tears. They were “tears of joy” because she did not expect her son to be 11 years old.

She asked for a different melody and played the tambourine when Mr. Urrutia joined “Que Bonita Es Esta Vida”. They sang the last chorus together, part of which can be translated into:

Oh this life is so beautiful

Though it hurts so much sometimes

And despite his worries

There is always someone who loves us, someone who takes care of us.

Afterward, Mr. Urrutia said that most of the people “do not know what is going on behind closed doors, both the difficulty and the beauty”.

This year there was “a lot of pain and suffering in countless houses, it cannot be denied,” he said. But in hospice work, he said, “You also see all the heroes out there doing the simple things in life and looking after each other. The husband takes care of his wife or the mother takes care of her son. “

“Dying is part of life,” he added. “Only living things die.”

Mining made easy

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Six month increase