Category Archives: Mining

New All Time High In Difficulty Forces Out Cloudmining Service CEX.IO

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Off the back of yet another increase in the Bitcoin mining difficulty to an all time high of 43,971,662,056 comes news that CEX.IO has suspended their cloud mining services. CEX.IO state that the increasing difficulty coupled with the recent drop in the price of bitcoin lead to its decision. An update posted to the CEX.IO blog reads: Continue reading →

Butterfly Labs Allowed to Reopen

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The Kansas City Business Journal is reporting that the judge in the Federal Trade Commission's case is allowing Butterfly Labs to continue business operations under court supervision. From the court order of Judge Brian Wimes:

"Plaintiff fails to show any continuing violation of the alleged misconduct. Plaintiff argues defendants' past conduct suggests they are likely to return to this business model and related representations in the future. But, as previously discussed, the court disagrees."

Butterfly Labs will be required to submit monthly reports to the court outlining progress in shipping products, processing refunds, and improving corporate governance. Other litigation against Butterfly Labs continues including cases in both Missouri and Kansas.

First Difficulty Drop of the ASIC Age

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Today's difficulty change marks the first time since the introduction of Bitcoin mining ASICs that the network difficulty has dropped. Network difficulty went from 40,300,030,328 to 40,007,470,271 which is a loss of 0.73 percent. The first difficulty decrease happened in 2011 when pool operators discovered the existence of botnet miners for the first time and banned several. Other difficulty decreases happened during the GPU mining era when price dips made the energy cost of mining unprofitable in the near term. Since January 2013, the month before the introduction of the first commercial ASIC miners by Avalon mining difficulty has increased by more than 1,300,000 percent.