Proof-of-work difficulty increasing

[ichi]

I value Bitcoin as an anonymous digital currency.  Although I'm not expecting to get rich, I'd like the ability to continuously generate enough Bitcoin to purchase desired services.

Is there any expectation that economic value per khash/sec (or client) per day will be at least somewhat stable?  Difficulty just increased 300%, and USD/Bitcoin just increased about 500% (although that may turn out to be a spike).  I do get that there's no necessary relationship.  However, perhaps there's an economic basis for one (however approximate it might be).

[1398402944]

1398402944

[Insti]

I value Bitcoin as an anonymous digital currency.  Although I'm not expecting to get rich, I'd like the ability to continuously generate enough Bitcoin to purchase desired services.

Is there any expectation that economic value per khash/sec (or client) per day will be at least somewhat stable?  Difficulty just increased 300%, and USD/Bitcoin just increased about 500% (although that may turn out to be a spike).  I do get that there's no necessary relationship.  However, perhaps there's an economic basis for one (however approximate it might be).

Try the Bitcoin Economics Forum
You should be able to find many discussions about this topic there.

This thread is about the proof of work difficulty number.

[satoshi]

New difficulty factor 244.213223092
+35%

I updated the first post.

date, difficulty factor, % change
2009          1.00
30/12/2009    1.18   +18%
11/01/2010    1.31   +11%
25/01/2010    1.34    +2%
04/02/2010    1.82   +36%
14/02/2010    2.53   +39%
24/02/2010    3.78   +49%
08/03/2010    4.53   +20%
21/03/2010    4.57    +9%
01/04/2010    6.09   +33%
12/04/2010    7.82   +28%
21/04/2010   11.46   +47%
04/05/2010   12.85   +12%
19/05/2010   11.85    -8%
29/05/2010   16.62   +40%
11/06/2010   17.38    +5%
24/06/2010   19.41   +12%
06/07/2010   23.50   +21%
13/07/2010   45.38   +93%
16/07/2010  181.54  +300%
27/07/2010  244.21   +35%

[knightmb]

It's a good thing all those phantom super-clusters went off line a few weeks ago or who knows how high the difficulty would have jumped to? 

[mizerydearia]

I designed a page to show history of difficulty values and published the code at http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=587.0

[Syke]

Ugh, from 23 to 244 in 3 weeks. No wonder my 2600 khash/s system is over 10 days on the current block!

[Vasili Sviridov]

I wonder if that's due to bigger swarm, or heavier iron, or both...?

[flix]

Next increase in difficulty in est. 14 days...

 

[theymos]

This topic brings back memories...

I generated 5 blocks today on my Pentium processor. Two of them were within 3 minutes of each other.

Heh.

[knightcoin]

Thats should go to the history text book

[Sonny]

Ugh, from 23 to 244 in 3 weeks. No wonder my 2600 khash/s system is over 10 days on the current block!

The good old days.  

[2double0]

This topic brings back memories...

I generated 5 blocks today on my Pentium processor. Two of them were within 3 minutes of each other.

Heh.

Damn, hey theymos: Wanna send me a few? ahhahah  why hadnt I heard of btc back then