Bitcoin Forum

Well, we all know that the last block halving was in mid-2012 which turned down a block reward of 50 BTC to 25 BTC. Now, in mid-2016, we expect a block halving thus halving down it further to 12.5 BTC. But, this leads me to arise two questions to the expert community out there.

1) Basic economics says, with increase in demand and decrease in supply, price increases. Whereas, with decrease in demand and increase in supply, price decreases. So, for the last 3-4 months, the price of BTC has been around 230$-270$ per BTC. The price has actually rather decreased due to panic selling of BTC by miners and many other attacks on the exchanges out there. But, if in 2016, we assume the demand remains the same and the supply decreases (due to block halving to 12.5 BTC per block), then will the price of BTC increase ?


2) Will the price of BTC instead decrease because with low price and decreased block reward, the miners will sell more BTC instead to cover the mining cost ?


Any answers will be greatly appreciated.

It will establish a new higher floor due math = less supply + more demand (there will be eventually more demand, it's unavoidable) = bigger price.
Once the dust settles and people understand the Core/XT problem is no problem of a nazi dev imposing his view on people, things will go smoothly.

But due to the new hardfork we will have 2!! versions of Bitcoin, which means that block halving gets evaporated and is meaningless (only if Bitcoin is still alive until 2016)!  ??? :(

This is nonsense.  Please listen to this interview with Gavin in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1075510.0

Block halving:  I think this will make the price go up but not to the moon.  It may be a catalyst for higher prices but by itself I don't anticipate it having a huge impact.  What would be nice for the price of bitcoin is if we stop the 20mb fud, which I believe is the cause of the recent price dip.  When that is resolved or everyone figures out what is really going on I expect to see a bounce.

My prediction: Nothing will happen.

Mining cost is fixed in terms of dollars (primarily). So depending upon the current price of BTC, miners will decide to sell a certain amount of bitcoins. So the number of bitcoins the miners sell to cover the cost is independent of the block reward (assuming it is lesser than the block reward).

However, the number of bitcoins that miners decide to hold (after covering their costs) may be decided based on the outlook for Bitcoin, and that definitely will be impacted by the block reward halving.

also possible is that we might see the price go down to $170 and after the block halving we end up on the same level as now. which means we're not moving forward.

It will have an effect in the price due to speculators that it will take of to the moon again but im speculating that it wont be a large price jump.

there will no be two client, at the end one will prevail on the other because of general consensus, and there will be only one block halving(before someone say that bullshit too)...

and two thing willo nly happen, we don't need to repeat it endlessly

price increase or hashrate decrease, int he form of x2 or 1/2

the possibility of a price jump is high. but i don't think we can see any huge bubble, like $1000 that many people are hoping for, occurs. but most definitely there will be jump.

as for mining i think it is possible that we see some changes in fees, if it is not profitable for miners to mine anymore there might be an increase in fees as we have seen a couple of fee changes in the past.

If the price of bitcoin is affected, it will be far in advance of the actual halving, because it is a well known event and everybody will have some speculation or theory of how it will affect price and think they are the smartest first player.

It will jump for sure! But in which direction it's unsure...

It really depends on how big bitcoin has grown by then. I think we could be in trouble if bitcoin hasn't significantly risen in price by then and/or demand for bitcoin hasn't grown. If the demand and value is the same as it is now then a halving could just put miners under pressure or make them operate at a loss if the value of coins isn't significantly higher. Hopefully by mid 2016 before the halving bitcoin will be far more in demand so it will push the price up due to scarcity rather than decrease due to lack of demand. I guess we can only wait and see but my prediction is also even nothing will happen or we will see a slight rise.

The supply doesn't decrease with halving. Actually the supply keeps increasing only at a lower rate. Same for gold. Supply doesn't decrease, but new supply decreases.

It all comes down to the amount of circulating bitcoin. If more people sell --> lower price.

It might not have any effect, the price might stay at $224 from now until way past the halving.

The price might become more stable than most fiat currencies, which would make Bitcoin the most boring currency in the world.

Well to where its froma 6 year stand point of view.

Its been doing quite well no? I mean its been having a steady climb and fixes itself after events like mt.gox in the overall view. Not the 48hr windows.

aside from the obvious decrease in block reward to miners and the supply and demand change, the expectation of price rising will cause more people to buy and wait for the boom.

so as the result of this expectation demand will increase which will lead to higher price.

The boom are manipulated events, like exchanges. Or can come in another form.

So I dont see any boom anytime soon, unless one of the exchanges does something or something else creates a manipulated event.

the real boom will arrive long before the halving, it could arrive for example around march 1 2016, when the XT client with its new TX limit will be launched

that could be a good launch pad, for skyrocketing with the halving

it is very unlikely that the price will remain as it is right now until the halving

For all you know it can be down to $100 and then jump back to $20 increase or something.

The best is to just buy it when its falling in small amounts.

Can you please elaborate about the text that I bolded out. Don't know and never heard of that, so interested to know about it.

it's a new upgrade done by Gavin, it is needed to rise the transaction limit per second, which is nearly fully saturated now, and it needs to be raised before the halving, so we can accomodate bigger merchants that require many more TX per second

it's not only done by gavin as i am sure gavin and other devs will meet in the middle. only sad thing is that the other devs don't support something so important.

it will go up than down,technology development is much more importent,i see bitcoin like a technology start up not a currency or digital gold,etc,blockchain is fundamental

the downward pressure be halved, but the amount of user growth remains the same. The price would surely go up slowly over time.

The bitcoin reward is pre-programmed to halve every 210,000 blocks. Folks can see approximately how long this will take by going to bitcoinclock.com

just like anything, theres always going to be a supply and demand.

but when the supply becomes limited, the demand will pay for whatever is worth. Its why people buy $800 iphones when they 1st come out, when it only costed them $200.

what if the price goes down to $150 and we stay there for a while. then block halving kicks in and makes the price go up to $250 which is just a bit higher than current price. which means there is barely a gain if you buy now and hold till after the halving.

so nothing will happen.. after it halves..

I dont know man, isnt that a bit naive though? cause the reward amounts are getting less which means less btc available.

"Sigh" to the comments in this thread. Simple supply demand economics.

If demand on exchanges stays the same, price will go up.  

If demand on exchanges goes up, price will go up more.

The only way price goes stays the same is if demand on exchanges also halves. The only way it goes down is if demand on exchanges more than halves.

it's few months left till halving and i think that it will rise for sure, it even rises right now, everyone is afraid what will happen in future, everyone buys coins for halving so after it price should rise,

and price won't decrease, just miners will sell coins for larger price because of halving

as long as bitcoin price don't go below $350-$400 i think miners will be ok with the reward+fees and all the merge mining reward they are getting.

and we should never forget that mining pools and farms are big whales that can easily control the market with the amount they own.

I think miners need 500-600 per bitcoin to continue their mining as it will take long before you can mine bitcoin and the cost will surely be a lot.

Some trustworthy highly reputed cloudmining sites have either turn off mining or offer a very low profitability now, so it seems to me that price does have to go up in order for some mining business to continue. It seems that some BTC money has gone to ethereum too.