Bitcoin Forum

We demand higher price. We no sell coins !

seriously its worth thinking of haha :) imagine if the TOP 5 mining farms (or maybe 10-30?) would demand to sell coins for 10-20% higher then todays value.

well i cant take to seriose but union its a good idea im free to say what we need its work into that porject for like a sindicate  that cares for miners porfit

A Union...... :D ::)

You gonna go on strike?  :D

ah, so if there will be union of bakers, tomorrow will cost one baguette twice more? please wake up...

if every baker would unite and sell baguette for 2 Euro instead of 1. then yes it would.

This makes no sense at all I am sorry. It's so flawed I don't even know where to begin at.
What could work, but extremely unlikely, would be if two pools control over 60% of the hashrate and agree on refusing transactions with low fee. Then they would be working together to only mine transactions with high fee per kb. This could backfire into rendering bitcoin useless and their mined btc rendered to 0$ but most likely they would stop and realize the mistake before that happens.

This has been discussed many times, large miners forming an OPEC-like organization, control the coin supply and set the market price

However, bitcoin is not like petroleum, it can not be consumed, thus the market supply mostly come from existing holders. Even if miners control majority of the daily new coin generation, that's still a small amount comparing with the daily coin cash out from previous owners. And after the next reward halving, their influence will be even less

In the USA this is known as price fixing and violating Anti-Trust.  So that would be a no from me.

If they refused to mine because they want the price to increase, then the network hash rate would go down. This would cause a difficulty drop and other miners and pools would just pick up the slack once the difficulty drops. Or, the network will be just as safe and secure without them after the difficulty drops and those miners are ignored.

they could do it easily, because they have already roi'd, and adding new equipments wil roi in a second, so they don't have that problem of returning their investment, also they pay a very cheap electricty, they could agree to set their sell order on a +1% every day at the very least

Your union sounds like a federal reserve system not a union.

Chomsky on Federal Reserve (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlvez5TCKdA)

We already have significant amounts of hashing power in a few hands and any 'union' would act in their own selfish interests and if they could adjust the price of BTC they would.

They 'un'-fortunately do not have the resources just to HOLD back bitcoin as they have significant investment in the equipment and space in which they operate.

If they could manipulate the price they would, ala Mt. GOX, without having to form a 'union' there are greater powers at work who moderate the price of bitcoin.

Careful what you wish for there is already a club for those who have the majority of the bitcoins... http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/06/02/bitbeat-grand-plans-for-bitcoin-from-necker-island/



The same people who control fiat are discussing things with the people who have majority control over bitcoins on the planet. You tell me if that is a good thing. Front and center at the table is Bitfury... so much for your union.

Decentralized supporters unite!!

ohh wai....

Bitcoins have been popular for mining. And also mining has been proved as the best method of getting bitcoins for yourself. Bitcoins mining is done in almost every country. So, we can easily estimate that there are millions of miners all over the world.
There's a proverb that there is strength in unity. And, that can do wonders if done in mining.
According to me, miners should start a union for mining. In which they will work together. This will increase profits as there will be involvement of many people. As it will be a union, it will be recognized under one team and it will be more famous too. Overall its a good idea. But, it depends upon the way people work and their mutual understanding.
Anyways, I'm in favour for it.

Haha, yeah! Trying to centralize something which is decentralized by it's nature is an interesting concept... But will it work? No, of course it won't.

That may of worked when miners owned more of the Bitcoins.   Now that is not the case and the miners are not determining the price.  Miners for the most part need to sell their coins immediately to cover their expenses.   What they have left they are saving but that is not enough restriction of supply to affect the price in any major way.  What will happen is that if the difficulty goes too high or the price too low, you will see the network adjust to a level that at least allows break-even for a majority of the network.   

The ones who need the union the most are small time miners eg the ones who pay midlevel rates electric or own 100 pieces of hardware or less.  The big time miners have the super cheap electricity and they keep adding big hash not giving a shit how it makes difficulty rise.  So that union would have to be able to do something against the big guys or secure contracts to lockin new efficient asic hardware to be released to us first then after some time released to the big players.  The other way would be to hack their network, get inside and start shutting machines down or reconfigure them to mine for us.  Until they agree to give in to our demands and reduce their hash rate or at least stay steady.

So the question is...who's gonna start hacking the mega farms?

Yeah this doesn't make too much sense really, for example if the large miners part of a union decided to not mine then the smaller miners would have struck gold and will be hitting blocks which is good for them but in reality I can't see this working.  Nice thinking though.

It won't happen as we really need to keep a miner running, if you shutdown as a strike would do you really would lose money.  And there is not like a boss everyone would go to... its a open market so cant really do a bargning with all the BTC buyers of the world they spend what they see BTC worth.

And actually btc has went up from 230 for a long time to around a hundred above that.   So that is quite a good sign to see.  I agree we all always want more, but a union would do us no good as it would just be a few people most likely and would not effect overall BTC price.

This is a knee-jerk reaction at best.  If you are serious then you would pool a bunch of miners resources and get enough funds to have a little clout to get hardware when it comes out.   You would also need to partner or build a efficient hosting location to do the people's business.  I warned of this before ASIC were even out.  

Bitcoin is secured by human greed so in that scenario, people don't seem to care about network centralization for all intensive purposes.  In the end you will likely have 10-15 large players that make up the bulk of the mining.  This will be because they made smart hosting choices, got their hands on efficient hardware and waited all the other miners out.  The only way smaller miners get a seat at that table is making something that scales as well.   If anyone is serious about this and has access to funding, PM and we can have an offline discussion.

P.S. Don't try and hack large farms, those are federal crimes and you don't look good in orange.

-Dalkore

I have to entertain this and ask how you would want to work this.  Cryptocurrencys have not made a large enough dent into the market to get a country to consider it a currency.  In the USA, BTC and other cryptocurrencies are considered property and that is all, they will not recognize it as a currency.  With that being said, why would you want to unionize something that is working its way to the top to be known?  I just do not see the beneficent at this time.

A don't oppose the idea, but think of the concept of bitcoin, anonymous. Having unions means regular meetings etc. Not sure if most miners would agree on that mate.

But who are you going to have negotiations with?   A union goes up against a company or such and with a big percent of workforce try to get a certain goal. 

With BTC there is no big boss setting the price of coins.  It is set by a open market.   Unless you control the vast majority of bitcoin mining... which would defeat bitcoin.. it would be impossible to do.  A union just does not fit.

Well, there are special snowflakes around who won't abide by this. (Or they are just not aware of the union) Making the whole thing meaningless or but an irritation.
Not to mention that this could absolutely backfire and explode in everyone's faces if people just refuse to buy, exercise or even use cryptocurrency, including that the whole cryptocurrency scene has a generally "shady" image in modern day media. This needs more thought to it, not many of us are economists, so as a community we don't have a real estimate on what this can do.

It IS a good topic to think about though.

I still don't get how this is possible.  Can someone explain if I'm missing something?

The flaws I see is we cannot do like oil and control majority... and set price.   So really no way to control majority you would have to own so much that the other miners were small and would not hurt your set price.... but price fixing is not really going to ever happen on it.

Ok now back to who are you making a union to bargain with?  Whole point of a union is bargaining power.... when a free market set's BTC value and not one person.  I just don't see how you will bargain to get what you want.

Am I missing something?

If you desire the effects of unionization maybe you should take a closer look at the pools. Slush, p2pool and elegius all operate responsibly and consider the community as a whole at the same time as trying to give their members a good deal for their hash power.
If you are looking to see a cartel to artificially jack up the price of btc maybe you need to look into some sort of pyramid ponzi thing like MMM

People complain about btc getting a bad name from scammers but they can't scheme up enough scams and disreputable con games when it means they might personally benefit

I don't know what you're thinking OP but I don't like it

Well the problem is that miners are so important, i must agree with you about it, but miners are not "alone" in this big game, dont know if you understand me, so in the end, there is much more behind miners that need to consider if you want to "start a union"...

I dont think it will be possible, people have different needs...

Yeah and it is just not possible, to unite so many people from so many countries and timezones. Since there is no rewards, people would refuse or fail to show up when there are conferences etc.

Well judging from how well Bitcoin Foundation is perceived nowadays I doubt a mining union would get much traction.  Too many heads and too few legs.

lol "bitcoin, is below $1000 each, I am not working"   ** stands outside Mcdonalds with picket sign demanding higher bitcoin prices**

What is the premise of the union?  Who would the union stand up against?  What exactly are you suggesting here?  If the top mining farms refuse to mine coin until the price rises, then eventually the difficulty would simply adjust to match the new, lower network hash rate.  If the top mining farms just refused to sell the coins they mined, I suppose they could eventually make enough of a dent in the supply/demand curves to influence the price of the coins in circulation... but not without going out of business first because they aren't selling the coins they've mined.

Sorry, but the concept of the union here just doesn't fly.

I have asked twice on your second question.  The whole point of a union is collective bargning against some company or someone.

You can't control free market such as value of BTC. Only way to do that is if you had the vast majority of BTC and only sold at a certain price..... but if 1 group or 1 person can do this it will kill BTC most likely.

I think this thread should be allowed to die.   A union just does not fit in the mining area.

That's exactly right.  Unions exist to provide bargaining power to individuals who on their own don't have any, so that the individuals can have their rights represented against another powerful entity.  In the case of BTC, there simply is no powerful entity against which we could unionize.  As somebody a few posts up pointed out, it's not like we can picket outside a mining farm somewhere.  There's no entity controlling the price, so we can't unionize against anyone to demand the price be changed.

Can't unionise when you're not an employee.

 What you want is much more like a consortium - but unless you get most or all of the big farms to buy into it, you have zero chance of success.

If the price remains high due to the nonselling of the top 5 mining farms, smaller farms will be happier to sell at the inflated price.

This has already been discussed.  A union will not work here as BTC is a freemarket not a boss/workplace we can bargain with.

On price it would take owning enough hash be able to not sell and effect price.  Is someone did this I think it would hurt bitcoins trust.    But as you mention top 5 farms.... they will not stop selling.  They are making profits.

I think we really should let this thread die.  But it keeps poping back up.

Won't Work?
You could turn your miners off, but then Bitmain would just keep theirs on.
Unless we make a worldwide strike agains bitcoin... Won't Work?

i think that would defeat purpose of decentralization and cause dictating of value. I don't like the idea.

Exactly! But we are so used to the "centralized consciousness" so we can't imagine how even Bitcoin, a decentralized thing by it's nature, would work without at least a bit of centralization. )

I wonder if they hodl their bits will the demand for bitcoin cause the price go up or the current bitcoin in circulation is enough to satisfy demand.

Eventually the holders will outpace the buyers/sellers, it would be just a matter of time.
However how do you round up the farms?

Theoretically it is possible, but in practice you can't be sure that no one will start selling their coins when the price is pretty high in their opinion. It's almost impossible to control  even your own greed let alone  a greed of someone else.

How can they do that? Price is created in the market. They can't sell for higher when market decides the Bitcoin price, they can only decrease the market price. You can't manipulate market price when the demand is at the same rate.

This is called market manipulation and it's illegal.

Let the miners and traders find a stable price by supply & demand. It is the most natural way of price stabiliatzion. 

In the end the price will be stable instead of so much fluctuation.

Miners starting a union, that'd be an interesting feat.

What are you going to do, stop mining?

I'm not sure how exactly you'd expect to pull something like this, since there isn't much you can argue against in a decentralized monetary system lol

Good luck with your union and strikes  ;D

I sometimes wonder why some threads do not die.  You can not have a mining union... it's that simple.  Union bargain with someone, btc controlled by open market no boss or company to bargain with.

You would have to own enough of the BTC mining to fix prices... which would be bad in long run.  If someone as fixing prices chances are BTC would take a dive in price, as it defeats the decentralization.

Now can we let this thread die? Please? lol.

That is right. If the miners are not satisfied with the current profit, it can stop mining. Nobody will prevent that. It is their choice.

This thread isn't dying because the topic is pretty interesting to many people here (including me). It doesn't matter how many times the question was answered in this thread it is still interesting to see new opinions or even those which are similar to previously written but put in other words.

As for whether should miners start a union I already answered earlier in this thread.

It is something that is impossible at it's core to do.  I mean it's not even if we can start a union.  As said before a union bargain's with someone... you cant bargain with free market.   We CAN NOT have a union we have no boss/employer.  So a bitcoin union is a moot point.

At first yes was interesting.  But at this point it's been talked about and no new views have came up... just ones that are repeated and are close to one before.  That is why I thin it should die. 

It is laughable that some that a few post's above we see someone act like people are still giving good ideas about a bitcoin union.  At least I know I'm not alone now on it being so stupid it has to be joke or something like it.

A union with no one to bargain with... not going to work.  Only way is if they had a monopoly on amount of BTC made and could control only sell so many where price rised to an amount.... but this would destroy bitcoin as then 1 has to much control.

I hope within a few day's it truly does die as a thread.

There are lots of competition in the mining sector. Every quarter there are some improved miners coming to market. It is difficult to form a union.

Totally agree with the idea. Yes we do need a mining Union. In the future we might see a regulatory framework that penalizes miners. Miners need to be united to fight for their interests.

what could you even do about any issues you have, what down your mining rigs....lol  happy days a GPU mining will be back that day...... ;D

Let this thread die.  Why bump threads like this?  It was decided it in no way would ever work... not possible.

There is no reason to continue unless trying to get posts.  It already was going down in page.... but was bumped up again.

Maybe the union can just negotiate with our power companies for us and get far better rates for miners. BTC

Hahhaha...
Yup i think so...
But it's like impossible to get a union...
Because bitcoin is too much spreaded thing...
And if you do then others will sell at low cost for their faster selling...
So it depends

A Union would be a great idea. As soon as there is word that there is going to be a Union, the price would jump, with people wanting to make profit off piggybacking the Union. This'll increase the popularity of bitcoin due to the price rising, and mining will be moar profitable <3

It might work if we have one mining power, which has the will to work together for a better bitcoin, instead of more of it.

I hate this thread keeps coming up.  A bitcoin union will not and can not ever work.

On this we would need a great deal of miners in same area and on same power company.  This is not realistic for all miners to be on same.  The data center's that use ton's of power.... tend to go to places with good deals on electricity.     So the places where lots of usage is happening... they already have good rates.

isnt that kind of the opposite of a 'decentralized' coin? No one person/corporation/entity is supposed to have that much control. Or i guess it could be considered a new type of pump lol

I made the mistake of responding to this thread, and notlist3d makes a good point that this thread should die. Can we please let it drift into the abyss?

That would be a good idea to pump the BTC price :P

Do you mean the miners do not sell or sell a small amount of the bitcoin they mine? It is a free market, anybody can join if there is profit to make.

It's not that I don't like the idea... if it was possible then I would think great.  But even if all home/hobby miners made a pact... do you think the big operations would shutdown if price was not above X?  No they are not going to.  If we could control BTC price it ruins decentralization.   

People keep bumping a topic that at it's core does not make sense.  It is a free market on price of BTC.  There is no big boss, no company to go up to with demands like a union would.   It being impossible to achieve this is why I wish this thread would die or be locked.  But it keeps going on... and on.