Bitcoin Forum

I think we need to evaluate the users value in this experiment. Let's list the benefits of having users in this Bitcoin network.

~ Users generate transactions, which generates miners fees.
~ Users create services that accepts bitcoins as a payment option.
~ Users use services {Merchants} that accepts Bitcoin.
~ Users spread the word about Bitcoin. {Bitcoin Meetups & posting on forums}
~ Users create demand for bitcoins and this increase the value {price}

Let's list some more contributions that Bitcoin users bring to the table for this experiment to work. Once we have seen the value they bring, we will know how to make a success of this.

What else do you need? with the reasons you posted is enough. If you take these away, how are miners supposed to survive? Users generate the value by supply and demand, and these transactions generate revenue for miners. Users are also usually coders too (all coders are bitcoin users).

You can't take the users part out of the equation because the whole system collapses, it's just nonsense.

~ Users speculate with the information about bitcoin, in the result they can make the price for bitcoin go down or raise up, like it was on the last week with blowing up the fake panic about bitcoin's price after SegWit.

Miners can also do this and they usually have the most coins to manipulate the markets. They also provide the supply of new

coins, which influence the price. They need the users to buy those coins and they need the users to distribute those coins, for

them to be profitable. They can mine those coins, but if it had no value, they would operate at a loss. {paying for the

electricity and other expenses and receiving a Block reward with no value}  ::)

~ Users run full nodes which will add stability to bitcoin network
~ Users will actively trade bitcoin for both short term and long term profit this creates investment opportunity and attracts new investors

Merchants and bitcoin users, not traders only people who use it on shopping, are the real users of bitcoin, while the most of the price movement is coming from bitcoin investors and traders who don't really care whether they're able to use bitcoin on shopping. Hence, I don't think miners need bitcoin users, they just need bitcoin traders and investors.

Both users and miners are interdependent. Relation between both is similar to one between shopkeeper and customers. If you say, miners require users because of bla bla bla, don't forget not everyone could setup and running mining in his house. If there are no miners, all users will left with unmovable BTC tokens in their wallet which eventually loose their value.

They do. If users don't do the listed activities in this thread how are the miners supposed to survive ?  If users do not make transactions and not pay miners fees how will miners survive ? Also when all bitcoins will be mined the miners will be reluctant only on transactions fees. I think miners cannot survive without the Bitcoin users.

~Users sell coins, which pushes the price down.

This means that any change to the network that will get rejected by economic majority (dumped) will ultimately fail, because it will be unprofitable to mine. Mining is a business - you produce coins for users, if they don't like them, you go bankrupt. This means that chain splits are not as scary as people think, because bad chains will be rejected by community.

Users also run nodes (although miners can always do this too) which help the network to keep transactions moving and allows for new users (and existing users) to sync their wallets with the blockchain.

Aside from that though users don't do a whole lot to help the blockchain itself, they do external services like the ones you mentioned but that's all part of getting an economic system to run properly.

Not to mention, without users then all this would be for nothing. The miners are the most selfish here as they don't really see users as a equal in deciding stuff. They like the gods whenever there is decisions on any matters about the software of bitcoins. Without anyone using bitcoins what is the point of mining? Just a collection of worthless coins.

Of course the miners need users, what else? Why would they mine Bitcoin if there was no one to use it, that makes no sense. Miners and users are connected and need mutual relationship. The pitty is that some miners don't understand that and they are too much self centered and think they are the most.important in that chain which is not true at all.

Yes it is true that miners and bitcoin users need each other for each other, for example the miners get some bitcoin and want to sell it, that's where bitcoin users need to buy bitcoin the miner

Even they can other altcoins as well. If says purely about bitcoin, miners no need to worry about it they can stick with any altcoin also in future. Bitcoin need miners help to get the amount transacted from one wallet to another wallet.

Great job op!  I read a guy who seem to be a miner, writing that "little users" have no stake in Bitcoin. I wanted to prove him wrong but couldn't think of something to use.
It's thesame reason why few elites have hijacked World. They erroneously believe they made us who we are.
Wonder how far they will go if everyone stops buying their products.

Many of us little users have done our part spreading the word on social media.
I bet very few miners do thesame thing. They are only concerned about their business.

OP asked a question and replied to himself. We can conclude straight away from his post that miners need users and vice versa...

The blockchain can run with one guy mining the blocks as proven by satoshi.
The value of BTC with only one person using it it zero, or 1/25 000 of a pizza.

So from this you can start thinking who needs the other guys more.

YES.

No need to compile a list here. Think about this, if nobody uses Bitcoin, like the old days, its literally worthless. It was a couple of cents a piece once upon a time because nobody used it.

People can barely afford to mine right now, imagine what it would be like now with such a high difficulty and if XBT was $0.10 a piece. It would spell extinction.

OP

your definition of 'miners' is inaccurate/non descript. miners are mainly just those that run ASICS.. asics dont have hard drives. asics dont collate the data, asics dont make transactions they just hash

people can be just 'miners' and not have any nodes or access to exchanges/services.

POOLS that collate the data into blocks are only part of the symbiotic relationship. pools dont need to run asics themselves they can just run a server and let miners(customers) use their server, where the pools takes a cut from the income from serving miners.

this does not mean pools cannot be miners or miners cannot be pools.
this does not mean that miners cannot be node users and node users cannot be miners.

but to presume that the definitions are automatically both(more than their singular real definition) is limited thinking.

once you grasp that "users" can also be a merchant, or and exchange, or a pool, or a miner. or even just a SPV running transaction spender(non-node) then it will make it easier to grasp the complexity of the network.

..
in short you cannot just have asics..
in short you cannot just have pools..
in short you cannot just have users..

..
but say the network was made up of two users, where one user was a pool, a merchant, a exchange and a asic farm.. EG BTCC.. then BTCC is then very centralised and has dominant control of what gets accepted into blocks(pool control) also sets the price of the rewards for the other user to buy at (exchange control) and the exchange rate of buying produce away from the exchange(merchant control)

by separating the 'task' / parts of the network it helps reduce the control BTCC(for this example) has on the network from the economics point of view.

..
as for the technical/ protocol point of view
by separating the 'task' / parts of the network it allows merchants exchanges and users to choose which blocks they accept, which the causes the pools to conform to the rules which the (non-pool nodes) have,
otherwise the rewards cannot be spent, because the pools non-conformity blocks are not recognised in the blockchain the exchanges/merchants decide as being valid.

I always see comments where people play down the value that users add to Bitcoin. I want to say, if users seize to use Bitcoin, the whole network will collapse. In the future, transactions has to increase in volume to generate enough miners fees to replace the Block reward and if this does not happen, miners will have no incentive to mine.

Miners need users for the miners fees, to keep mining in the future. ^smile^

Miners will use their expertise to get very good results, users are mining bitcoin to get the gold that will be used as paper money.

Good post about how everything is interconnected.

Yeah I do agree with both being interdependent. I wouldn't say one is superior to another, both have a role to play in the efficient maintenance of Bitcoin ecosystem. There is a common thread between users and miners, fees. One receives it, one pays it. There is a slight imbalance here, agreeable that miners have heavily invested into mining and it is also true that there is fee manipulation to some extent by some miners who want to break even quickly with transaction fees.

Since both users and miners are equally important, users need to have a say or a choice in the amount of fee they are paying, maybe things would get better after Segwit is activated.

Not saying that fee should be lowered to the extent where it is unprofitable for miners. There should be an average fee that both users and miners are comfortable with. No one wants users leaving the network because of high fees or miners quitting because of low fees.

Not just with Bitcoin, but with anything, users are needed. Not even the Internet would be worth a thing if there were no users. Of course, someone has to keep things running like miners do, but when you have something running is because you have the hope for someone (at least one) to make use of it.

In other words, the user is like a customer for a miner like a bank and its customers. Miner provides the facility to transact and user is free to use it by paying the fee charged. So without any customers, the bank can not grow, as well as miner and user. Can it be said that way?

That is of course, the value of bitcoin does not depend on miners, the value of bitcoin depends entirely on the user, in other words, the miners are the only ones who maintain bitcoin transactions. However, miners are also users of bitcoin, so they have the right to make comments to protect their rights.

Miners are the producers of block chain, which is sold to users, which need it to put their transactions on.  The product is made by miners, and the customers are the users.  Users need to buy tokens from miners and need to pay fees to get their transactions registered on the block chain made by miners.  That's what's bitcoin is about: the selling of block chain from miners who make it, to users who buy it.

Essentially, there are about 20 companies that sell this product: the 20 important mining pools.  They subcontract the hashing work to "miner hardware owners", which get paid for that, and they deliver the consensus block chain to the users, who can read it to prove their transactions in it.

You could say that the mining pools are like Toyota ; the miner hardware owners are like the subcontractors that Toyota uses to make the brakes, the wind shield, the fuses, .... and the users are the customers that buy Toyota cars.

With that difference that the mining pools are not a single company, but a consortium of mining pools that come to oligarchic agreement of consensus, and produce a single block chain.

The miners are the base for this Bitcoin if they not mine we will not get bitcoins in the market, and the value of the bitcoin will increase. I agree that price of the bitcoin will be based on miners they have 60% contribution remaining it depends on users. Again the question will raise what about if the users stop to use Bitcoin. So this is never ending story.

The miners will use their users to bitcoin to get a lot of gold, Miners and users connected and need a mutual relationship that must brand do.

Well, we need to establish that mutual relationships so that we can all support the Bitcoin network in our own capacities. There's too much division among Bitcoiners and we better patch up and support each other so that the OP's on the forum like this one might not seem to suggest we are fighting amongst ourselves.