Bitcoin Forum

Are we seeing a divergence between large miners and large direct BTC holders.  This year we've seen a lot of large holders publicly reveal their holdings and bitcoin involvement.  It seems that none of them mine.  We are also approaching the next halving faster.  If not now then certainly after next halving the large BTC holders will not be large miners.  What are the possible implications?  Will miners want to not 1/2 the block rewards?  Will they want higher fees?  Will the exchange rate keep up with hash rate or will we see even asics be only profitable with extra low electricity costs and therefore the majority of the entire network will move to Kuwait?  What implications will that be on security?

Back in 2012 I thought miners were only profitable in the cheapest electricity states?  ???
I guess times have changed?

Of course the miners don't really want the halving , and they would love higher fees , if those won't affect the BTC price.
But fortunately enough , the majority decides , and I hope the majority is aware of the risks those two options pose.

Some of the large holders WERE likely large miners at some point in the past... Now the equipments obsolete and they don't bother mining anymore.

I think every large holder would invest in some mining/processing equipment just for the reasons of control over the blockchain. But for this, the hashrate has to stop growing exponentially and some actually buyable plug and play ASIC equipment has to be produced. I think by mid-2014 you would be able to order some home mining equipment of considerable power, maybe with low returns (6-12 months to break even) that would keep bounty hunters from ordering those, but holders will.

That's the question.  If miners aren't large holders then one can hope they have interests of holders in mind but that would just be wishful thinking.  All market participants have only their own interests in mind.  I understand they can't change the rules.  This is simply a speculation on what are the different issues that may come up.

That's exactly why decentralized mining is the key to the safety. Once centralized, the miner can do whatever they want to the blocks they generated, but as long as the mining is still decentralized to certain extent, they can only follow the rule.