The infamous halving date!!!

[deathcode]

I'm wondering if you have any predictions about the price of bitcoins after the "December"? halving?
Will BTC go up in price since the rewards will be half of what they were before therefore making BTC "harder" to obtain?

[weex]

$12.14900.

I could be wrong.

[c4n10]

BTC's value has been trending upwards since October of last year showing that demand for BTC is either increasing or staying the same as BTC is becoming harder and harder to mine. Since there has been sign of decrease in demand, but the amount of new supply will only be decreasing, I expect that trend to continue and expect the value of BTC to jump in large amounts as the difficulty level continues to increase and the amount of BTC rewarded decreases.

[payb.tc]

$16.41

[odolvlobo]

The halving of the reward won't make bitcoins harder to obtain (in the short run), it will just make them harder to mine. The price of BTC depends on the supply and demand of the coins and not the amount of the mining reward. On the other hand, if demand for bitcoins continues to increase at the same rate, then the price of BTC will increase faster because the supply won't be able to keep up.

[c4n10]

The halving of the reward won't make bitcoins harder to obtain (in the short run), it will just make them harder to mine.

I disagree, a fair portion of the BTC being traded on the exchanges comes from "pump and dump" miners. If the miners are mining less BTC that means less supply in the exchanges (making BTC harder to obtain) which means an increase in BTC value. Add to the fact that for the past year, the volume of BTC traded has also been trending upwards which indicates a steady increase in demand.

[Stephen Gornick]

after the "December"? halving?

Here's a related thread on speculation as to the date.  But it looks to be more November than December:

 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67185.0
 - http://www.BitcoinClock.com

Will BTC go up in price since the rewards will be half of what they were before therefore making BTC "harder" to obtain?

What happens is people see things like "Oil supply drop following hurricane/mideast tension/undersea drilling catastrophe/whatever" and remember that after that happens the price of oil jumps 20% so they think that the same type of cause-and-effect is going to occur with Bitcoin.  

The big difference is that hurricane, or middle east issue or whatever wasn't expected, and the prices had to quickly adjust to the new reality.

This upcoming block reward drop is already known.  It was known back on January 3rd, 2009 (when the genesis block was created).    Sure, the exact date wasn't known ...., it was initially targeted to not occur until January 3rd, 2013 but faster mining has pulled forward the date to now where it is expected to occur sometime around November 30th, 2012 or earlier.

So with no "surprise" coming, the market might already have priced in the drop.  It may even have over-estimated the importance of the drop by pricing BTC/USD at $12.  Maybe come December if the exchange rate is still $12, a bunch of investors that were waiting for the big payoff see that it didn't happen and unload, pushing the exchange rate down into single digits again.

Nobody knows.

What isn't known is how widely bitcoin will gain traction and when that might start in earnest.  That is why the blockchain daily transaction numbers and estimated total output metrics are watched so closely -- they are unknowns and weigh more on the exchange rate than the previously known block reward drop from 50 BTC to 25 does.

[odolvlobo]

The halving of the reward won't make bitcoins harder to obtain (in the short run), it will just make them harder to mine.

I disagree, a fair portion of the BTC being traded on the exchanges comes from "pump and dump" miners. If the miners are mining less BTC that means less supply in the exchanges (making BTC harder to obtain) which means an increase in BTC value.

There are about 300 BTC traded on MtGox every 10 minutes. If every miner sold their coins as they mined them, then they would account for about 1/6 of the market, so it is possible that halving the reward will have some immediate effect on prices because of a sudden drop in supply (1/12 of volume at most). However, my guess is that your "pump and dump" miners are no more than 10% of all miners, and the resulting loss of supply would not be significant (less than 1/120 of volume).

[c4n10]

The halving of the reward won't make bitcoins harder to obtain (in the short run), it will just make them harder to mine.

I disagree, a fair portion of the BTC being traded on the exchanges comes from "pump and dump" miners. If the miners are mining less BTC that means less supply in the exchanges (making BTC harder to obtain) which means an increase in BTC value.

There are about 300 BTC traded on MtGox every 10 minutes. If every miner sold their coins as they mined them, then they would account for about 1/6 of the market, so it is possible that halving the reward will have some immediate effect on prices because of a sudden drop in supply (1/12 of volume at most). However, my guess is that your "pump and dump" miners are no more than 10% of all miners, and the resulting loss of supply would not be significant (less than 1/120 of volume).

Hmmm, you just may be right...

[tpantlik]

I am sure as hell in one thing: after(before?) the havling the price will be fluctuating like crazy due to speculations. But I don't know how long this situation will last, it could be stabilised in a few hours 

[odolvlobo]

Seriously, I think the date the reward is cut in half is a huge milestone, and a big occasion. I wish bitcoins were more mainstream because most people are going to miss out on the event when it happens. Just imagine, people will ask you 20 years from now, "where were you when the first reward-halving happened?"

I plan on taking the day off and celebrating (with bitcoins, of course!).

We need to convince Google to modify their site to celebrate the occasion. Any Google employees here?

[Bitznbitz]

Happy Halving day?
I'll drink to that.

[MarkOST]

The real value of bitcoins will be in how readily it is accepted in mainstream transactions and bringing in fresh blood who previously did not know about it.

Discovery of new bitcoins cut in half will be a blow to botnets and super miners in general which should cause the value to be less associated with pure speculation.

I can't imagine this being anything but a good thing for the currency. Only thing that could stop it now is a massive security flaw being exploited, or the Government outright criminalization bitcoin - which would still survive for underground transactions but would be a heavy blow to the value.

[BobbyJo]

It will have no immediate impact (as discussed above), however longer term it will add to the upward pressure, increasing price!

[shwoop]

I'm more curious/worried about how ASICs will affect the mining eco-sphere.
Will gamers still mine, will small time miners make the transition, how will the difficulty adjust, will the current pools survive, etc?
As Stephen said, most people are aware of the halving and it's most likely priced into the market to at least some extent.
Personally I can't wait for March when all of these questions will hopefully be resolved and people won't constantly try to predict the future.

[josephliton]

The potential problem here is common of the tragedy although the rate will halve to 25 bitcoins the price may rise.

[odolvlobo]

I'm wondering if you have any predictions about the price of bitcoins after the "December"? halving?
Will BTC go up in price since the rewards will be half of what they were before therefore making BTC "harder" to obtain?

I think many who already have nice sum of BTCs and some extra cash will attempt known tactic = artificially create demand in order
to make profit later. Just start buying cheapest BTCs offered until graph starts going up, which is when most other traders start to
react. They'll see the signal, start to panic (since they have no clue really) and probably start buying too. It's chain reaction, which
can result in massive BTC price rise, at which point those who started it all can make really nice profits by becoming sellers.

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