What are the next events to watch that could potentially bring BTC below $500?

[mestar]

Network hashrate increases but difficulty does not?

Network hashrate and difficulty are the same thing.

[thaaanos]

Network hashrate increases but difficulty does not?

Network hashrate and difficulty are the same thing.

what if the hashrate is there but not used for block mining?

[mestar]

Network hashrate increases but difficulty does not?

Network hashrate and difficulty are the same thing.

what if the hashrate is there but not used for block mining?

Then it's not really "there".

[thaaanos]

Network hashrate increases but difficulty does not?

Network hashrate and difficulty are the same thing.

what if the hashrate is there but not used for block mining?

Then it's not really "there".

hypothetically
It is "there" because the minners have access to it, but they decide not to use it.
just like say in the California Energy Crisis.

[stompix]

Network hashrate increases but difficulty does not?

Network hashrate and difficulty are the same thing.

what if the hashrate is there but not used for block mining?

Then it's not really "there".

hypothetically
It is "there" because the minners have access to it, but they decide not to use it.
just like say in the California Energy Crisis.

Really this is ridiculous.
The hashrate comes from people mining. You can't have hashrate unless you mine.

You can't have light without electricity running through the bulb and you can't have a light bulb working , consuming energy but not producing light.

[thaaanos]

Network hashrate increases but difficulty does not?

Network hashrate and difficulty are the same thing.

what if the hashrate is there but not used for block mining?

Then it's not really "there".

hypothetically
It is "there" because the minners have access to it, but they decide not to use it.
just like say in the California Energy Crisis.

Really this is ridiculous.
The hashrate comes from people mining. You can't have hashrate unless you mine.

You can't have light without electricity running through the bulb and you can't have a light bulb working , consuming energy but not producing light.

Lets say that the 5 largest pools decide to take turns in mining blocks, so as to keep difficulty low, thus saving energy costs, and investment costs, while the payoff are still shared among them. They could "fake" or alt-mine or not claiming the block-found, just for appearances paying the energy, but artificially keeping the difficulty low as to slow the hardware arms-race.
Just a thought man, didn't say it will happen

[stompix]

Network hashrate increases but difficulty does not?

Network hashrate and difficulty are the same thing.

what if the hashrate is there but not used for block mining?

Then it's not really "there".

hypothetically
It is "there" because the minners have access to it, but they decide not to use it.
just like say in the California Energy Crisis.

Really this is ridiculous.
The hashrate comes from people mining. You can't have hashrate unless you mine.

You can't have light without electricity running through the bulb and you can't have a light bulb working , consuming energy but not producing light.

Lets say that the 5 largest pools decide to take turns in mining blocks, so as to keep difficulty low, thus saving energy costs, and investment costs, while the payoff are still shared among them. They could "fake" or alt-mine or not claiming the block-found, just for appearances paying the energy, but artificially keeping the difficulty low as to slow the hardware arms-race.
Just a thought man, didn't say it will happen

No one will try this stunt.
It's like having 100 tractors and using only 2 of them because if the neighbor does the same you'll still get the same production as him ? 2% of what you should ?

Keeping the difficulty low will just increase the rate of which asics are flooding the market , it will not slow down the race even with 0.00001% but the contrary.
Also , it will take a lot of planning , and a lot of trust to pull this , and what are you going to do with the parties that are not in the plan?
They will just mine your blocks and make profit while you are happy the difficulty is low.

There is no trace of common sense in this plan.

[mestar]

There is no trace of common sense in this plan.

Actually, this is a rational strategy, and has been done in numerous situations: unions, guilds, oil cartels, professional organizations with limited membership.

However, in the case of peer to peer Bitcoin, it is completely unenforceable, so Bitcoin is forever doomed to spend miners' rewards on electricity.

[luv2drnkbr]

Does it really matter ?
If you are interested in the mid/long term value of Bitcoin, it can only go up mathematically speaking.

Really? Maths is based on proofs. What proof can you offer to guarantee that the price of bitcoin can only go up mid/long term? Never heard of risk?

Bitcoin is a better way to move value.  Therefore, over time, people will switch to using bitcoin to move value.  In order to accommodate the total value of the increasing number of people using it, the price must increase such that the market cap of bitcoin is equal to or greater than the total value that people wish to move.  Since more people will be using bitcoin, the price MUST increase in order to accommodate them.

Game, set, maths.

[luv2drnkbr]

There is no trace of common sense in this plan.

Actually, this is a rational strategy, and has been done in numerous situations: unions, guilds, oil cartels, professional organizations with limited membership.

That's because in those organizations, they gain utility by cooperating.  They can use their power to force others to meet their demands, because the work they contribute is necessary.  No such coercion exists in bitcoin.  Small miners don't care of the big miners stop.  Big miners can stop and tell everybody else "meet our demands or we continue not mining!" and the small miners say "fuck yourself, and thanks for letting me get this block reward!"

[An amorous cow-herder]

Since more people will be using bitcoin, the price MUST increase in order to accommodate them.

Game, set, maths.

Uhm, but bitcoin supply is already large enough to easily handle 5% of the current global ecommerce at the current price. Global eccommerce is about 1.2 trillion dollars per year, or about $100B per month. Bitpay which seems to be the most used payment method in ecommerce handles less than $10M per month currently. Given that even $10M is just 0.2% of the capability, price wise, the price doesnt HAVE to increase for a long time.
And thats not even mentioning that currently the blockchain doesnt even support large enough blocks to support that many transactions.

[thaaanos]

There is no trace of common sense in this plan.

Actually, this is a rational strategy, and has been done in numerous situations: unions, guilds, oil cartels, professional organizations with limited membership.

However, in the case of peer to peer Bitcoin, it is completely unenforceable, so Bitcoin is forever doomed to spend miners' rewards on electricity.

In the spirit of OP, it is a behaviour that *if observed*, should ring bells

[innocent93]

Well, If that happen . It might be DONE by Chinese.

[troy112]

Most probably government regulation.
I don't know why but my instincts tell me this time it will be american govt. :p

[qiwoman]

If someone sticks a fork in that could paralyze it especially if the Big Guns decide to mine like crazy I guess and of course if it gets outdated to the point where no one wants to use it and the demand goes down but I don't see that happening. Look at the U.S dollar and other fiat currencies they are running for years lol.

[brewok]

The stability of other crypto-currencies exchange rate will bring BTC below $500.
I predict, in the next few years many countries will have their own crypto-currency with their own style (and with millions of users) where BTC still become crypto-currency parameter.

[Misesian]

I really do believe an economic crash of some sort will hurt bitcoin a lot. Bitcoin doesn't have enough popularity yet and is fairly difficult to use for those uninformed to become the currency of the people. If a there is a crash in the next 2 years which I think is a strong possibility, weak hands will seek to liquidate their bitcoin positions because their wealth is going to be hit and they're going to need more liquid assets as bitcoin isn't widely accepted as money. I can't see people moving to bitcoin as it doesn't really seem 'real' to them as they're stored digitally, people will be moving towards owning real assets like land and gold.