Mining profitability; as it affects Bitcoin's security

[CTO114]

Although most individuals prefer just to buy, hold Bitcoin and sell, rather than mining, the security of Bitcoin depends on the increased engagement of miners.

What happens when mining becomes less profitable leading to an exodus of miners, would Bitcoin still be secured?

[hero_the_bossman]

Why would there be an exodus of sorts, in your opinion?

People would take other people's places, that would be it

[Ruttoshi]

What happens when mining becomes less profitable leading to an exodus of miners, would Bitcoin still be secured?

Minning is what keeps bitcoin network consensus, secured, decentralized, and validate transactions making it hard for 51 attack. It's through mining that new blocks are created. Therefore, as long as bitcoin network did not crash, mining will exist till infinity.

If the last bitcoin is mined in the year 2140, miners will benefit from transaction fees and any of them that can no longer cope or is not making profit will vack up his bag and exit the mining business. No matter the amount of miners that are available bitcoin network will still be secured.

[melinoe]

What happens when mining becomes less profitable leading to an exodus of miners, would Bitcoin still be secured?

Minning is what keeps bitcoin network consensus, secured, decentralized, and validate transactions making it hard for 51 attack. It's through mining that new blocks are created. Therefore, as long as bitcoin network did not crash, mining will exist till infinity.

If the last bitcoin is mined in the year 2140, miners will benefit from transaction fees and any of them that can no longer cope or is not making profit will vack up his bag and exit the mining business. No matter the amount of miners that are available bitcoin network will still be secured.

That's right and there is no need to think about the end of BTC due the mining being more about fees than rewards.

Miners will be relevant either way, because without them, there is no chain going on.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Although most individuals prefer just to buy, hold Bitcoin and sell, rather than mining, the security of Bitcoin depends on the increased engagement of miners.

Engagement of the miners in what sense, can miners as well override the blockchain protocol and confirm transaction that does not go in concensus?.

What happens when mining becomes less profitable leading to an exodus of miners, would Bitcoin still be secured?

There's nothing like this, after all they have been mining bitcoin and got rewarded of bitcoin as mining reward, after the 21 million bitcoin have been completely mined, they will depend on the transaction fee.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Why would there be an exodus of sorts, in your opinion?

People would take other people's places, that would be it

He has not specified this, but I understand that he is referring to the typical concern that as block rewards decrease with halvings, mining will become less profitable. In this future scenario, miners will most likely earn more from fees until they earn more from fees than from block rewards, as Aanuoluwatofunmi points out.

His concern could also be due to a possible price drop that would make mining unprofitable, but that has happened before, and the most it does is remove the weakest players from the market (which is not good either, but it is not the end of the world).

[henry_of_skalitz]

He has not specified this, but I understand that he is referring to the typical concern that as block rewards decrease with halvings, mining will become less profitable. In this future scenario, miners will most likely earn more from fees until they earn more from fees than from block rewards, as Aanuoluwatofunmi points out.

His concern could also be due to a possible price drop that would make mining unprofitable, but that has happened before, and the most it does is remove the weakest players from the market (which is not good either, but it is not the end of the world).

Thus, he shouldn't worry at all, imo.

Chain is the best judge in that case, and it will do everything as it should be.

[SafuBTC]

Although most individuals prefer just to buy, hold Bitcoin and sell, rather than mining, the security of Bitcoin depends on the increased engagement of miners.

What happens when mining becomes less profitable leading to an exodus of miners, would Bitcoin still be secured?

You are right but also wrong at the same time, leave what belongs to ceaser to ceaser friend, Bitcoin have alot of miners around the world already, every week many miners are going online and that's why Bitcoin mining difficulty is increasing, we have passed that stage of worrying about security of Bitcoin.

What you lack is research, if you are into Bitcoin mining I am sure you won't be asking this type of question, the security problem that could have crippled Bitcoin is if a organisation control half of the whole Bitcoin mining hashrate, today it is impossible because the hashrates are scattered around the world in different countries.

Miners are very smart beings, they understand the potential of Bitcoin, when bear market comes they add more to their mining rigs because they will become cheaper at the time and keep mining and holding those Bitcoins, miner understand future value than retailers.

1 million dollars per Bitcoin is inevitable, not very soon but sometime in the future, miners will prefer to keep holding most of their mined Bitcoin rather than dumping on the open market, you don't need to worry about a thing.

[lionheart78]

Although most individuals prefer just to buy, hold Bitcoin and sell, rather than mining, the security of Bitcoin depends on the increased engagement of miners.

Have you ever think why these individual prefer to buy Bitcoin than mining?  It is because the difficulty of mining had skyrocketed and an ordinary Joe cannot compete against these mining farms.  Yes, there are mining pools, but the bitcoin reward is dependent on how often these mining pool mined Bitcoin so people like us who see buying is much profitable than mining buy Bitcoins.  If the difficulty is reduced I am sure those who have the funds to make a mining farm will surely mine Bitcoin.

What happens when mining becomes less profitable leading to an exodus of miners, would Bitcoin still be secured?

The mining algorithm is flexible; when there are fewer miners (lower hashrate), the difficulty adjusts so that it would be easier for miners to mine Bitcoin.  As long as the price of Bitcoin goes up, I do not think that miners will leave.  And obviously, lesser hash equals less security if there is no miner, then it would be easy for the bad guys to hack the network, doing the 51% attack, but I am sure people who hold Bitcoin won't allow it, and they will make a move to make the network more secure.

[BIT-BENDER]

Although most individuals prefer just to buy, hold Bitcoin and sell, rather than mining, the security of Bitcoin depends on the increased engagement of miners.

What happens when mining becomes less profitable leading to an exodus of miners, would Bitcoin still be secured?

The reason why people aren't as bullish on mining as it was in the early days is because right now there are lots of competitions in mining, to be a miner right now you need to have sophisticated equipment to be even able to compete with other miners.
But trust me there is no shortage of miners because there are still lots of miners with the sophisticated tools and are able to compete with anyone.

[Mahiyammahi]

Actually, it's not that scary. Even though mining is less profitable, the entire network is designed in such a way that "difficulty adjustment" occurs. That is, the system will adapt to the number of miners. As a result, security is not threatened at all, but rather it will run a little slower. So even if the number of miners decreases, Bitcoin's security remains intact, it will not collapse.

[Hamza2424]

Although most individuals prefer just to buy, hold Bitcoin and sell, rather than mining, the security of Bitcoin depends on the increased engagement of miners.

What happens when mining becomes less profitable leading to an exodus of miners, would Bitcoin still be secured?

Mining will be profitable because right now every miner is in profit, if bitcoin dumps then they won't be making profit but until it is above $100k they are making profit but many are not, that is not due to Bitcoin, that is because they don't know the right way, they are spending on useless ideas and things.

Anyway, you are right if someone actually wants to contribute to the bitcoin's network they should also start mining and validating the transactions, because buying and holding is not going to contribute to that level, although that is only for making profit.

If someone says they are holding bitcoin to contribute to the network, we should slap them haha.

[EL MOHA]

Engagement of the miners in what sense, can miners as well override the blockchain protocol and confirm transaction that does not go in concensus?.

I think what OP meant is actually if the mining doesn’t becomes too incentivized or profitable then there will be less miners and then this will might lead to few miners left, so with such few miners the hashrate power might not be so much and probably a miner might actually attempt to perform certain attacks like 51% attack. This is the thing I think OP meant Which technically isn’t far from the truth but realistically we do not see bitcoin having such a low hashrate power to the point that this attack can be pull off.

Also I agree with OP that the more miners we have on the network the more decentralized we have the network while less of them wouldn’t be so good.

But OP needs to understand that as long the fees will be there as incentives there will always be miners willing to take advantage of this, this discussion has been brought upon for quite a number of times now and the answer is always let’s get their first because that period is still long time from now

[BitGoba]

Although most individuals prefer just to buy, hold Bitcoin and sell, rather than mining, the security of Bitcoin depends on the increased engagement of miners.

What happens when mining becomes less profitable leading to an exodus of miners, would Bitcoin still be secured?

There will always be miners, because even after all Bitcoins are released into circulation, miners will earn from transaction fees. Even today, fees are quite significant and would be enough to ensure the smooth operation of the network. In the future, they will likely be even higher, as Bitcoin adoption continues to grow  there will be more users, more transactions, and greater competition for block space, which means transaction fees will increase significantly.