Bitcoin halving to be canceled?

[Amph]

WTF is this thread
A block reward halving already happened from 50 to 25 BTC. Nobody got crazy, everyone knew what was happening.

Why should anything be different in July? 12.5 BTC per block is your new game. Get used to it, and get used to a higher USD/BTC ratio.

well in theory because the lower the block reward the less margin miners will have for they profit, it mean that they must rely more on the price increase, so it make in theory, sense that they are against it

but they know that changing anything so critical about bitcoin will actually kill their profit anyway, so nothing will really happen by this point of view

Don't think there'll be a profit loss. Same thing happened from 50 -> 25... And we're still okay

yeah because the price went up, it was not at 230 before(now above 300), when the block was 50, as log as the pirce increase miners will be fine, no matter the reward

[deisik]

WTF is this thread
A block reward halving already happened from 50 to 25 BTC. Nobody got crazy, everyone knew what was happening.

Why should anything be different in July? 12.5 BTC per block is your new game. Get used to it, and get used to a higher USD/BTC ratio.

well in theory because the lower the block reward the less margin miners will have for they profit, it mean that they must rely more on the price increase, so it make in theory, sense that they are against it

but they know that changing anything so critical about bitcoin will actually kill their profit anyway, so nothing will really happen by this point of view

Don't think there'll be a profit loss. Same thing happened from 50 -> 25... And we're still okay

yeah because the price went up, it was not at 230 before(now above 300), when the block was 50, as log as the pirce increase miners will be fine, no matter the reward

I remember you saying not so long ago that the longer the price is (was) at 230, the longer it will (would) be there... Aren’t I confusing you for someone else, lol?

[Amph]

WTF is this thread
A block reward halving already happened from 50 to 25 BTC. Nobody got crazy, everyone knew what was happening.

Why should anything be different in July? 12.5 BTC per block is your new game. Get used to it, and get used to a higher USD/BTC ratio.

well in theory because the lower the block reward the less margin miners will have for they profit, it mean that they must rely more on the price increase, so it make in theory, sense that they are against it

but they know that changing anything so critical about bitcoin will actually kill their profit anyway, so nothing will really happen by this point of view

Don't think there'll be a profit loss. Same thing happened from 50 -> 25... And we're still okay

yeah because the price went up, it was not at 230 before(now above 300), when the block was 50, as log as the pirce increase miners will be fine, no matter the reward

I remember you saying not so long ago that the longer the price is (was) at 230, the longer it will (would) be there... Aren’t I confusing you for someone else, lol?

nah i was saying that the more it stay there the more chances there will be for the value to increase, and in fact i was right 

[deisik]

I remember you saying not so long ago that the longer the price is (was) at 230, the longer it will (would) be there... Aren’t I confusing you for someone else, lol?

nah i was saying that the more it stay there the more chances there will be for the value to increase, and in fact i was right 

Okay then... Oh, wait, I guess this is not what you actually said

the more the 230 value will hold the market the more you can stay sure that we won't fall to sub 200

[David Rabahy]

Altering the declining reward scheme would make me want to leave Bitcoin.  If I sell my Bitcoins then the price will go down *unless* there are more buyers thinking the opposite of me.

[jaysabi]

Yes, I read it, I'm just disagreeing with your characterization of it. Value comes from two things: need and perception of value. Things that are not needs are not inherently valuable, and then value only comes from the perception that someone else will find value in it in the future. People like gold because it has value. Gold has value because people like it. Confidence in gold at this point is more tradition than anything else. You're saying that confidence in systems can't be compared to each other because the systems are different. That's not true at all. The systems can be radically different (like gold and bitcoin), and the value of each system still comes down to the confidence in the particular instrument. You can say that gold will always be valuable and cite its history as evidence and likely be right. That doesn't make it absolute, and the determining factor is always going to be whether or not people have confidence in the store of value.

Confidence in gold is based on inborn feelings and instincts (which are fixed and universal), while confidence in Bitcoin is purely rational and based on functions attributed to it (which can be called off). Without them it is useless. In this way it is no different from any other fiat money out there, as I said previously. Gold, on the other hand, is loved for what it is, in and of itself, not for what people set it to do. You are bringing forth concepts which are irrelevant to the question and trying to challenge what I have already at first made clear and then set aside as irrelevant...

Namely, the origin of value, subjective vs objective

Yes, this is the crux of what I am saying. You are not born valuing gold. It is a learned trait. There is nothing natural or instinctual about it.

[jaysabi]

Maybe one day human would also have a way to create gold out of water and air (they are all electrons and neutrons/protons anyway). From this point of view, a man-made limitation that is followed by all the participants can provide much better security than a nature limitation which might be broken by technology advancement

Do you really think that when it becomes possible to create gold out of water and thin air as cheap as dirt, gold will lose its appeal and shine?

I don't know about appeal and shine, but I'm certain it will lose its value. Basic laws of economics tell you that when a limited resource suddenly becomes plentiful, it also becomes less valuable.

[Amph]

I remember you saying not so long ago that the longer the price is (was) at 230, the longer it will (would) be there... Aren’t I confusing you for someone else, lol?

nah i was saying that the more it stay there the more chances there will be for the value to increase, and in fact i was right 

Okay then... Oh, wait, I guess this is not what you actually said

the more the 230 value will hold the market the more you can stay sure that we won't fall to sub 200

well i was right lol, i was implying that there was more chances for us to grow, it's the same thing

[deisik]

Confidence in gold is based on inborn feelings and instincts (which are fixed and universal), while confidence in Bitcoin is purely rational and based on functions attributed to it (which can be called off). Without them it is useless. In this way it is no different from any other fiat money out there, as I said previously. Gold, on the other hand, is loved for what it is, in and of itself, not for what people set it to do. You are bringing forth concepts which are irrelevant to the question and trying to challenge what I have already at first made clear and then set aside as irrelevant...

Namely, the origin of value, subjective vs objective

Yes, this is the crux of what I am saying. You are not born valuing gold. It is a learned trait. There is nothing natural or instinctual about it.

So you are saying that everyone is being taught what is beautiful and what is ugly? Now tell me what universally bootstrapped gold in the first place (the issue of primary cause) if this is a learned trait as you say, in all those ancient civilizations divided by oceans and deserts, who had access to it...

Was it the same person (Doctor) Who taught them to love gold?

[zodiac3011]

to be canceled? How to cancel it actually? it's already programmed somehow right? Or we can change it?

[x13]

Isn't it technically impossible to cancel the Bitcoin halving, is it? If there would any doubt then it would have deep impact in trusting Bitcoin.

There was much hype about the Fed raising interest rates in 2015, but we are still there, at the lowest possible level (wtf, it is even no longer the lowest possible limit). Bitcoin halving in July, 2016, is talked about as much, but will it really happen?

I ain't sure

[Amph]

to be canceled? How to cancel it actually? it's already programmed somehow right? Or we can change it?

it's work based on consensus, they release their client(the miners) and they see how many accept it, probably no one since this is one of the worst change ever like the one of the 21M cap

[Mickeyb]

to be canceled? How to cancel it actually? it's already programmed somehow right? Or we can change it?

Of course it can't be cancelled. This whole thread makes no sense at all yet people keep posting. OP should just lock this thread!

[TookDk]

There was much hype about the Fed raising interest rates in 2015, but we are still there, at the lowest possible level (wtf, it is even no longer the lowest possible limit). Bitcoin halving in July, 2016, is talked about as much, but will it really happen?

I ain't sure

Obviously, nobody want a fork at this point. All players want stability.

[bit1]

Such a change would affect seriously the trust nature and the purpose for which it was created. The thought of posing should be avoided to prevent speculation.

[qiwoman2]

you change the schedule and you lose bitcoin period

I think now to change the algo and halving would be really bad for BTC lovers and miners everywhere. Yes it is harder to mine but isn't this what made BTC attractive in the first place/ The fact that it is rare and gets rarer and harder to find? If they turn Bitcoin into another Doge, it is pretty well doomed in my opinion..

[ivanst776]

I was thinking that it is an automatical algorithm which deduced the block reward by 50% isn't it? I don't think that someone can control this fact.

[SebastianJu]

I don't know how the matters stand at the moment, but in August there was a transactional glut, i.e. there were a few thousand unconfirmed transactions that didn't get confirmed in time (up to 50,000, if I'm not mistaken). I got caught too, my ~1 BTC transaction hadn't been confirmed for 2 days. I guess it was a deliberate effort by miners to stimulate the price, since I saw a lot of new blocks with only the miner's TX in them...

Therefore, it is hard to predict what the miners can be up to

That was because the stresstests. Someone created piles of junktransactions with a sligthly higher fee than legit transactions so that miners included the more expensive transactions and normal transactions got stuck. The problem was not that too view miners exist but that each block only can hold transactions worth 1mb of data

This is what I had been told. But it's cold comfort, given that I got caught personally (for 2 days, Carl!) and generally don't believe such stories, lol. The theory of the more expensive transactions crowding out normal transactions doesn't hold since it fails to provide a viable explanation for empty blocks...

Um, that is no theory. We know who did the stresstest, we know the transactions that were spam and so on. The empty blocks have a different explaination and they happen all the time. Regardless of spam attacks.

The reason for empty blocks are that some miners think they will have an advantage when they create a very tiny block. Because you will win the 25Bitcoins when >50% of all nodes accept your block as the next valid block. So if you send out a very small block then chances are that your block will be spread very fast through the bitcoin network. Maybe you even will orphan a big block that was created a second before your block.

Though that is not a really usefull way to handle things. Because someone created a propagation network. He can propgate full blocks in a matter of a couple seconds. Which means it is very fast. Even with full blocks. No need to use empty blocks then anymore when you use that network.

But empty blocks and spam attacks have nothing to do together.

[SebastianJu]

I don't know how the matters stand at the moment, but in August there was a transactional glut, i.e. there were a few thousand unconfirmed transactions that didn't get confirmed in time (up to 50,000, if I'm not mistaken). I got caught too, my ~1 BTC transaction hadn't been confirmed for 2 days. I guess it was a deliberate effort by miners to stimulate the price, since I saw a lot of new blocks with only the miner's TX in them...

Therefore, it is hard to predict what the miners can be up to

The Chinese have a fairly good idea where miners are going, and what they are doing - they make them and have the biggest mining operations in the world. I'd say the Russians are in on this, 100%.

I assume that the Bitcoin network will be paralyzed (at least temporarily) if 70% of miners (i.e. mining pools) decide to call it a day and be done with that

That would be true only for a short time until the difficulty adjusted. If really so many miners stopped instantly, which would not happen in one day timeframe, then it could mean that new blocks are only found every 25 minutes or so. Then when the difficulty adjusted then it should be again at 10 minutes.

Are you kidding? It is not uncommon to see new blocks mined as rare as one per hour. If the major mining pools (which mine over 90% of new blocks) stop operation, the blockchain will be frozen

Yes, it would mean that we would need 10 times the time to find a new block. So 100 minutes per block. But there is simply no reason to believe that something like that should happen. Why should it happen? Only because mining is not rewarding anymore does not mean that everyone disables his miners instantly. That did not happen in the past too.

[SebastianJu]

Are you kidding? It is not uncommon to see new blocks mined as rare as one per hour. If the major mining pools (which mine over 90% of new blocks) stop operation, the blockchain will be frozen

You are exaggerating. If 90% of the hash rate turns off, then blocks will be found on average every 100 minutes (instead of every 10 minutes) until the next difficulty change, which will be in less than 140 days.

Everything will return to normal in less than 175 days.

Okay, let's take your figures. Now we allegedly have 10 minutes between confirmations on average. I don't believe these numbers (the transaction weighted mean interval should be significantly higher, simple average being useless), but given that it is often much more than that (50-60 minutes and above), it would amount to 500-600 minutes if 90% of the hash rate is turned off. 600 minutes is 10 hours, Carl. Now we have 10 hours of waiting within which the network is essentially down, and many thousands (millions?) of unconfirmed transactions piling up...

Do you really think Bitcoin will ever recover from that glut? After a week Bitcoin will be as dead as a doornail due to escalation effects

Period	Block TIme	Duration
Current	100 minutes	< 140 days
+1	25 minutes	35 days
+2	10 minutes	14 days

I don't quite understand what this table means. Care to explain?

If you claim that often blocks are found only after an hour then you can't let fall under the table that with the same chance blocks are found way faster than 10 minutes. The 10 minutes really are the average that was mathematically determined to be used to the next time.