Bitcoin halving to be canceled?

[deisik]

Value of gold is set by the laws of nature, which humans cannot change at their whimsy (at least, so far). It doesn't matter where it lives or originates, since humans cannot change their own nature either (just in case you're going to bring forward the argument of subjective value and all that crap). Bitcoin, on the hand, is, like fiat monies, a deliberate brain-child of men, and, as such, it is not "bestowed" with the same level of confidence (that nature provides)...

This "confidence" is undermined by definition

No no, gold has no inherent value. It is not set by the laws of nature, it is set by human perception of its worth. The laws of nature, as you say, influence the perception of gold in that it is a limited resource, but it is still the expectation that someone else in the future will consider gold an asset that gives it value in the present.

You'd better go and read my posts carefully. I expected this argument and specifically have pointed it out that humans cannot change their own nature, "human perception" included, which is also a result of natural forces. Even more, I ended my post with the saying that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Did you read it? People like gold for its inherent qualities, and inherent means permanent and essential characteristics which cannot be taken or stripped off from an object possessing them without destroying it. Personally, you may not like gold, the way it looks and how it feels, but the rest of humanity would most certainly beg to differ with your opinion. And just like you can't change the law of gravity, you can't change the nature of man. That's why the confidence in gold is incomparable with that of Bitcoin...

In short, you cannot "unmake" gold

[jaysabi]

Once must understand that halving is an essential part of the Bitcoin protocol, aimed at approximating the natural increase in scarcity, observed in other money systems, like gold (as opposed to currencies, like dollar, which can be printed ad infinitum)

The problem is that Bitcoin itself is not natural. As I have said elsewhere (and been attacked by assclowns of all stripes and denominations, lol), Bitcoin, in this aspect, is no different than any other fiat money out there (or currency, if you please), my point being that mimicking scarcity (or any other quality) of its counterparts such as gold doesn't endow it with the resilience and robustness due to their inherent value (entrenched deep in the minds and nature of people)...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Scarcity is part of what gives both gold and bitcoin value. The only reason anything has any value at all is that everyone believes it to be true. This is true of bitcoin, gold, and fiat. Confidence in the particular monetary system is what bestows value, and part of the confidence in bitcoin is the built in scarcity of a hard cap and halving block rewards along the way. If that confidence is undermined, then the value/utility of the monetary system is going to fall, and that's true of gold and fiat too.

Well put. I can recommend as casual reading Stephen Baxter's and Terry Prattchett's "Long Earth", where the authors explore the "parallel Earths" opening up, and (in a sub-plot) the sudden unlimited access to gold from all those instances, devaluing gold pretty quickly.

Thanks for the tip. I read another book by Baxter (gosh, about ten years ago now) called The Light of Other Days. I really enjoyed it.

[Possum577]

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

Yes, it will happen, unless everyone stops mining bitcoin. Once a set number of bitcoins  have been mined the blocks are automatically halved. It's not some decision that's made by Janet Yellen or Theymos or Bad Bear....it's automatic. It was made by Satoshi years ago. It's a trigger in the coding!

When will always be a mystery, but if is not...once we mine to that number the blocks will be halved.

[jaysabi]

Value of gold is set by the laws of nature, which humans cannot change at their whimsy (at least, so far). It doesn't matter where it lives or originates, since humans cannot change their own nature either (just in case you're going to bring forward the argument of subjective value and all that crap). Bitcoin, on the hand, is, like fiat monies, a deliberate brain-child of men, and, as such, it is not "bestowed" with the same level of confidence (that nature provides)...

This "confidence" is undermined by definition

No no, gold has no inherent value. It is not set by the laws of nature, it is set by human perception of its worth. The laws of nature, as you say, influence the perception of gold in that it is a limited resource, but it is still the expectation that someone else in the future will consider gold an asset that gives it value in the present.

You'd better go and read my posts carefully. I expected this argument and specifically have pointed it out that "human perception" is also a result of natural forces. Even more, I ended my post with the saying that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Did you read it? People like gold for its inherent qualities, and inherent means permanent and essential characteristics which cannot be taken or stripped off from an object possessing them without destroying it. Personally, you may not like gold, the way it looks and how it feels, but the rest of humanity would most certainly beg to differ with your opinion...

And just like you can't change the law of gravity, you can't change the nature of man. That's why the confidence in gold is incomparable with that of Bitcoin

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.

[deisik]

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

[Decoded]

The halving cannot be delayed. If you want it to be delayed, you have to make your own coin and get the bitcoin community to move over to your coin and ask the retailers to accept your new coin too, which of virtually impossible at the rate normal bitcoin is being adopted.

[yenxz]

i hope that will canceled,because some expert hope like that 

[johnyj]

Once must understand that halving is an essential part of the Bitcoin protocol, aimed at approximating the natural increase in scarcity, observed in other money systems, like gold (as opposed to currencies, like dollar, which can be printed ad infinitum)

The problem is that Bitcoin itself is not natural. As I have said elsewhere (and been attacked by assclowns of all stripes and denominations, lol), Bitcoin, in this aspect, is no different than any other fiat money out there (or currency, if you please), my point being that mimicking scarcity (or any other quality) of its counterparts such as gold doesn't endow it with the resilience and robustness due to their inherent value (entrenched deep in the minds and nature of people)...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

None of the money is natural, even gold has to be coined into unique form and weight to circulate as money. People usually do not accept gold bars/nuggets  because they can not tell the purity without professional equipment. Then the trust falls on the quality of those gold coins and the issuance of those coins, so they are usually made by authorities (gold smith centuries ago then later coinage organization). That's the key to money's value: An authority that people can trust

But later on in France, these authorities became untruthful and start to dilute the gold in the coins, and John Law even came up with the idea of fiat money that is backed by shares (Mississippi bubble), thus sank the credit worthiness of fiat money, and failed. But since then fiat money started to be backed by some complex securities that is totally out of understanding of average Joe, and became a supply/demand game

In bitcoin, those authorities are back, now they are mathematics and network. People have no problem to trust the authoritative of mathematics (law of nature), but they might not trust the network because it is prone to human manipulation. So it is essential the protocol is followed by all the network participants and even its users

For any type of money, even it has endless supply, the scarcity can still be observed by the end user, so scarcity of bitcoin does not really affect end users, but it indeed give speculators a long term positive prospect

[deisik]

Once must understand that halving is an essential part of the Bitcoin protocol, aimed at approximating the natural increase in scarcity, observed in other money systems, like gold (as opposed to currencies, like dollar, which can be printed ad infinitum)

The problem is that Bitcoin itself is not natural. As I have said elsewhere (and been attacked by assclowns of all stripes and denominations, lol), Bitcoin, in this aspect, is no different than any other fiat money out there (or currency, if you please), my point being that mimicking scarcity (or any other quality) of its counterparts such as gold doesn't endow it with the resilience and robustness due to their inherent value (entrenched deep in the minds and nature of people)...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

None of the money is natural, even gold has to be coined into unique form and weight to circulate as money. People usually do not accept gold bars/nuggets  because they can not tell the purity without professional equipment. Then the trust falls on the quality of those gold coins and the issuance of those coins, so they are usually made by authorities (gold smith centuries ago then later coinage organization). That's the key to money's value: An authority that people can trust

Using gold as money is an effect not a cause of gold's appeal to people. Bitcoin, like other fiat monies, doesn't have this attractiveness through its own existence per se, i.e. beyond the function of being money. In fact, its very existence is a result of deliberate conscious effort...

That was my point (natural vs artificial)

[deisik]

But later on in France, these authorities became untruthful and start to dilute the gold in the coins, and John Law even came up with the idea of fiat money that is backed by shares (Mississippi bubble), thus sank the credit worthiness of fiat money, and failed. But since then fiat money started to be backed by some complex securities that is totally out of understanding of average Joe, and became a supply/demand game

As I know it, it was not John Law's fault, or the failure of the principle behind his system. Its collapse was due to heavy abuse of the system by the Crown, which thought they found an endless fountain of wealth

[deisik]

In bitcoin, those authorities are back, now they are mathematics and network. People have no problem to trust the authoritative of mathematics (law of nature), but they might not trust the network because it is prone to human manipulation. So it is essential the protocol is followed by all the network participants and even its users

You forget that mathematics is applied by human beings altogether. While it can be faultless and perfect (unless proven otherwise, of course), humans are not. I would most certainly agree with you if you could somehow remove the human element from this sequence...

The weakest link in the chain

[Parazyd]

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.

[johnyj]

Once must understand that halving is an essential part of the Bitcoin protocol, aimed at approximating the natural increase in scarcity, observed in other money systems, like gold (as opposed to currencies, like dollar, which can be printed ad infinitum)

The problem is that Bitcoin itself is not natural. As I have said elsewhere (and been attacked by assclowns of all stripes and denominations, lol), Bitcoin, in this aspect, is no different than any other fiat money out there (or currency, if you please), my point being that mimicking scarcity (or any other quality) of its counterparts such as gold doesn't endow it with the resilience and robustness due to their inherent value (entrenched deep in the minds and nature of people)...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

None of the money is natural, even gold has to be coined into unique form and weight to circulate as money. People usually do not accept gold bars/nuggets  because they can not tell the purity without professional equipment. Then the trust falls on the quality of those gold coins and the issuance of those coins, so they are usually made by authorities (gold smith centuries ago then later coinage organization). That's the key to money's value: An authority that people can trust

Using gold as money is an effect not a cause of gold's appeal to people. Bitcoin, like other fiat monies, doesn't have this attractiveness through its own existence per se, i.e. beyond the function of being money. In fact, its very existence is a result of conscious effort...

That was my point (natural vs artificial)

Gold is also an attempt to abstract value. During early Egypt time, gold was only used for decoration, the money at that time was grain. The move from grain to gold is one step further in the process of abstracting value. Gold have many good properties to act as a value abstraction, but eventually it becomes limited by its weight, now bitcoin is much better in this regards

The color and feeling of gold is irrelevant, there are other metals with better physical properties, for example platinum, but they never worked as money due to they are similar to alt-coin, too late into the new standard

[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

[johnyj]

In bitcoin, those authorities are back, now they are mathematics and network. People have no problem to trust the authoritative of mathematics (law of nature), but they might not trust the network because it is prone to human manipulation. So it is essential the protocol is followed by all the network participants and even its users

You forget that mathematics is applied by human beings altogether. While it can be faultless and perfect (unless proven otherwise, of course), humans are not. I would most certainly agree with you if you could somehow remove the human element from this sequence...

The weakest link in the chain

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

[deisik]

None of the money is natural, even gold has to be coined into unique form and weight to circulate as money. People usually do not accept gold bars/nuggets  because they can not tell the purity without professional equipment. Then the trust falls on the quality of those gold coins and the issuance of those coins, so they are usually made by authorities (gold smith centuries ago then later coinage organization). That's the key to money's value: An authority that people can trust

Using gold as money is an effect not a cause of gold's appeal to people. Bitcoin, like other fiat monies, doesn't have this attractiveness through its own existence per se, i.e. beyond the function of being money. In fact, its very existence is a result of conscious effort...

That was my point (natural vs artificial)

Gold is also an attempt to abstract value. During early Egypt time, gold was only used for decoration, the money at that time was grain. The move from grain to gold is one step further in the process of abstracting value. Gold have many good properties to act as a value abstraction, but eventually it becomes limited by its weight, now bitcoin is much better in this regards

This doesn't change a thing in the distinction I drew

[deisik]

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? Regarding man imposed limits, they will stand only so long as all the participants are forced to follow them. Up till now laws of nature seem to have worked much better and more reliable, lol...

John Law would undoubtedly and unreservedly agree with me

[Parazyd]

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

[johnyj]

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? Regarding man imposed limits, they will stand only so long as all the participants are forced to follow them. Up till now laws of nature seem to have worked much better and more reliable, lol...

John Law would undoubtedly and unreservedly agree with me

The beauty of bitcoin is that it is a protocol that is followed by its participants voluntarily, not forced on anyone, so anyone who don't like reward halving would have total freedom to fork their bitcoin with unlimited supply and see how it works. As I said, this attempt has been tried even at the first reward halving, just search the forum post that made that fork and see for yourself how it went

[deisik]

The beauty of bitcoin is that it is a protocol that is followed by its participants voluntarily, not forced on anyone, so anyone who don't like reward halving would have total freedom to fork their bitcoin with unlimited supply and see how it works

Doctor Goebbels, is that you?