The Halving - Good or Bad for Bitcoin?

[futureofbitcoin]

I think that the halving isn't necessarily a bad thing now, but it will be, eventually.

I believe there should be a continuous reward, at the end, instead of a 21 million cap.

[mxnsch]

I think that the halving isn't necessarily a bad thing now, but it will be, eventually.

I believe there should be a continuous reward, at the end, instead of a 21 million cap.

I do respectfully disagree. The blockchain would never be where it is today without the halving AND cap.

The continuous reward is transaction fees.

[Amph]

I think that the halving isn't necessarily a bad thing now, but it will be, eventually.

I believe there should be a continuous reward, at the end, instead of a 21 million cap.

I do respectfully disagree. The blockchain would never be where it is today without the halving AND cap.

The continuous reward is transaction fees.

it was said that the halving was not necessary if the the value was already big enough to allow miners to profit from free

for example if the value since the beginning of bitcoin, was 100k per coin, there was no point in the halving, there was already plenty of profit for the mienrs, and then in the fee era they would continue to do profit

[futureofbitcoin]

I think that the halving isn't necessarily a bad thing now, but it will be, eventually.

I believe there should be a continuous reward, at the end, instead of a 21 million cap.

I do respectfully disagree. The blockchain would never be where it is today without the halving AND cap.

The continuous reward is transaction fees.

Can transaction fees really replace block rewards? It is very doubtful, especially as people are even so reluctant to increase the blocksize to allow more transactions.

[futureofbitcoin]

I think that the halving isn't necessarily a bad thing now, but it will be, eventually.

I believe there should be a continuous reward, at the end, instead of a 21 million cap.

I do respectfully disagree. The blockchain would never be where it is today without the halving AND cap.

The continuous reward is transaction fees.

it was said that the halving was not necessary if the the value was already big enough to allow miners to profit from free

for example if the value since the beginning of bitcoin, was 100k per coin, there was no point in the halving, there was already plenty of profit for the mienrs, and then in the fee era they would continue to do profit

The value of bitcoin (against USD) is (almost) completely irrelevant. What matters is the cost per transaction, and the number of transactions.

The number of transactions is limited by the blocksize, and people are very reluctant to increase that.

So that means either mining rewards will not be enough, or the fees per transaction has to be extremely high.

If transaction fees are extremely high, then bitcoin will not be able to do a lot of things, like micro-transactions, or even "normal" payments like visa/pay-pal, or remittances, etc. Some of bitcoin's biggest value propositions.

It is possible that bitcoin will be kind of like a digital reserve gold, used mostly for investment purposes, so and that eventually people will only move tens of thousands (or even millions) of dollars worth' of bitcoin per transaction. In that case, they wouldn't mind a transaction cost of a few hundred dollars.

But I just don't see the benefit of having a hard cap on the number of bitcoins. There is no real benefit. If the emission rate tapers off to match the estimated amount of coins lost, I think that would be perfect.

Basically we're supplementing mining income with coins that can never be retrieved.

[Snorek]

costantly growing at a lower rate, this must be said, otherwise the halving would be pointless, and after 2028, the grow of the supply will be negligeable, which means that it can be comparable to a non-growing status

Until 2028 bitcoin could be long time dead or totally different than now. It is not use to speculate that far in the future imo.
For now we have absolutely no idea what will happen with bitcoin's price after next halving, which is like half year ahead.

[ranochigo]

Halving is what makes Bitcoin, Bitcoin. Without halving, there is no way for Bitcoin to have a limited supply and would be like fiat. Profitability-wise, with majority of the hash power controlled by people with cheap electricity or equipments, it would be easy for them to stay profitable with the halving. Without halving, the more supply there is, the more worthless Bitcoin will be and hence no one would benefit. The price would most likely increase slightly as halving nears. Even without it, miners will still make a profit.

[Amph]

I think that the halving isn't necessarily a bad thing now, but it will be, eventually.

I believe there should be a continuous reward, at the end, instead of a 21 million cap.

I do respectfully disagree. The blockchain would never be where it is today without the halving AND cap.

The continuous reward is transaction fees.

it was said that the halving was not necessary if the the value was already big enough to allow miners to profit from free

for example if the value since the beginning of bitcoin, was 100k per coin, there was no point in the halving, there was already plenty of profit for the mienrs, and then in the fee era they would continue to do profit

The value of bitcoin (against USD) is (almost) completely irrelevant. What matters is the cost per transaction, and the number of transactions.

The number of transactions is limited by the blocksize, and people are very reluctant to increase that.

So that means either mining rewards will not be enough, or the fees per transaction has to be extremely high.

If transaction fees are extremely high, then bitcoin will not be able to do a lot of things, like micro-transactions, or even "normal" payments like visa/pay-pal, or remittances, etc. Some of bitcoin's biggest value propositions.

It is possible that bitcoin will be kind of like a digital reserve gold, used mostly for investment purposes, so and that eventually people will only move tens of thousands (or even millions) of dollars worth' of bitcoin per transaction. In that case, they wouldn't mind a transaction cost of a few hundred dollars.

But I just don't see the benefit of having a hard cap on the number of bitcoins. There is no real benefit. If the emission rate tapers off to match the estimated amount of coins lost, I think that would be perfect.

Basically we're supplementing mining income with coins that can never be retrieved.

you say that the price is irrelevant and then say that either the mining reward will not be enough etc..., contradiction here, you need essentially 3 things like you said, many tx per sec, high value, or high fees

fee does not need to be high, they can remain as they are now, if the value in the future, increase, so you see the value is very important

miners need 100x the value of the current fee(they are earning 32 btc right now from fee, this is about 1/100 of the 3600 coins per day, from mining), to profit in the fee era

this means that the value of one coin need to be 50k, or you need 100x more tx(not possible with the limit etc...) or you need 100x higher fee(in bitcoin)

or you can have a combination of both, like 10x more higher fee and 10x more higher value, 10x more higher fee put us in the 100k(satoshi) range, with 10x more higher value, means that 1 transaction will cost $4, not that much...

[xdrpx]

I feel it is good for Bitcoins in certain ways. Like psychologically it lets people think that the price of the Bitcoins are about to rise when the next halving date is approaching. This creates a padding for the price to push up further.

[Dekker3D]

I feel it is good for Bitcoins in certain ways. Like psychologically it lets people think that the price of the Bitcoins are about to rise when the next halving date is approaching. This creates a padding for the price to push up further.

It's bad for the miners since they can only earn half of what they used to but if the price increases then they can still earn enough in FIAT even if the btc is less. Less rewards also make btc rarer that it used to, and we know the law of supply and demand favors btc halving.

[praprata]

Its very good for the bitcoin, bitcoins will be more popular and gets more used by people.
I must say it has positive and negative points for different people.

[futureofbitcoin]

you say that the price is irrelevant and then say that either the mining reward will not be enough etc..., contradiction here, you need essentially 3 things like you said, many tx per sec, high value, or high fees

fee does not need to be high, they can remain as they are now, if the value in the future, increase, so you see the value is very important

miners need 100x the value of the current fee(they are earning 32 btc right now from fee, this is about 1/100 of the 3600 coins per day, from mining), to profit in the fee era

this means that the value of one coin need to be 50k, or you need 100x more tx(not possible with the limit etc...) or you need 100x higher fee(in bitcoin)

or you can have a combination of both, like 10x more higher fee and 10x more higher value, 10x more higher fee put us in the 100k(satoshi) range, with 10x more higher value, means that 1 transaction will cost $4, not that much...

There is no contradiction. It's like this.

If bitcoins were $100 each, then a transaction fee of 0.0001 bitcoins is not that high, because it would be the equivalent of $0.01.

But if bitcoins were $1,000,000 each, then a transaction fee of 0.0001 bitcoins would be equivalent to $100, which is a pretty darn high fee.

Whether a transaction fee is "high" or not is not dependent on the absolute number of the fee. It's dependent on the value of the fee.

So either way, you either have a high transaction fee, or you need a lot of transactions.

Having a very high bitcoin price does not reduce the need for a high value transaction fee.

[Amph]

you say that the price is irrelevant and then say that either the mining reward will not be enough etc..., contradiction here, you need essentially 3 things like you said, many tx per sec, high value, or high fees

fee does not need to be high, they can remain as they are now, if the value in the future, increase, so you see the value is very important

miners need 100x the value of the current fee(they are earning 32 btc right now from fee, this is about 1/100 of the 3600 coins per day, from mining), to profit in the fee era

this means that the value of one coin need to be 50k, or you need 100x more tx(not possible with the limit etc...) or you need 100x higher fee(in bitcoin)

or you can have a combination of both, like 10x more higher fee and 10x more higher value, 10x more higher fee put us in the 100k(satoshi) range, with 10x more higher value, means that 1 transaction will cost $4, not that much...

There is no contradiction. It's like this.

If bitcoins were $100 each, then a transaction fee of 0.0001 bitcoins is not that high, because it would be the equivalent of $0.01.

But if bitcoins were $1,000,000 each, then a transaction fee of 0.0001 bitcoins would be equivalent to $100, which is a pretty darn high fee.

Whether a transaction fee is "high" or not is not dependent on the absolute number of the fee. It's dependent on the value of the fee.

So either way, you either have a high transaction fee, or you need a lot of transactions.

Having a very high bitcoin price does not reduce the need for a high value transaction fee.

the point is that bitcoin does not need to have that value, to be profitabe for miners, it can work at 50k each already if we talk about the mining fee era

nor that i think we can reach that value, so this is only a problem if the value will skyrocket like you said, but at that point i think a tweak to the minimum or recommended fee can be done, like making it 1k satoshi instead of 10k

[HarHarHar9965]

Its very good for the bitcoin, bitcoins will be more popular and gets more used by people.
I must say it has positive and negative points for different people.

primary thing is price will be in the double the rate due to demand and reduction mining in bitcoin block.

Adaption rate will become high in business world which can do growth for bitcoin. It will get spread to all the people due to its technology and price range when compare with other currency.

[mtnsaa]

We really don't know of course, this should be in speculation hehe. But yes the miners will be getting much less, however as others have said if the price increases (I'm not sure that would be the case, for that to happen there should a lot of demand) then the miners will be getting more fiat money out of their BTC.

I think for Bitcoin to grow is much more important to focus on its problems, the Halving is just something that can affect it temporary but the deep down what Bitcoin needs is having an actual demand from the mainstream.

[phreaky]

The halving affects the price, not bitcoin itself.
It's just a procedure implemented by the developers to eventually end inflation.

[futureofbitcoin]

the point is that bitcoin does not need to have that value, to be profitabe for miners, it can work at 50k each already if we talk about the mining fee era

nor that i think we can reach that value, so this is only a problem if the value will skyrocket like you said, but at that point i think a tweak to the minimum or recommended fee can be done, like making it 1k satoshi instead of 10k

No, you're not understanding what I'm saying. I'm saying the value of bitcoin DOES NOT MATTER. I only used an example to show that.

There are many many factors, I won't pretend I can think of all of them, but I'll try my best to explain what I can think of.

The thing is, there's the current mining cost, and there's a minimum viable mining cost. The current mining cost is what it obviously means. What do I mean by minimum viable mining cost?

It means the minimum amount of mining needed to be done to keep the network secure. For example, if the market cap of bitcoin was $1000, then hardly anyone would bother to try to attack the system, so not much mining power is needed. In fact, Satoshi ran some CPUs to mine bitcoin for a year, and it wasn't successfully attacked.

But if the market cap of all bitcoins was in the trillions or even tens of trillions, then obviously the amount of mining needed to be done to keep the network safe is much, much higher. There is a minimum viable block reward, for which miners will still have the incentive to keep the network secure enough that no one can attack it.


This minimum reward isn't some number of bitcoins. It doesn't mean anything if the reward is 10 bitcoins, 100 bitcoins, or 0.00001 bitcoins. What matters is the real value of the rewards. How many eggs the miner can buy for his family, for example. Or houses. Whatever.

And this real value the miners must make, will be completely the burden of people who use the system.

For example, if it takes $50,000 worth of fees per block to keep the system secure, and there can only be 100 transactions per block, then each transaction must have a fee of at least $500 dollar's worth. Again, it doesn't matter if this number is 1 bitcoin, 100 bitcoins, or 0.00001 bitcoins. That's completely irrelevant. Miners don't care about how many bitcoins they're getting, they care about the REAL VALUE of the bitcoins they're getting.

And who's going to pay $500 for a bitcoin transaction? Or even $50 per transaction? Or even $5 per transaction? I wouldn't, except for possibly very special circumstances. A huge part of bitcoin's value proposition is on how low the fees are. But when the mining rewards are gone, the fees will not be low. It isn't possible for it to be low, unless either the # of transactions is significantly higher, or the minimum viable block reward is very low. But that would mean that bitcoin's market cap is very low, i.e it's pretty much dead.

[Amph]

ho you can say that the value of bitcoin(in $) does not matter, when you're talking about the minimum reward that the mienrs need to sustain the network

you know that this minimum reward will be even lower in the future thanks to the halving, which means that the value must increase, there is no other way around

the value is more than simply important, if anything....

[futureofbitcoin]

ho you can say that the value of bitcoin(in $) does not matter, when you're talking about the minimum reward that the mienrs need to sustain the network

you know that this minimum reward will be even lower in the future thanks to the halving, which means that the value must increase, there is no other way around

the value is more than simply important, if anything....

I don't know why you can't understand what I'm saying.

If miners need $500 dollars worth of fees per transaction, then that's what they will get.

If bitcoins are worth $500 each, then each transaction will cost 1 bitcoin.

If bitcoins are worth $50000 each, then each transaction will cost 0.01 bitcoin.

The amount of bitcoins needed for fees changes as the value of bitcoin changes.

BUT THE REAL VALUE OF THE FEES DO NOT CHANGE.

In the end, whether bitcoin costs a lot or costs very little, miners will ask for an amount of fee such that it can feed their family, and cover their operating expenses.

So the value of a bitcoin is not important, in the context of fees for miners. Please don't confuse the REAL value (i.e purchasing power) vs the value of bitcoins.

When a user decides whether the fees are too high or not, they don't look at a number of bitcoins and go "hey, the fees are 0.0001 BTC, I'm willing to pay that" or "hmmm the fees are 0.0005 BTC, it's too much, I won't pay that".

The number of bitcoins in the transaction fee is meaningless. What matters is the REAL VALUE of those bitcoins.

[Amph]

ho you can say that the value of bitcoin(in $) does not matter, when you're talking about the minimum reward that the mienrs need to sustain the network

you know that this minimum reward will be even lower in the future thanks to the halving, which means that the value must increase, there is no other way around

the value is more than simply important, if anything....

I don't know why you can't understand what I'm saying.

If miners need $500 dollars worth of fees per transaction, then that's what they will get.

If bitcoins are worth $500 each, then each transaction will cost 1 bitcoin.

If bitcoins are worth $50000 each, then each transaction will cost 0.01 bitcoin.

The amount of bitcoins needed for fees changes as the value of bitcoin changes.

BUT THE REAL VALUE OF THE FEES DO NOT CHANGE.

In the end, whether bitcoin costs a lot or costs very little, miners will ask for an amount of fee such that it can feed their family, and cover their operating expenses.

So the value of a bitcoin is not important, in the context of fees for miners. Please don't confuse the REAL value (i.e purchasing power) vs the value of bitcoins.

i've already explained above that they can lower the minimum fee if the value of bitcoin get too high, so this is not a problem

10k satoshi is too high? well do it 1k, but this will be only be a concern when the value of bitcoin will be very high not right now, and not at 5k or 10k per coin

and miners, as i said above, need $50k a day as a reward, so this mean that the total sum of the whole transaction per day must give them that amount

this is correlated with the value of bitcoin, ssince you need to change the amount of fee in bitcoin based on that value, so i can't udnerstand why you are repeating that it is not important...

The number of bitcoins in the transaction fee is meaningless. What matters is the REAL VALUE of those bitcoins.

man we are saying the same thing, i was talking about the real vlaue of bitcoin