The Halving - Good or Bad for Bitcoin?

[fkvidar]

Its kind hard to know what is really going to happen in the future with Bitcoin and that is because the value of Bitcoin is always changing so that is really bad of course because you dont even know what will happen later in the future.
But there will be a chance that is can disappear because the value will go down or something.

Bitcoin is decentralized and the market is a true market. True free markets without intervention will be prone to ups and down, but the overall trend has always been UP. Everytime bitcoin crashed, it set a new floor.

Yeah if bitcoin has fallen then it has answer its critics in best way by going higher and we can expect same from this halving too, so this halving will bring really good news for us.

[Bestwishes745]

Its kind hard to know what is really going to happen in the future with Bitcoin and that is because the value of Bitcoin is always changing so that is really bad of course because you dont even know what will happen later in the future.
But there will be a chance that is can disappear because the value will go down or something.

don't worry about the future just keep faith on bitcoin and you will see a better future for your coins, as now everyone is adopting bitcoin for their transactions and everyone will use it for every aspect in the future and so in that way bitcoin will establish all over the world and we will see a better price of bitcoin and will get a bigger profit in the future.

[deisik]

Its kind hard to know what is really going to happen in the future with Bitcoin and that is because the value of Bitcoin is always changing so that is really bad of course because you dont even know what will happen later in the future.
But there will be a chance that is can disappear because the value will go down or something.

Bitcoin is decentralized and the market is a true market. True free markets without intervention will be prone to ups and down, but the overall trend has always been UP. Everytime bitcoin crashed, it set a new floor.

Neither is true. Bitcoin has long ceased to be decentralized, and I don't really see why severe market manipulation cannot be called an intervention of sorts. At least, interventions usually aim to stabilize the markets (i.e. make them less volatile), not to shake them either to boost the price up or crash it down. If you question the latter (i.e. market manipulation), you should first refute the former (i.e. Bitcoin centralization)...

Since manipulation directly follows from centralization

[TemplarKnightUK]

Its kind hard to know what is really going to happen in the future with Bitcoin and that is because the value of Bitcoin is always changing so that is really bad of course because you dont even know what will happen later in the future.
But there will be a chance that is can disappear because the value will go down or something.

Bitcoin is decentralized and the market is a true market. True free markets without intervention will be prone to ups and down, but the overall trend has always been UP. Everytime bitcoin crashed, it set a new floor.

Neither is true. Bitcoin has long ceased to be decentralized, and I don't really see why severe market manipulation cannot be called intervention of sorts. At lest, interventions usually aim to stabilize the markets (i.e. make less volatile), not to shake them either to boost the price up or crash it down. If you question the latter (i.e. market manipulation), you should first refute the former (i.e. Bitcoin centralization)...

Since manipulation directly follows from centralization

Bitcoin is not decentralised in the sense that ownership of coins is very unequal (someone should measure a Lorentz curve coefficient, actually), but I believe it very much is in terms of hashpower (as a cursory look at the block signature estimates of Blockchain.info would reveal), so it is important to get our terms right; perhaps the poster referred to the mining power. Even if it is the ownership and it is rather centralised, that does not mean that market manipulators have full control. It is limited by those that hold their coins untouched in places due to legitimate economic activity, or have simply forgotten about them (c.f. Satoshi himself, for one).

I refute the premise that market manipulation is conducted for stabilisation purposes. What rational agent (other than a government - though admittedly it is questionable we apply "rational" to such an actor) would take on such risk to stabilise prices for others? None; as with the archetypal example of the London bond market and the Battle of Waterloo (whether or not you believe it) and later examples such as Barclays' shorting, market manipulation is conducted to push the price in a certain direction, fast, and according to the insider position.

[terman45x]

Its kind hard to know what is really going to happen in the future with Bitcoin and that is because the value of Bitcoin is always changing so that is really bad of course because you dont even know what will happen later in the future.
But there will be a chance that is can disappear because the value will go down or something.

don't worry about the future just keep faith on bitcoin and you will see a better future for your coins, as now everyone is adopting bitcoin for their transactions and everyone will use it for every aspect in the future and so in that way bitcoin will establish all over the world and we will see a better price of bitcoin and will get a bigger profit in the future.

Yeah and I think bitcoin is still in its initial stage and it will become more bigger in future and we can expect positive news from halving and price will go much higher.

[BitFinnese]

I think Bitcoin is fine after halving, maybe you wanted to redirect your question to Bitcoin economy, and in my point of view, this halving have both and bad effect to BTC economy, Good effect might be BTC will have a higher price resulting to mass media getting attracted to broadcast about BTC, Free advertisement! And thus, will promote BTC to every corner media can reach.  One bad side would be, due to the extreme speculation about bitcoin halving, BTC price had been over valued thus will result in decline in price after the halving.  Lots of those panick buyer will end up with negative profit in their hand.  

[Blackmet]

Nothing changes after halving, some people will get a lot of money from halving but nothing should not happen with bitcoin, so i think that halving is good for bitcoin.

[NewInCryptoCurrency]

I think Bitcoin is fine after halving, maybe you wanted to redirect your question to Bitcoin economy, and in my point of view, this halving have both and bad effect to BTC economy, Good effect might be BTC will have a higher price resulting to mass media getting attracted to broadcast about BTC, Free advertisement! And thus, will promote BTC to every corner media can reach.  One bad side would be, due to the extreme speculation about bitcoin halving, BTC price had been over valued thus will result in decline in price after the halving.  Lots of those panick buyer will end up with negative profit in their hand. 

My stand is neutral, It is the way it is and we have learn to embrace it. These days it has become a hype and that hype has grown too much.
It can make a lot of people unhappy.

[deisik]

Its kind hard to know what is really going to happen in the future with Bitcoin and that is because the value of Bitcoin is always changing so that is really bad of course because you dont even know what will happen later in the future.
But there will be a chance that is can disappear because the value will go down or something.

Bitcoin is decentralized and the market is a true market. True free markets without intervention will be prone to ups and down, but the overall trend has always been UP. Everytime bitcoin crashed, it set a new floor.

Neither is true. Bitcoin has long ceased to be decentralized, and I don't really see why severe market manipulation cannot be called intervention of sorts. At lest, interventions usually aim to stabilize the markets (i.e. make less volatile), not to shake them either to boost the price up or crash it down. If you question the latter (i.e. market manipulation), you should first refute the former (i.e. Bitcoin centralization)...

Since manipulation directly follows from centralization

Bitcoin is not decentralised in the sense that ownership of coins is very unequal (someone should measure a Lorentz curve coefficient, actually), but I believe it very much is in terms of hashpower (as a cursory look at the block signature estimates of Blockchain.info would reveal), so it is important to get our terms right; perhaps the poster referred to the mining power. Even if it is the ownership and it is rather centralised, that does not mean that market manipulators have full control. It is limited by those that hold their coins untouched in places due to legitimate economic activity, or have simply forgotten about them (c.f. Satoshi himself, for one)

No, I didn't mean wealth inequality. I assumed myself that the poster referred to the mining power as a representation of Bitcoin decentralization, while in fact it is severely centralized. I'm also looking at the hashrate distribution estimates given at Blockchain.info, the screenshot of which I just made and insert below



By any means, I can't call Bitcoin mining power decentralized. Now we have 7 major players which swallow up about 90% of all hashing power out there. What is it if not an example of extreme centralization? If we consider Bitcoin as a global currency, then all major fiat currencies taken as one will be more decentralized than Bitcoin

[deisik]

I refute the premise that market manipulation is conducted for stabilisation purposes. What rational agent (other than a government - though admittedly it is questionable we apply "rational" to such an actor) would take on such risk to stabilise prices for others? None; as with the archetypal example of the London bond market and the Battle of Waterloo (whether or not you believe it) and later examples such as Barclays' shorting, market manipulation is conducted to push the price in a certain direction, fast, and according to the insider position.

But that was not my premise. I meant to say that centralization inevitably leads to (a possibility of) market manipulation. In other words, if a market is highly decentralized (neither a single major player nor a group of big players are present), it is next to impossible to manipulate the market. This seems to be self-evident (well, at least to me). But nevertheless, regarding market manipulation for stabilization purposes (which should rather be called market intervention), for example, it is not uncommon for a Central bank to intervene in foreign exchange markets with the intention of influencing the exchange rate of its currency. In fact, there is nothing extraordinary in such interventions, which happen on a regular basis in many countries...

They are carried out with the aim of stabilizing the exchange rate for all domestic economic entities, and still more so for those entities which trade internationally

[martinacar]

Nothing changes after halving, some people will get a lot of money from halving but nothing should not happen with bitcoin, so i think that halving is good for bitcoin.

The halving will be good for the bitcoin and it will increase in price but nothing more indeed will happen.
Its just that it will let the price grow and it will gain popularity also.

[Cyaren]

You could say both. Because I think the halving is currently doing bitcoin good in terms of the price, but seriously you gotta consider the longevity of that price. It could really go both ways after halving.

Bear in mind that the miners may not get a profit anymore...

[goldcoinminer]

You could say both. Because I think the halving is currently doing bitcoin good in terms of the price, but seriously you gotta consider the longevity of that price. It could really go both ways after halving.

Bear in mind that the miners may not get a profit anymore...

I think miners will still get a good profit because the price is increasing, maybe if the price will fall but in my opinion it would not be happening anymore, when the demand is high the price will rise and this is exactly what is happening now.

[Vaccinus]

it's good it force a price increase, it rise demand also it allow bitcoin to grow slowly

[boyptc]

it's good it force a price increase, it rise demand also it allow bitcoin to grow slowly

Halving really is going to have a good effect for bitcoin and just for bitcoin and also as well other alt coins. Because bitcoin predicts also the price of
other alt coins as well.
And when the demand of bitcoin is going to be high the price also is going to increase.

[1Referee]

Its kind hard to know what is really going to happen in the future with Bitcoin and that is because the value of Bitcoin is always changing so that is really bad of course because you dont even know what will happen later in the future.
But there will be a chance that is can disappear because the value will go down or something.

don't worry about the future just keep faith on bitcoin and you will see a better future for your coins, as now everyone is adopting bitcoin for their transactions and everyone will use it for every aspect in the future and so in that way bitcoin will establish all over the world and we will see a better price of bitcoin and will get a bigger profit in the future.

Yeah and I think bitcoin is still in its initial stage and it will become more bigger in future and we can expect positive news from halving and price will go much higher.

To a certain extend we are still somewhat of an early adopter. At some point I expect institutional investors to take their position in the Bitcoin game. And that's when the prices will really go through the roof. It's good to take profits from time to time, but make sure you keep holding the majority of your coins. You'll not regret it.

[TemplarKnightUK]

Its kind hard to know what is really going to happen in the future with Bitcoin and that is because the value of Bitcoin is always changing so that is really bad of course because you dont even know what will happen later in the future.
But there will be a chance that is can disappear because the value will go down or something.

Bitcoin is decentralized and the market is a true market. True free markets without intervention will be prone to ups and down, but the overall trend has always been UP. Everytime bitcoin crashed, it set a new floor.

Neither is true. Bitcoin has long ceased to be decentralized, and I don't really see why severe market manipulation cannot be called intervention of sorts. At lest, interventions usually aim to stabilize the markets (i.e. make less volatile), not to shake them either to boost the price up or crash it down. If you question the latter (i.e. market manipulation), you should first refute the former (i.e. Bitcoin centralization)...

Since manipulation directly follows from centralization

Bitcoin is not decentralised in the sense that ownership of coins is very unequal (someone should measure a Lorentz curve coefficient, actually), but I believe it very much is in terms of hashpower (as a cursory look at the block signature estimates of Blockchain.info would reveal), so it is important to get our terms right; perhaps the poster referred to the mining power. Even if it is the ownership and it is rather centralised, that does not mean that market manipulators have full control. It is limited by those that hold their coins untouched in places due to legitimate economic activity, or have simply forgotten about them (c.f. Satoshi himself, for one)

No, I didn't mean wealth inequality. I assumed myself that the poster referred to the mining power as a representation of Bitcoin decentralization, while in fact it is severely centralized. I'm also looking at the hashrate distribution estimates given at Blockchain.info, the screenshot of which I just made and insert below



By any means, I can't call Bitcoin mining power decentralized. Now we have 7 major players which swallow up about 90% of all hashing power out there. What is it if not an example of extreme centralization? If we consider Bitcoin as a global currency, then all major fiat currencies taken as one will be more decentralized than Bitcoin

I agree, it could be better, but you have to be pragmatic about it. In Britain, at least, there are only five major energy companies, similar story with supermarkets. Telecoms provision in the United States is essentially a duopoly, from what I remember. Having seven main mining pools is relatively secure (doesn't help that a large portion of the hashpower is in one country, granted, but I think it's safe for now). They're also comprised of individual miners, who receive the profits and decide what to do with them, rather than a single entity (the pool). Though some miners may have greater hashpower than others, I think the overall scheme is one of independence of one another. Also, if pools exert dominance, individual miners exert their free will to switch (as I believe occurred after GHash.IO's 51% gambit) and the system is rectified.

I refute the premise that market manipulation is conducted for stabilisation purposes. What rational agent (other than a government - though admittedly it is questionable we apply "rational" to such an actor) would take on such risk to stabilise prices for others? None; as with the archetypal example of the London bond market and the Battle of Waterloo (whether or not you believe it) and later examples such as Barclays' shorting, market manipulation is conducted to push the price in a certain direction, fast, and according to the insider position.

But that was not my premise. I meant to say that centralization inevitably leads to (a possibility of) market manipulation. In other words, if a market is highly decentralized (neither a single major player nor a group of big players are present), it is next to impossible to manipulate the market. This seems to be self-evident (well, at least to me). But nevertheless, regarding market manipulation for stabilization purposes (which should rather be called market intervention), for example, it is not uncommon for a Central bank to intervene in foreign exchange markets with the intention of influencing the exchange rate of its currency. In fact, there is nothing extraordinary in such interventions, which happen on a regular basis in many countries...

They are carried out with the aim of stabilizing the exchange rate for all domestic economic entities, and still more so for those entities which trade internationally

To the prices, the only reason I could think of miners wishing to manipulate the market is to increase the sale-price of newly mined bitcoin, which I believe usually is sold instantly as they don't want to hold volatile assets and seek to lock-in the profit. If we assume this is not true, the only manipulation that can be done is to hold mined coins to artificially reduce supply, but their capacity to do this naturally declines spectacularly after every 210,000 blocks and is a futile endeavour. Consider too that the fractional expansion with each block reward is only very slight and this seems less important than the manipulation downward that might be exerted by the Winklevosses or Satoshi. Central banks would intervene perhaps for protectionist purposes, or to influence trade in some way. They have the backing of government, and taxation, if they seek to act unilaterally, and that is a bad thing. Currency intervention does not always work, depending on the actors involved. Britain had to leave ERM II in the early 1990s as a result of George Soros' bearish pressure; the BoE piled cash into the affair but the Bundesbank refused to help; a failure. Markets prevail, and very easily; it's the inertia of the huddled masses. I'd like to be able to know what proportion of circulating bitcoins are in active exchange (I know the volume can be seen, but how much of this is back and forth game-playing?)

it's good it force a price increase, it rise demand also it allow bitcoin to grow slowly

It does not force a price increase. Price is determined by the amount of fiat traders wish to exchange on exchanges; it is an influencing factor, but ultimately the two affairs are very much divorced.

My honest reflection on the halving is that it can be positive for bitcoin; many factors are at play, but we must consider what happens to mining and the security of the network. Many miners will be made unprofitable. The only way they can regain this profit is by refusing to process transactions unless they make up the shortfall (though this is $5/tr, half of Blockchain.info's $10). This is ridiculous, extortionate, and people will not pay. The bitcoin becomes nothing more than a speculative asset, and price may decline (it's been shown to correlate to volume before). Either way, miners are against the wall. The least profitable eventually switch off their ASICs (or mine altcoins, affecting their dynamic in untold ways, or perhaps contribute to breaking the SHA-256 for common passwords if they feel up to the challenge). What we see is a decline in hashpower, but not necessarily a decline in security, as long as there are enough independent players. A mining pool may make a 51% in such an instance; miners will just switch, as they did with GHash.

I believe that's the long term solution; BTC is being "over-mined" at the moment. We can cope with less hashpower.

[deisik]

By any means, I can't call Bitcoin mining power decentralized. Now we have 7 major players which swallow up about 90% of all hashing power out there. What is it if not an example of extreme centralization? If we consider Bitcoin as a global currency, then all major fiat currencies taken as one will be more decentralized than Bitcoin

I agree, it could be better, but you have to be pragmatic about it. In Britain, at least, there are only five major energy companies, similar story with supermarkets. Telecoms provision in the United States is essentially a duopoly, from what I remember. Having seven main mining pools is relatively secure (doesn't help that a large portion of the hashpower is in one country, granted, but I think it's safe for now)

The devil is in the detail. John Rockefeller's Standard Oil had been split into 33 (sic!) smaller companies for "sustaining a monopoly and restraining interstate commerce" (as per Wikipedia). IBM and Microsoft had been waiting for the same fate not so long ago but got off cheaply. What I want to say is that these monopolistic companies have to play by the rules established by the state, otherwise they get punished as the history clearly shows. In respect to the Bitcoin mining oligopoly, there are no such rules which they should or would follow...

In fact, the rules are essentially set up by themselves, so this state of affairs is in no way secure

[fkvidar]

Looking at the present scenario I think this halving will be good for bitcoin, as price will  go higher then it will attract many new users and investors to invest their money into it.

[deisik]

They're also comprised of individual miners, who receive the profits and decide what to do with them, rather than a single entity (the pool). Though some miners may have greater hashpower than others, I think the overall scheme is one of independence of one another. Also, if pools exert dominance, individual miners exert their free will to switch (as I believe occurred after GHash.IO's 51% gambit) and the system is rectified

I don't know the story behind GHash.IO's 51% gambit (as you call it), but I think that I can safely assume that they have abused their position too openly and too aggressively, and now we have 7-8 mining pools who will most likely act in by far more subtle ways to pursue their ends (having learned the lesson), which may differ substantially from the interests of individual miners that these pools consist of. We have witnessed the price increase more than 3 times in the course of the last year, but who is most interested in this hike and can actually affect the price? These are the same mining pools, though we are told now and then, here and there that the hike is due to the upcoming halving (which may actually be true to a certain extent)...

To me, it is not a question of whether they will exert their dominance, but rather of how subtle their ways will be