The upcoming halving of the block reward

[Mellop]

I've done some reading and I'm still not sure I understand how the upcoming change of the block reward from 50 BTC to 25 BTC will affect the money supply.  Is it as simple as halving inflation (i.e. the number of coins created over the next year is half that of the previous year)?  Are blocks easier to unlock now as a result?

[Isokivi]

I've done some reading and I'm still not sure I understand how the upcoming change of the block reward from 50 BTC to 25 BTC will affect the money supply.  Is it as simple as halving inflation (i.e. the number of coins created over the next year is half that of the previous year)?  Are blocks easier to unlock now as a result?

The difficulty of blocks is dynamic and depends only on the network hashrate. The network always adjusts itself with the target of 6 blocks found per hour. The block reward halving will force some miners to quit, thus lowering the difficulty in the long run. However asics are supposed to come out soon which will increase difficulty by almost the same factor as when cpu mining got replaced with gpu mining.

[Mellop]

I've done some reading and I'm still not sure I understand how the upcoming change of the block reward from 50 BTC to 25 BTC will affect the money supply.  Is it as simple as halving inflation (i.e. the number of coins created over the next year is half that of the previous year)?  Are blocks easier to unlock now as a result?

The difficulty of blocks is dynamic and depends only on the network hashrate. The network always adjusts itself with the target of 6 blocks found per hour. The block reward halving will force some miners to quit, thus lowering the difficulty in the long run. However asics are supposed to come out soon which will increase difficulty by almost the same factor as when cpu mining got replaced with gpu mining.

Thanks - so the amount of BTC going in to the money supply does in fact get cut in half immediately?

[Deafboy]

yes

[BkkCoins]

I know for me my profit margin on mining is less than 50% so I expect to be shutting down in about two weeks, unless the bitcoin price adjusts upwards. I don't know about others here and many people believe the reward halving is already priced in. If that's the case then I'll be out even before the ASICs hit the market. I haven't deicded if I'll re-invest in ASICs after and probably won't decide until I see where everything ends up when GPUs are history.

I've typically sold my mined coins monthly but for now I'm waiting to see how the price moves. Either way I won't be mining when the market price is below my electricity costs. I'm fully expecting this to be the end for me. Not bad overall - I mined profitably for about 16 months on my 3x5830 rig.

[Bitcoin Oz]

If ASIC doesnt arrive and its unprofitable for GPU mining the whole network could actually get weaker if GPU miners quit enmasse.

[Frequency]

If ASIC doesnt arrive and its unprofitable for GPU mining the whole network could actually get weaker if GPU miners quit enmasse.

Well thats were the difficulty comes in, if that drops the mining margins will get intrested again and the less miners will get more shares with there remaining rigs so i doubt that the network will get weaker do to what u are saying..

The smaller miners maybe yes.. but the farms will be profitabel..untill ASIC arrive...

[FrogBBQ]

Whatever limited drop in difficulty may occur, it will vanish as soon as the first ASIC rigs are delivered. In the end, if ASIC would be far away on the horizon, most would already have switched to FPGA rigs in order to remain profitable with the block reward halving. I am actually surprised that overall, few big time GPU miners did not do a full transition to FPGA months ago in order to reduce their electricity drain.

[Frequency]

Whatever limited drop in difficulty may occur, it will vanish as soon as the first ASIC rigs are delivered. In the end, if ASIC would be far away on the horizon, most would already have switched to FPGA rigs in order to remain profitable with the block reward halving. I am actually surprised that overall, few big time GPU miners did not do a full transition to FPGA months ago in order to reduce their electricity drain.

I think in my case it depends on how much u invested in GPU,s and before u ROI those again invest in FPGA,s just for the electr. cost didn,t make sense to my situation because the gpu farm was steady making BTC month in month out and mining for the long run nowing that the BTC become more wanted in the coming years ..you could say i skiped the FPGA ,s and i am glad i did they out runned in a very fast tempo when ASIC hit the net..and gpu,s are much easier to resell if necessary but i will transit to an ASIC rig but only when i see ASICs doing 60gh@60watts in the wild untill then i just keep mining oldschool...and i think more miners think this way..

[FrogBBQ]

You will not be mining much longer then.

Mining for BTC is based only on the value of BTC versus other currencies (e.g., USD, EU, Y...). All the rest is irrelevant.

As for your argument to switch to ASIC, it makes no sense if you are currently running an electricity guzzling GPU rig with a meager GH/s/W.

[Cablez]

Less than a difficulty change to go. 1467

[BkkCoins]

Less than a difficulty change to go. 1467

Is that right? According to bitcoincharts.com the next chg is in 1110 blocks. So the next one would be the last before halving. I've been assuming that the block halving coincides with a difficulty change. Maybe not?

[payb.tc]

Is it as simple as halving inflation (i.e. the number of coins created over the next year is half that of the previous year)?  Are blocks easier to unlock now as a result?

it's only that simple if you think the world runs on simple interest.

however it runs on compound interest and percentages... inflation will not be half the previous year, but much less.

eg.
year 0: 24 btc exist
year 1: 12 btc produced <- inflation was 50%
year 2: 6 btc produced <- inflation was 17%
year 3: 3 btc produced <- inflation was 7%

[Graet]

Less than a difficulty change to go. 1467

Is that right? According to bitcoincharts.com the next chg is in 1110 blocks. So the next one would be the last before halving. I've been assuming that the block halving coincides with a difficulty change. Maybe not?

yes if you look at it as less than 2016 blocks to go
there is however a difficulty change due in 1105blocks - so yeah last before halving
and halving does not coincide with a diff change - apparently it was designed like that

[payb.tc]

Is that right? According to bitcoincharts.com the next chg is in 1110 blocks. So the next one would be the last before halving. I've been assuming that the block halving coincides with a difficulty change. Maybe not?

i had previously assumed that too. it was only when i put up the clock that i discovered otherwise.

210000 doesn't divide well by 2016

[Cablez]

yes if you look at it as less than 2016 blocks to go

Yeah sorry, it kind of came out wrong. Yes there is still another difficulty change before halving and yes it will happen before the one after that as the others have stated.

[cabin]

You will not be mining much longer then.

Mining for BTC is based only on the value of BTC versus other currencies (e.g., USD, EU, Y...). All the rest is irrelevant.

As for your argument to switch to ASIC, it makes no sense if you are currently running an electricity guzzling GPU rig with a meager GH/s/W.

well your cost of electricity and local climate, and your future expectation of price also come into play so I wouldn't current price is the only thing you should worry about. Personally I'm much more interested in what the price will be a year from now than what it is today. Good luck guessing that though.

[Liquid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA1FP9zloow