No Mining = End of Bitcoin?

[olarsson]

When all the 21M coins have been mined. Miners will make their money from transaction fees, so they still need those mining machines anyhow.

If transaction fees are to high people will stop using bitcoins.

If earnings are to low people will not mine.

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[notlist3d]

When all the 21M coins have been mined. Miners will make their money from transaction fees, so they still need those mining machines anyhow.

If transaction fees are to high people will stop using bitcoins.

If earnings are to low people will not mine.

But the goal would not to have transaction fees so high they stop people from using the network.   It's hard to speculate so far in future, but considering people can set how much transaction fee is on many wallets.... I don't see this to high happening.

On mining just to hard to speculate that far in advance.

[philipma1957]

I am mining as long as there is a block chain so the thread is pretty much a waste of time.

As no mining won't happen.

Many will mine if diff drops down to 1 vs current number of 178 soon to be 190.

the hope would be coins bounce back.  I can't see no mining being the end of bitcoin as people will mine no matter what as long as someone is running blockchain servers to point to.

I can waste 100 a month in power for zero return for as long as I want.  on the hope of bounce back.  many can do this.

[digaran]

Miner or no miner easy or difficult, nothing matters really in bitcoin world as long as there are gold and services are provided for bitcoin in return.
As more and more dollars/euros/gold/metals/anything that can be exchanged worldwide and has value worldwide are exchanged for bitcoin
There will always be bitcoin.
And for profit, I can't see any reason not to profit from mining. EVER.

[jonnybravo0311]

To answer the OP's purely speculative question: yes, if all mining were to cease, BTC would be dead in the water.  You could create as many transactions as you wanted, but since nobody was mining them, they would never be included in blocks and hence, never confirmed.

Transaction fees?  Isn't that counter intuitive?  One of the big selling points of Bitcoin is that you can send BTC anywhere around the world for free.  Charging transaction fees is becoming another Western Union or Paypal.

No, one of the big selling points is that you can send BTC anywhere in the world very quickly, with very little cost to you.

Real world example.  I just sent nearly 10BTC to someone in another country in three separate transactions.  It cost me a grand total of $0.14 to do so.  Good luck doing that with Western Union, PayPal, or any other money transfer service.

[navigatrix]

I am mining as long as there is a block chain so the thread is pretty much a waste of time.

As no mining won't happen.

Many will mine if diff drops down to 1 vs current number of 178 soon to be 190.

the hope would be coins bounce back.  I can't see no mining being the end of bitcoin as people will mine no matter what as long as someone is running blockchain servers to point to.

I can waste 100 a month in power for zero return for as long as I want.  on the hope of bounce back.  many can do this.

I mine for a living right now and am expanding in prep for halving. I'm also prepared to relocate to where there's cheap power -- most people would for a good job, so why not? I think lots of miners have not planned far in advance and will (at least temporarily) shut down. This should moderate the increase in diff, even as the big players ramp up. Even with talk of Bitfury mining with their own efficient chips, etc., we haven't seen a double-digit % increase in difficulty since Feb.

And I agree with philipma1957 -- Part of this is believing in BTC and speculating on the value over the next few years. I want more BTC now, even if I have to run some miners at a loss.
Besides,  I like getting paid every day 

[Brob12321]

I think people will always mine, because think about it logically if people shut down their miners then the people that are left will mine at a lower difficulty which would make them more money, thus they would keep mining.  Their will always be people mining.

[BTC-Joe]

To answer the OP's purely speculative question: yes, if all mining were to cease, BTC would be dead in the water.  You could create as many transactions as you wanted, but since nobody was mining them, they would never be included in blocks and hence, never confirmed.

Did the OP post a speculative question about mining in a subforum entitled "mining speculation"? What next, an offer to sell something in the "goods for sale" forum? Insanity.

To the OP's question:

The simple answer is yes. If "mining" ceased then the entire public ledger idea that bitcoin is built upon falls apart. No mining or insufficient mining would be equally problematic because there wouldn't be any network upon which transactions could take place and be verified.

Transaction fees should have been the primary source of revenue for all miners from day one, with coin rewards being an occasional bonus. As it is now the future of bitcoin is on thin ice at best, because the incentive to mine is declining exponentially while the rate of bitcoin rewards remains fixed.

There are some pretty big holes in the entire bitcoin idea, specifically the block chain itself. The idea of difficulty adjusting to ensure that the rate of new blocks being discovered pans out over a specified period of time is a self-defeating concept. It creates inefficiency and wastes electricity and/or computational resources for no benefit, with the sole intention of throttling the rate of new coins being discovered.

Whether all 21M bitcoins were discovered now or some time in the future is irrelevant, it's basically set up like a ponzi scam, where the "miners" who got in when bitcoin started were able to walk away with 2-5 coins a day and today most don't even get 1 per month.

The cost of mining at a rate quick enough to generate any meaningful bitcoins will evaporate. The tech level of developing super-efficient asic processors will require a lot of capital, and therefore will be something only a wealthy entity can undertake. You'll end up with one or two companies/groups that provide all of the hash power for the entire block chain...in fact it's mostly there now. That is an unfavorable dynamic that makes bitcoin very vulnerable to multi-spending and other types of manipulation if the "consensus" is simply one entity.

Transaction fees depend on transaction volume, and the daily total transaction volume of the bitcoin network doesn't really offer a whole lot when it would need to be divided up among hundreds of thousands of miners.

[philipma1957]

To answer the OP's purely speculative question: yes, if all mining were to cease, BTC would be dead in the water.  You could create as many transactions as you wanted, but since nobody was mining them, they would never be included in blocks and hence, never confirmed.

Did the OP post a speculative question about mining in a subforum entitled "mining speculation"? What next, an offer to sell something in the "goods for sale" forum? Insanity.

To the OP's question:

The simple answer is yes. If "mining" ceased then the entire public ledger idea that bitcoin is built upon falls apart. No mining or insufficient mining would be equally problematic because there wouldn't be any network upon which transactions could take place and be verified.

Transaction fees should have been the primary source of revenue for all miners from day one, with coin rewards being an occasional bonus. As it is now the future of bitcoin is on thin ice at best, because the incentive to mine is declining exponentially while the rate of bitcoin rewards remains fixed.

There are some pretty big holes in the entire bitcoin idea, specifically the block chain itself. The idea of difficulty adjusting to ensure that the rate of new blocks being discovered pans out over a specified period of time is a self-defeating concept. It creates inefficiency and wastes electricity and/or computational resources for no benefit, with the sole intention of throttling the rate of new coins being discovered.

Whether all 21M bitcoins were discovered now or some time in the future is irrelevant, it's basically set up like a ponzi scam, where the "miners" who got in when bitcoin started were able to walk away with 2-5 coins a day and today most don't even get 1 per month.

The cost of mining at a rate quick enough to generate any meaningful bitcoins will evaporate. The tech level of developing super-efficient asic processors will require a lot of capital, and therefore will be something only a wealthy entity can undertake. You'll end up with one or two companies/groups that provide all of the hash power for the entire block chain...in fact it's mostly there now. That is an unfavorable dynamic that makes bitcoin very vulnerable to multi-spending and other types of manipulation if the "consensus" is simply one entity.

Transaction fees depend on transaction volume, and the daily total transaction volume of the bitcoin network doesn't really offer a whole lot when it would need to be divided up among hundreds of thousands of miners.

ETH coins have an interesting take on attacking bitcoin's weaknesses.
Never let asics mine the coins.
Keep the coin in gpu.
There are multiple uses for a gpu besides mining. 
There are no uses for an ASIC mining Bitcoin.

Why ASIC builders were greedy and design to favor low power cost self mining..

If they built them as space heaters millions of units so that  anyone that needed a space heater would have one. So now They are  in a bind.
 I can see a nice crash coming.
Meanwhile ETH is smoking.
Why a gpu has multiple uses.


Both Amd and Nvidia have a financial incentive to buying ETH as a form of advertisement.

So does Intel.

Many gamers buy a bigger card and mine while they sleep.

[jacobmayes94]

To be fair, I don't see a problem with ASICs for three reasons.

1. Network security can be greatly increased by them.
2. An ASIC can be more stable than leaving a GPU on. I can attest to this; always find myself having to tend to my GPU farms although the code may not be refined as much.
3. Power consumption for the same security is lower.

However, there is the disadvantage where ASIC manufacturers are ahead of the game when it comes to mining at a lower difficulty. But what is the problem? They put the effort, time and dedication to making the product, they will therefore get the best returns, although I disagree whole heartedly with this whole pre-order to cover the ASIC cost then shaft the customers by mining with them themselves.


And for someone who mentioned the transactions being free, when all coins have been minted, and even before then, someone has to cover the miner's cost of securing the network and moving transactions along. The idea is TX fees slowly replace the block reward. Giving miners an incentive to keep mining, and to cover their costs.

[Appuned]

To be fair, I don't see a problem with ASICs for three reasons.

1. Network security can be greatly increased by them.
2. An ASIC can be more stable than leaving a GPU on. I can attest to this; always find myself having to tend to my GPU farms although the code may not be refined as much.
3. Power consumption for the same security is lower.

However, there is the disadvantage where ASIC manufacturers are ahead of the game when it comes to mining at a lower difficulty. But what is the problem? They put the effort, time and dedication to making the product, they will therefore get the best returns, although I disagree whole heartedly with this whole pre-order to cover the ASIC cost then shaft the customers by mining with them themselves.


And for someone who mentioned the transactions being free, when all coins have been minted, and even before then, someone has to cover the miner's cost of securing the network and moving transactions along. The idea is TX fees slowly replace the block reward. Giving miners an incentive to keep mining, and to cover their costs.

For individual graphics cards, they might not be reliable. But for the graphics cards as whole, they are reliable enough to secure the network.

[philipma1957]

asics have an issue  look at this chart

the owner of those asics added 1000ph   in under 2 hours to the network.

this makes asics not good because too many are in the hands of ?  bitmaintech most likely

gpus would not be as controlled by one company as asics are.

1200 ph  to 2200 ph to 1300 ph   see below:





a clear demo of too much hash power in one set of hands.

[ZedZedNova]

Whether all 21M bitcoins were discovered now or some time in the future is irrelevant, it's basically set up like a ponzi scam, where the "miners" who got in when bitcoin started were able to walk away with 2-5 coins a day and today most don't even get 1 per month.

No, I don't think so. This is the whole idea of risk/reward. Take a big risk, get a big reward. Take a small risk, get a small reward. Think about IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. Each one of those companies took big risks. Each one of those companies was trying out new things that didn't have a proven track record, and they figured out how to make the ideas work and have been rewarded handsomely. The world is also littered with countless failures. People who had ideas that seemed great at the time, but never really caught on for whatever reason.

In the early days Bitcoin was essentially worthless so all the early adopters were taking a big risk that maybe Bitcoin would become widely adopted and rise in value. Fast forward to today, and one Bitcoin is trading for approximately €440, approximately $490, approximately ¥54,600, or approximately £335, and with sufficient volume and on a sufficient number of exchanges around the world that using Bitcoin to transfer value between two entities is relatively easy.

Today falls into the small risk/small reward zone. If you are getting into Bitcoin now, you already know that Bitcoin is valued, so where is the risk? The biggest known risk is getting scammed by someone you don't know, just like using any "regular" currency. Anyone with access to sufficient compute resources and the internet can set up a wallet, fund it, and start using Bitcoin.

Those early adopters took a flying leap off a cliff on the possibility that this new thing called Bitcoin might gain traction in the future. They didn't really know, but hey, they were willing to try. As Bitcoin evolved to have significant value, the adopters figured out better and better ways to hash the blockchain to collect the reward. The reward worked brilliantly. The reward drove development of new miners, software, and global scale-out. Now, with the reduction in the reward payout, we are at a stage where electricity cost is king, and that is driving the development of even more efficient hardware.

If you'd like another analogy, think about gold mining. It's always been labor intensive, but there was a  time where anyone strong enough to wield a pick and shovel and willing to take a risk, could stake a claim and mine for the precious metal. Fast forward to today and look at how the majority of gold is produced. Big huge companies with tremendous amounts of capital deploying tremendously expensive equipment to extract tiny amounts of the precious metal from the ground.

That's sort of where we are today with Bitcoin. The big mining companies/ASIC producers have the capital to deploy the hash rate to gather the lions share of the rewards, but there are still "subsistence miners" and "hobby miners" around the world performing the "hard labor" to find gold flakes or Bitcoin blocks. Why? Because there is still value in doing that. Can they compete with the big guys? No, but they do it anyway for one reason or another.

Bitcoin is no Ponzi scam. Bitcoin is a store of value, like gold is a store of value. Yes, gold has other uses beyond a store of value, but one could also argue that Bitcoin does, too.

Cheers,

- zed

[ZedZedNova]

asics have an issue  look at this chart

the owner of those asics added 1000ph   in under 2 hours to the network.

this makes asics not good because too many are in the hands of ?  bitmaintech most likely

gpus would not be as controlled by one company as asics are.

1200 ph  to 2200 ph to 1300 ph   see below:





a clear demo of too much hash power in one set of hands.

One would hope that the owner of all that hashing power is sensible and does not want to bring down Bitcoin, but then again maybe that's the intent...

Cheers,

- zed

[mindrust]

Yeah. That's one of the  dead ends with bitcoin. Remember the last summer while the price was 200$? Ask this to yourself, would you mine bitcoin if the price was 200$ and going around 200$ for more than a year? The answer is probably no. But somehow, price didn't stay at 200$ and jumped to 400$+ in  such a small timeframe. I don't know why, maybe people thought they were cheap and bought it or maybe satoshi bought his own coins to manipulate the price. As a result mining today is profitable for whose with cheap or free electricy, and because of that miners still exist. If mining stops, no more bitcoin.

[notlist3d]

Yeah. That's one of the  dead ends with bitcoin. Remember the last summer while the price was 200$? Ask this to yourself, would you mine bitcoin if the price was 200$ and going around 200$ for more than a year? The answer is probably no. But somehow, price didn't stay at 200$ and jumped to 400$+ in  such a small timeframe. I don't know why, maybe people thought they were cheap and bought it or maybe satoshi bought his own coins to manipulate the price. As a result mining today is profitable for whose with cheap or free electricy, and because of that miners still exist. If mining stops, no more bitcoin.

I mined profitably last summer it was not as tough as this summer on margins with profit.  So I think your point about mining last summer is a little off.  I do agree if costs equal value or less chances are fewer mine.  Which will be interesting at having.

Also I think your point about Satoshi manipulating is not even in realm of being realistic.   I think you are looking at pretty far fetched ideas.

[elokk]

Yes, there is no bitcoin without mining because it is a "Proof of work" chain.

However, as long as there are inefficiencies in the market, I doubt mining will stop because people do need bitcoin so there is money to be made. This may be hard to grasp by many here because many here are hobbyist or speculators. I am with Phil, as a hobbyist, I will continue to mine regardless of price. Speculators looking to get rich quick will turn off their miners. Large mines such as Bitfury most likely will not, they plan for all sorts of scenarios.

As block rewards decrease, the fee market will increase to compensate miners. Yes that will make it more expensive to use bitcoin but keep in mind that Lightning network and other "off-chain" solutions will emerge to meet demand for smaller transactions. Bitcoin has utility that serves needs in the market that are otherwise not met so as long as there is this demand, bitcoin and mining will exist. A lot of fear mongering goes on about bitcoin failing but mind you it is code that will adapt to survive. Ultimately the market will determine the direction of bitcoin. A store of value and settlement layer do seem likely imo.

Also mining is not wasteful of energy. Mines such as Bitfury are becoming "zero carbon". As technology advances and carbon regulations become more stringent, mining will adapt. Now, if bitcoin was a creature of the state I would highly doubt its resilience but being it is open source it should survive in some form as there is utility.

I am not claiming to be an expert, just my opinion

[ZedZedNova]

This may be hard to grasp by many here because many here are hobbyist or speculators. I am with Phil, as a hobbyist, I will continue to mine regardless of price.

That's where I am now. Bitcoin mining is a hobby so I can learn more about blockchain. I like the idea of sidehack's Compac stick miners, and have one happily mining away at ~18 GH/s and earning between 750 and 1500 satoshis per day. In today's mining environment it will not ROI, but maybe it will sometime down the road. I'd also be interested in a 500 watt home miner built with the latest generation of ASICs if one gets built, preferably by someone here.

Cheers,

- zed

[Newcoins2020]

This may be hard to grasp by many here because many here are hobbyist or speculators. I am with Phil, as a hobbyist, I will continue to mine regardless of price.

That's where I am now. Bitcoin mining is a hobby so I can learn more about blockchain. I like the idea of sidehack's Compac stick miners, and have one happily mining away at ~18 GH/s and earning between 750 and 1500 satoshis per day. In today's mining environment it will not ROI, but maybe it will sometime down the road. I'd also be interested in a 500 watt home miner built with the latest generation of ASICs if one gets built, preferably by someone here.

Cheers,

- zed

The next step from USB mining would be either an Antminer S3 but a Antminer S5 is not very expensive either. Do note that you will not ROI but it's nice to play with a bigger Asic.

[notlist3d]

This may be hard to grasp by many here because many here are hobbyist or speculators. I am with Phil, as a hobbyist, I will continue to mine regardless of price.

That's where I am now. Bitcoin mining is a hobby so I can learn more about blockchain. I like the idea of sidehack's Compac stick miners, and have one happily mining away at ~18 GH/s and earning between 750 and 1500 satoshis per day. In today's mining environment it will not ROI, but maybe it will sometime down the road. I'd also be interested in a 500 watt home miner built with the latest generation of ASICs if one gets built, preferably by someone here.

Cheers,

- zed

The next step from USB mining would be either an Antminer S3 but a Antminer S5 is not very expensive either. Do note that you will not ROI but it's nice to play with a bigger Asic.

The S3 you can underclock and make it pretty quiet, but it's quiet dated at this point.  The S5 I kinda think of as hot and loud.   But going to either from a single compac is a pretty big jump.

But he also mentions 500 watt with latest generation, so S7-LN might be closest thing to what hes wanting.  But we don't know a ton about it yet.