Halving = Less Miners = Slower Transactions

[Bitcoinstalker.com]

There's no reason bitcoin transaction would be slower just because there's less miners as long as the big pool/miners still use hardware and internet which are strong enough to manage bitcoin network.

It takes time for the difficulty to adjust. See bold.

When miners go offline, hashrate goes down, blocks will take longer to solve, and transactions take longer to confirm. This will be compensated for at the next difficulty adjustment, which will happen after 2016 blocks are solved. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty

If you want the boring stuff, some more details:
1. Miners don't have to include your transaction, so if you didn't include a high enough tx fee, or they simply don't feel like it, your tx won't be included in the next solved block.
2. Difficulty is not adjusted continuously, but only once every 2016 blocks. If enough miners go offline at once, the difficulty doesn't immediately go down. see my previous post.

TL:DR: if half the hashpower goes offline, it would take ~20, instead of ~10 minutes, to solve a block.
At that rate, the next difficulty adjustment will happen in (20 * 2016) = 40320 minutes, or 672 hours, or 28 days.
It's unlikely that half of the miners will go offline tho, but, if everyone is mining at the edge of profitability, it's possible that *more* than half would. Unlikely, but possible.

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[cr1776]

Yes, there was a lot of FUD leading up to November 2012. Pretty much like now %-wise, and probably like spring of 2020 will be.  Now that we are into the next reward era (as of seconds ago), we'll see what happens.

The advantage now is that we're nearing the end of the asic order of magnitude increases like there have been for nearly 4 years and will be back to growth in line with user growth and regular silicon improvements in the next year or so which should help to let more people mine and decrease consolidation.

A question to the older members here would be to ask if there was this much worry and fud in the last halving? Surely back then miners where in the same situation that if we never got a price rise then it would become unprofitable to continue to mine and miners would drop out left right and centre. yet we are at another block halving and miners are still doing their thing.

[Laosai]

Yes, there was a lot of FUD leading up to November 2012. Pretty much like now %-wise, and probably like spring of 2020 will be.  Now that we are into the next 12.5 BTC era, we'll see what happens.

The advantage now is that we're nearing the end of the asic order of magnitude increases like there have been for nearly 4 years and will be back to growth in line with user growth and regular silicon improvements in the next year or so which should help to let more people mine and decrease consolidation.

I hope so.
Yeah btc sudden rise is cool like hell.
But the main problem is that instability is NOT a good thing for a currency.
BTC assets are cool but the high volatility isn't attractive...

[CoinBreader]

Clearly another moron.  Even if we only have two miners, blocks go every 10 minutes.
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Im living for the moment that we will go back to USB miners ^^ and the payout will be like faucet!  or maybe not (dead till then xD )

[1Referee]

Yes, there was a lot of FUD leading up to November 2012. Pretty much like now %-wise, and probably like spring of 2020 will be.  Now that we are into the next 12.5 BTC era, we'll see what happens.

The advantage now is that we're nearing the end of the asic order of magnitude increases like there have been for nearly 4 years and will be back to growth in line with user growth and regular silicon improvements in the next year or so which should help to let more people mine and decrease consolidation.

I hope so.
Yeah btc sudden rise is cool like hell.
But the main problem is that instability is NOT a good thing for a currency.
BTC assets are cool but the high volatility isn't attractive...

Volatility is the main thing traders are looking for. So in fact, volatility is attractive. Without this much volatility I am quite sure that people wouldn't be as interested in investing their money into Bitcoin as they have been so far. It allows the market to have a healthy influx of incomming fresh money.

[kryptqnick]

Why would miners invest so much into electricity for half the reward? I see this ending badly

I think they can't really do the math or hope that some day btc will increase and they'll have a lot more money than they spend on electricity now.

[Soros Shorts]

Why would miners invest so much into electricity for half the reward? I see this ending badly

I think they can't really do the math or hope that some day btc will increase and they'll have a lot more money than they spend on electricity now.

Even after the block halving, the current AntMiner S9's are making more BTC than the electricity they use even in the areas with more expensive electric rates. There is no reason why people who already have bought S9's are going to shut down any time soon.

And if you look at the network hashrate since the halving it has not dropped one bit. http://bitcoin.sipa.be/

[Betwrong]

If there are less miners, difficulty decreases and thus increasing profit. It's an endless cycle.

Exactly. If only a few miners left they will be rewarded big so no reason for them to leave the game. And that's the beauty of it, it can't be stopped.

[iv4n]

I didn't notice that transactions are slower, with me everything is better then ever. Why people always imagine worse thing that can happen?
Less miners means that miners that stay will make more money. I believe everything will be ok, just let the time pass. Situation is good now, but I think we will see progress in next few months and some little price increase.

[Divinespark]

Well, the hash rate has remained fairly stable. The data is mixed at this point. You may be proven right eventually but not clearcut imho.
https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate

[ObscureBean]

Sure their profits have been cut in half but the price increase we've experienced over the past few weeks would've made the halving a little easier to swallow. And if they are able to hold out for long enough, it's likely they'll see the price gradually go up. The halving would've been a serious issue if we were still hovering between 200 - 300 USD.

[Laosai]

Why would miners invest so much into electricity for half the reward? I see this ending badly

Miners wouldn't invest so much...

The main point is that Difficulty is here to balance everything. If less mining power, less difficulty, hence easier tomine...

[pandalion98]

Why would miners invest so much into electricity for half the reward? I see this ending badly

Absolutely not. That's how Bitcoin is designed. It tries to space out the block to once every roughly 10 minutes.

If there are less miners, difficulty would simply go down. It won't slow down anything, except for the last high-difficulty block. Blocks would still be generated on-schedule.

[serjent05]

Why would miners invest so much into electricity for half the reward? I see this ending badly

Absolutely not. That's how Bitcoin is designed. It tries to space out the block to once every roughly 10 minutes.

If there are less miners, difficulty would simply go down. It won't slow down anything, except for the last high-difficulty block. Blocks would still be generated on-schedule.

First i don't think the halving will end badly, as a matter of fact there is one large company who plan  to add another 10 pentahash of mining power.  Second, if miners is about to stop or let half of them, it is true that the time to solve the  next block for the current difficulty will be doubled but the next block will certainly adjust to the current number of miners making the block generation  normal. So basically the  hiccup for a sudden decrease in  mining power will be temporary.