Death to the mercenary miners!

[billyjoeallen]

Miners who sell immediately, injecting excess liquidity and driving the price down are in a process of slow motion suicide and I say it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of mercenaries.  Those evil hoarders who mined, saved, and believed in the project made a substantial profit and I say good for them.

I didn't buy GPUs. I bought coins. My coins don't become obsolete. My coins don't immediately plummet in value when used. My coins take up no space. They don't generate heat or make noise. My coins don't require electricity, so I can hold them for no cost. Your mining rigs will lose you money if the price keeps dropping.

I didn't quit my day job. I can afford to wait. Time is on my side, but not on yours.  You'r only goal was to extract profits from speculators like me. Now, your future looks bleak while I see many buying opportunities ahead for myself.

Eventually, mercenary miners will drop out when the cost of generating coins exceeds the price they can get for them. Then they will stop their rigs and the only miners left will be true believers who don't sell. then the price will start to rise and continue to rise until the mercenaries jump back in.  Then the price will start falling and the whole cycle will repeat until new software and infrastructure render our coins so valuable that even the mercenaries can stay with no ill effects.  BUT, if they go broke in the mean time, good riddance.

[FlipPro]

Miners who sell immediately, injecting excess liquidity and driving the price down are in a process of slow motion suicide and I say it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of mercenaries.  Those evil hoarders who mined, saved, and believed in the project made a substantial profit and I say good for them.

I didn't buy GPUs. I bought coins. My coins don't become obsolete. My coins don't immediately plummet in value when used. My coins take up no space. They don't generate heat or make noise. My coins don't require electricity, so I can hold them for no cost. Your mining rigs will lose you money if the price keeps dropping.

I didn't quit my day job. I can afford to wait. Time is on my side, but not on yours.  You'r only goal was to extract profits from speculators like me. Now, your future looks bleak while I see many buying opportunities ahead for myself.

Eventually, mercenary miners will drop out when the cost of generating coins exceeds the price they can get for them. Then they will stop their rigs and the only miners left will be true believers who don't sell. then the price will start to rise and continue to rise until the mercenaries jump back in.  Then the price will start falling and the whole cycle will repeat until new software and infrastructure render our coins so valuable that even the mercenaries can stay with no ill effects.  BUT, if they go broke in the mean time, good riddance.

The top miners have alot of USD to you know  . They will be there right with you when the buying frenzy comes...

[myhoho]

It's not that simple. Like good and evil. All your bitcoins used to consume some electricity and so on... Miners may sell their equipment and most probably  average miner made much more money than average trader.
It's all about great game of chess. There are different figures, but we have the same opposition, same enemy .

[gnaget]

Miners must sell regularly because they have expenses in the form of electricity and new equipment to purchase.  It isn't wise to sell all BTC though, as next year the reward for block generation will drop to 25, which means a lot less BTC will be introduced into the market.  I expect the price to jump really quick when that happens.

[DrKennethNoisewater]

Mining is a crucial part of the equation, so whether someone panics and sells their mining rig before recouping the costs or panic sells their 1000 BTC at $10, only to watch it bounce right back to $15.......its simply a bad decision.

There's room for miners and speculators but doing either successfully is never easy.

Just like in trading the US equity markets, If you are under the gun to make money (trading or mining) then your are doomed for failure most of the time.

Mine some coins, buy some coins, sit back and watch the show.......................

Weeeeeee

DKN

[arnoldrimmer]

How is the Price driven down can someone explain it to me?

[BitcoinHoarder]

Miners must sell regularly because they have expenses in the form of electricity and new equipment to purchase.

This is just not true at all.  I run a large mining operating and I have never sold a single coin.  I pay for my electricity through other sources of income (and I suspect many other do also).  My point being that many miners use mining as a way to get in without using the exchanges.  People miss this point *all the time*.  Mining costs a lot of money, but so does buying it on the exchange (it takes US dollars to buy the bitcoins).  Mining is an easy way to use USD to buy Bitcoins.  I'm not buying them in the traditional sense (purchasing them on an exchange, like mtgox), but I am buying them in terms of computer parts that generate bitcoins.

[Serge]

It could be that the rest of July may be a good buying opportunity   btc and used hardware wise.  All who wanted to get a hold of BTC at lower rates - this is your time now.

[arnoldrimmer]

How is the Price driven down can someone explain it to me?

bumb

[enmaku]

When I entered the bitcoinverse I looked things over and saw two options: mine or speculate.

Now I've got a fair economic background/education and I probably could have done pretty well for myself as a speculator, but my technical side is MUCH stronger so I went with the position that better suited my skills. I sell some of my coins, I hold others and I even do a bit of speculative trading with a few. After amortized cost of hardware and electricity, I've paid under $5 for each BTC mined, which is a pretty good bargain compared even to the currently low/stagnant market prices.

Mining is nothing more than a method for the more technical among us to obtain BTC at a fraction of market value and if more people looked at it in this light rather than as an effortless source of income, the markets would probably be much better off.

[tvbcof]

When I entered the bitcoinverse I looked things over and saw two options: mine or speculate.

Now I've got a fair economic background/education and I probably could have done pretty well for myself as a speculator, but my technical side is MUCH stronger so I went with the position that better suited my skills. I sell some of my coins, I hold others and I even do a bit of speculative trading with a few. After amortized cost of hardware and electricity, I've paid under $5 for each BTC mined, which is a pretty good bargain compared even to the currently low/stagnant market prices.

Mining is nothing more than a method for the more technical among us to obtain BTC at a fraction of market value and if more people looked at it in this light rather than as an effortless source of income, the markets would probably be much better off.

When I decided I wanted some exposure to bitcoin it seemed to me that an efficient mining setup would exceed the amount of $$$ I wanted to have in play in the near future.  Also, that there were significant risks in terms of overall mining participation.  For that reason, I choose to simply 'speculate'.

I cannot begrudge any miner for any liquidation strategy they may choose...they did the work and carry the water to make the system sound at this point so what they do with their earnings is not my business.  Indeed, I may well continue to accumulate so any miners who 'mis-manage' their liquidations and cause price dips on the exchanges are doing me a big favor.  Similar to the (purported) paper shorts in the PM markets over the years...if they have the half the impact on price that many PM-bugs assert, I owe them a giant debt of gratitude.  (Though I am sure I would feel differently if/when I wish to be a seller

If miner liquidations are a major reason for the decline in BTC value and subsequent loss of confidence by otherwise interested participants, that would be unfortunate.  But I actually doubt that this is a large factor though I have nothing more than a hunch to back this up.

[Lupus_Yonderboy]

Miners who sell immediately, injecting excess liquidity and driving the price down are in a process of slow motion suicide and I say it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of mercenaries. 

That's a nice fantasy, but the volume of trading on Mt.Gox for the last week alone has been significantly higher than all the bitcoins mined for the entire last month.

What most people aren't realizing is that the huge sell orders are not coming from miners, well not any that started after March, anyway. It's the people who have tens of thousands of bitcoins that are putting up the 'sell' walls you see on the charts. Simply put, some early adopters are slowly cashing out. Makes one wonder about the actual long term viability of the project.

[FlipPro]

Miners who sell immediately, injecting excess liquidity and driving the price down are in a process of slow motion suicide and I say it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of mercenaries. 

That's a nice fantasy, but the volume of trading on Mt.Gox for the last week alone has been significantly higher than all the bitcoins mined for the entire last month.

What most people aren't realizing is that the huge sell orders are not coming from miners, well not any that started after March, anyway. It's the people who have tens of thousands of bitcoins that are putting up the 'sell' walls you see on the charts. Simply put, some early adopters are slowly cashing out. Makes one wonder about the actual long term viability of the project.

Some early adopters are already planning on heavily investing right back into the community...

[billyjoeallen]

How is the Price driven down can someone explain it to me?

by increasing supply, obviously.

[haploid23]

there's also the factor of newly mined coins that holds some kind of value for some people. when you mine, then you know these virgin coins has never been touched by anyone else  , whereas if you only buy coins, you know for sure it has already been "used". like mentioned before in this thread, mining is not always about selling right away for a profit. it's about the value of newly minted coins, which pure traders will never see.

[billyjoeallen]

Miners who sell immediately, injecting excess liquidity and driving the price down are in a process of slow motion suicide and I say it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of mercenaries. 

That's a nice fantasy, but the volume of trading on Mt.Gox for the last week alone has been significantly higher than all the bitcoins mined for the entire last month.

No, of course not, you genius. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the free trades and the inevitable high frequency churn it facilitates, could it?   Couldn't possibly be the same coins traded over and over, right? It must pain you to know that if you were twice as smart, you'd still be stupid.

[kokojie]

Miners must sell regularly because they have expenses in the form of electricity and new equipment to purchase.  It isn't wise to sell all BTC though, as next year the reward for block generation will drop to 25, which means a lot less BTC will be introduced into the market.  I expect the price to jump really quick when that happens.

Not next year, it's 2013

[dooglus]

Not next year, it's 2013

We're currently on block 136938.
Block reward halves after block 210000.
New blocks happen about once every 10 minutes.

Code:

>>> time.ctime(time.time() + (210000 - 136938)*60*10)
'Thu Dec  6 21:12:24 2012'

At that rate, we can expect the first halving in December 2012.

This makes sense because the difficulty lags behind the network speed, and so blocks have been generated a little more quickly than every 10 minutes, meaning the reward will halve to 25 BTC in a little less than 4 years from 9-Jan-2009 (the date block 1 was found).

Code:

>>> (time.time() - time.mktime((2009,1,9,02,54,25,0,0,0))) / 136938 / 60
9.678566721912704

The average time between blocks so far has been 9.7 minutes, not 10 minutes.

[error]

there's also the factor of newly mined coins that holds some kind of value for some people. when you mine, then you know these virgin coins has never been touched by anyone else  , whereas if you only buy coins, you know for sure it has already been "used". like mentioned before in this thread, mining is not always about selling right away for a profit. it's about the value of newly minted coins, which pure traders will never see.

For many of the purposes that generated coins would be valuable, coins purchased from a large exchange work just as well, or perhaps even better.

[dooglus]

And of course, if the blocks continue to be found more frequently than every 10 minutes, that halving will be brought even further forward.  Here's the calculation if the average block finding rate continues:

Code:

>>> block=136943; time.ctime(time.time() + (210000 - block)*60*((time.time() - time.mktime((2009,1,9,02,54,25,0,0,0))) / block / 60))
'Tue Nov 20 12:45:31 2012'

blocks 136939 through 136943 (5 blocks) were found in the last 8 minutes!