How fast the system will accomodate if the price makes mining uneconomical?

[bcpokey]

If the global hashrate were to suddenly drop, there'd a a huge uptick in the value of a single miner - e.g. my 400MH/s would suddenly be able to generate blocks quite quickly and I'd earn several hundred BTC in a fraction of the time it takes now.

Well - my question was how quickly this would happen, because if you think that this would happen immediately - then you are mistaken.

It is simple math, difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks, and it adjusts by Expected_time_to_complete/Actual_Time_To_Complete * Difficulty, with a max of 4x up/down.

The "time to adjust" depends on when the drop off occurred, how big a drop off, etc.

For example, say for block 1-1008 hashing went along at 1 block/10min. Then at block 1008-2016, half the hashrate disappeared, giving 1block/20min. It would take 3 weeks to complete 2016 blocks. 2weeks/3weeks = 2/3rds of difficulty, even though hashrate dropped by half, meaning another 2.25 or so weeks before a drop to proper difficulty (but at 1block/15min). Had half dropped at block 1, it would have been 1/2difficulty after 4 weeks of 1block/20min.

And so on.

[1715379445]

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[Transisto]

Namecoin scenario is not a good example as adopters were savvy bitcoin miners with the ability to redirect their rigs quickly.

Not everyone check the value of BTC on a daily basis nor have the same cost to produce. Take FPGA/ASIC for example, all they want is cheap BTC so most stop mining with their obsolete GPU.  They may be funding their new hardware expenses by selling all they can (at GPU price).

Reasonable ? Balls of steel if you ask me.

Now, real food for though, How long will it take for the ecosystem to stabilize on the move to 25btc/blk. ?
(don't answer here pls.)

[lemonginger]

In a worst case scenario, the formula used to adjust difficulty can also be adjusted. It is not written in stone the way other parts ofd the bitcoin protocol are.

[joulesbeef]

A big problem with bitcoin is people that dismiss this as a problem with bitcoin. My miners are now idle, i will use the money i was going to spend on electricity and buy btc.  One day BTC devs will realize this IS a problem and adjust the difficulty algo, i hope it is soon, 3 blocks and hour or so, is already not fun.

[lemonginger]

too short delays and your risk large difficulty swings based on variance alone, even without hashrate changes

[Andrew Vorobyov]

I think it will be after BTC post-collapse first electricity bill

[Minsc]

I'd start mining just for fun even if it was not worth it.

[Keninishna]

simple just shut off your mining rigs and use the money you were going to use on electricty and maintaining those rigs to buy bitcoins instead because it'll be cheaper to buy them than make them. This will then make mining profitable again.