What is the endgame for BTC?

[TrevorS]

As mining becomes more and more difficult and expensive, fewer and fewer people will mine.  If the large scale miners (farms, clouds, hosts, etc) ultimately can't afford to keep mining, mining will grind to a halt.  Long before that point is reached, the length of time required to validate block chain transactions will start increasing, the more trading/spending/buying transactions taking place only making that worse.  Seems to me the only thing that makes BTC workable is the willingness of enough people to mine, preferably as broad a swath as practical to ensure no few individuals can significantly manipulate throughput.  In absence of that, BTC transactions will not be able to be validated (or validation will become too slow) and the coin will collapse.

Am I missing something? (Hopefully!)

[xstr8guy]

This is where I'm coming from...

Once I can no longer profit from mining, I'm done with BTC. I'm simply not an investment speculator. And I see no real advantages with buying BTC on an exchange and using it to make purchases. I'd rather just use a credit card and have consumer protection.

I'm not a libertarian and bank failures and politics scare me less than BTC potentially dropping to zero.

In my opinion, the extinction of home miners will ultimately cause the failure of BTC. Home miners actually use their BTC stash as it's intended, to make purchases. Although they just usually spend their saved BTC on new mining gear, lol. They also hoard their earnings while large-scale mining operations continually dump their BTC and exchange for fiat. Which will ultimately causes the price to crash once home miners are completely out of the picture.

[FeodoroAndy]

This is where I'm coming from...

Once I can no longer profit from mining, I'm done with BTC. I'm simply not an investment speculator. And I see no real advantages with buying BTC on an exchange and using it to make purchases. I'd rather just use a credit card and have consumer protection.

I'm not a libertarian and bank failures and politics scare me less than BTC potentially dropping to zero.

In my opinion, the extinction of home miners will ultimately cause the failure of BTC. Home miners actually use their BTC stash as it's intended, to make purchases. Although they just usually spend their saved BTC on new mining gear, lol. They also hoard their earnings while large-scale mining operations continually dump their BTC and exchange for fiat. Which will ultimately causes the price to crash once home miners are completely out of the picture.

Sad, but this can be true So everyone need to do everything to decentralize BTC mining.

[RoadStress]

In my opinion, the extinction of home miners will ultimately cause the failure of BTC.

I don't agree with this. BTC has nothing to do with the failure or success of home miners.

[MightyBTC]

If situation worsens then they will make mining easier, or take some steps. They simply won't let it go.

[SMB-2525]

Bitcoin has little attraction as money. The IRS has correctly ruled it is a commodity like diamonds or gold.
As a commodity, BTC is attractive because, unlike diamonds, it is not controlled by a cartel. Unlike gold, it is easy to move around.
The amount of BTC is bounded.

Just like diamonds, gold, rare coins or stamps or Picasso doodles, BTC has as much intrinsic value as people decide it has.

It might be worthwhile to stick a few away and see what happens.

[frankenmint]

In my opinion, the extinction of home miners will ultimately cause the failure of BTC.

I don't agree with this. BTC has nothing to do with the failure or success of home miners.

I'm going to side with roadstress here - just because I run an large mining operation that doesn't mean i'm cashing out to fiat right away - perhaps I DONT want to flash crash everything so I have an incentive to sell it slowly at an average pace - keeping a large chunk for later. 

I think the end-game for BTC happens when we all aggressively leave BTC because a new system occurs that has higher monetary incentive than bitcoin, with current gen asic hardware.  So far as I can tell, nothing on earth could disrupt BTC's place unless a country is willing to go so far as to actually back a new type of cryptocurrency that can use existing POW sha256 mining power and can back real world value like current fiat - that is unlikely to happen though as no practical national leader would take such a great risk on a new experimental technology.  Could you imagine the countless deviants trying to 51% it?

[TookDk]

bank failures and politics scare me less than BTC potentially dropping to zero.

Bank failures and politics scare me more than BTC potentially dropping to zero...

[seriouscoin]

This is where I'm coming from...

Once I can no longer profit from mining, I'm done with BTC. I'm simply not an investment speculator. And I see no real advantages with buying BTC on an exchange and using it to make purchases. I'd rather just use a credit card and have consumer protection.

I'm not a libertarian and bank failures and politics scare me less than BTC potentially dropping to zero.

In my opinion, the extinction of home miners will ultimately cause the failure of BTC. Home miners actually use their BTC stash as it's intended, to make purchases. Although they just usually spend their saved BTC on new mining gear, lol. They also hoard their earnings while large-scale mining operations continually dump their BTC and exchange for fiat. Which will ultimately causes the price to crash once home miners are completely out of the picture.

This retard doesnt even know mining is also speculating. He thinks that because he didnt pay for those mined btc, its free!.

LOL

[byronbb]

If bitcoin becomes part of the global financial system then there would be incentive to support the network even at break-even or even a small loss. Gold must be stored and guarded, fiat must be moved around by armoured truck and guards etc. no different.

[TrevorS]

As mining becomes more and more difficult and expensive, fewer and fewer people will mine.  If the large scale miners (farms, clouds, hosts, etc) ultimately can't afford to keep mining, mining will grind to a halt.  Long before that point is reached, the length of time required to validate block chain transactions will start increasing, the more trading/spending/buying transactions taking place only making that worse.  Seems to me the only thing that makes BTC workable is the willingness of enough people to mine, preferably as broad a swath as practical to ensure no few individuals can significantly manipulate throughput.  In absence of that, BTC transactions will not be able to be validated (or validation will become too slow) and the coin will collapse.

Am I missing something? (Hopefully!)

The responses largely focus on the second poster, but what is the rebuttal to the above scenario?  Why would miner's mine if it's not profitable?  Hobbyists wouldn't be enough to support the network.  Without active block chain validation, how can BTC exist?  It appears to me that the drive to grow efficiency and magnitude of mining operations (intention being profit) is having the effect of hurrying BTC to extinction!

PS. If BTC joins the international financial system, then doesn't it also lose the freedom from tax, tariff, and banking overhead/oversight that currently make it attractive as a medium for exchange/barter?

[DeathAndTaxes]

If there is a net decrease in computing power on the network (because some people stop mining due to a lack of profit) then difficulty will decline.  There will always be someone who is mining.  The margin miner (those with lowest efficiency and highest operating costs) will quit first.  When they do the difficulty will decrease and the profitability of the remaining miners will increase.  

[TrevorS]

If there is a net decrease in computing power on the network (because some people stop mining due to a lack of profit) then difficulty will decline.  There will always be someone who is mining.  The margin miner (those with lowest efficiency and highest operating costs) will quit first.  When they do the difficulty will decrease and the profitability of the remaining miners will increase.  

If difficulty is proportional to network hash capacity, then perhaps that solves that aspect (as long as the threshold is set so that sufficient mining population breadth is preserved), but what about the "halving" mechanism?  It decreases profitability just as surely as increasing difficulty!  Perhaps miner population breadth is a predetermined casualty?  All that can survive are the very largest miners (and perhaps even then, only for awhile?)  How free can how much electricity, warehousing and maintenance be?

[seriouscoin]

If there is a net decrease in computing power on the network (because some people stop mining due to a lack of profit) then difficulty will decline.  There will always be someone who is mining.  The margin miner (those with lowest efficiency and highest operating costs) will quit first.  When they do the difficulty will decrease and the profitability of the remaining miners will increase.  

If difficulty is proportional to network hash capacity, then perhaps that solves that aspect (as long as the threshold is set so that sufficient mining population breadth is preserved), but what about the "halving" mechanism?  It decreases profitability just as surely as increasing difficulty!  Perhaps miner population breadth is a predetermined casualty?  All that can survive are the very largest miners (and perhaps even then, only for awhile?)  How free can how much electricity, warehousing and maintenance be?

Dumbass , look at 2011 and learn from there.

Use your brain once in a while can you?

[TrevorS]

If there is a net decrease in computing power on the network (because some people stop mining due to a lack of profit) then difficulty will decline.  There will always be someone who is mining.  The margin miner (those with lowest efficiency and highest operating costs) will quit first.  When they do the difficulty will decrease and the profitability of the remaining miners will increase.  

If difficulty is proportional to network hash capacity, then perhaps that solves that aspect (as long as the threshold is set so that sufficient mining population breadth is preserved), but what about the "halving" mechanism?  It decreases profitability just as surely as increasing difficulty!  Perhaps miner population breadth is a predetermined casualty?  All that can survive are the very largest miners (and perhaps even then, only for awhile?)  How free can how much electricity, warehousing and maintenance be?

Dumbass , look at 2011 and learn from there.

Use your brain once in a while can you?

You call me dumb ass, fine!  I'd like to believe BTC is for long term real, but am having difficulty seeing how.  Would you please explain?  What are the holes in my argument?  Many thanks !

[shields]

As mining becomes more and more difficult and expensive, fewer and fewer people will mine.
.....
Am I missing something? (Hopefully!)

Both of these things can't be true at the same time, if more mining power is leaving than joining then mining gets less difficult and less expensive.

[TrevorS]

As mining becomes more and more difficult and expensive, fewer and fewer people will mine.
.....
Am I missing something? (Hopefully!)

Both of these things can't be true at the same time, if more mining power is leaving than joining then mining gets less difficult and less expensive.

So I've learned, as hash power is reduced, difficulty likewise reduces.  On the other hand, the halving process continues doesn't it?  Doesn't that have the same net effect as increasing difficulty?

[seriouscoin]

If there is a net decrease in computing power on the network (because some people stop mining due to a lack of profit) then difficulty will decline.  There will always be someone who is mining.  The margin miner (those with lowest efficiency and highest operating costs) will quit first.  When they do the difficulty will decrease and the profitability of the remaining miners will increase.  

If difficulty is proportional to network hash capacity, then perhaps that solves that aspect (as long as the threshold is set so that sufficient mining population breadth is preserved), but what about the "halving" mechanism?  It decreases profitability just as surely as increasing difficulty!  Perhaps miner population breadth is a predetermined casualty?  All that can survive are the very largest miners (and perhaps even then, only for awhile?)  How free can how much electricity, warehousing and maintenance be?

Dumbass , look at 2011 and learn from there.

Use your brain once in a while can you?

You call me dumb ass, fine!  I'd like to believe BTC is for long term real, but am having difficulty seeing how.  Would you please explain?  What are the holes in my argument?  Many thanks !

You want me to spoonfed you? I already told you where and what to look for.
Or you're just being a troll here? (worse than a dumbass)

[TrevorS]

Dumbass , look at 2011 and learn from there.

Use your brain once in a while can you?

You call me dumb ass, fine!  I'd like to believe BTC is for long term real, but am having difficulty seeing how.  Would you please explain?  What are the holes in my argument?  Many thanks !

You want me to spoonfed you? I already told you where and what to look for.
Or you're just being a troll here? (worse than a dumbass)

Well, I guess I really must be a dumb ass (hopelessly mentally deficient) because I completely fail to see what BTC price behavior around a halving has to do with ROI of miners following the ending of block rewards.  At that point, the only reward stems from BTC transaction fees, which could be significant enough to serve as a damper on transactions.  Seems unlikely that any but large mining operations will be able to be profitable at that point, and they had better have near free electricity, warehousing, and maintenance.  (Iceland?)  So, I guess the ending of the smaller miner really is written into the program!  Rebuttal?  Do you really expect BTC to be just as highly valued as Gold (an industrially useful metal)?  The sky's the limit?

[pjviitas]

Once all mining becomes centralized...the gentrification of Bitcoin is inevitable.