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An interesting feature of bitcoin is that it can't afaik become insolvent. Objectively it's worthless, that's a given. But as long as chumps still want to spec
by version_five 4y ago
An interesting feature of bitcoin is that it can't afaik become insolvent.
Objectively it's worthless, that's a given. But as long as chumps still want to speculate on it, it will get some price support. And so there will always be some incentive for miners to step in and keep it running. That's not the same as a stock, which can definitely go to zero when the underlying company becomes bankrupt.
The question I guess is how long until it just moves to a corner somewhere where suckers and scammers play a little game with each other, and what price will it settle on there?
- wmf 4y agoIf the price gets low enough, existing ASICs become unprofitable to run even with cheap electricity so the hashrate would drop significantly. If the hashrate gets low enough it becomes possible to perform 51% attacks which could destabilize the chain.
- _x5tx 4y agohow come it always be an incentive to miners when the price is not profitable anymore?
- version_five 4y agoThe mining difficult adjusts. I don't know enough to say what it would take to drop so low that a single asic somehow was too overpowered to be economical, but generally there is automatic matching between the supply and demand of mining power. As mentioned, 50% attacks are possible at some point (they may even be now). There is not really an incentive for that. I would be curious to see some analysis of how likely they become as the hash rate drops, and match that against the hash rates supported to profitably mine for different prices.