3 ms·

If larger miners pull out, what will that mean for the smaller miners?

• jacquesm 4y ago
  The bitcoin algorithm that determines when to double/halve is well tested in one direction, but the halving suffers from some problems if the hashrate drops too quickly. I would imagine that suddenly the number of transactions that can be processed will rapidly decrease as well simply because not enough blocks would be mined. This might cause a massive increase in the interval between two subsequent blocks and that in turn may cause more people to lose faith in bitcoin because transactions would slow down significantly. Which in turn would put more downward pressure on price and eventually again on the hashrate. And halving are just that: they are halvings, you can't skip multiple halvings in one go. So in short: it may cause a downward feedback loop.
  • wmf 4y ago
    Are you confusing difficulty adjustment (which happens every two weeks) with halving (which happens every four years)?
    • jacquesm 4y ago
      Ah yes, sorry, I meant the difficulty adjustment. Apologies.