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This could be very sigificant. Down to 12.5 BTC per block. Fees are currently not close to making that up that split. It would be really interesting to see if s

This could be very sigificant. Down to 12.5 BTC per block. Fees are currently not close to making that up that split. It would be really interesting to see if some of the larger mining pools can sustain their current hash rate if the reward drops but the fees don't particularaly increase. As long as there isn't sigificantly more transactions than are reasonable to be included in a block there simply won't be too much pressure on the senders side to increase the amount of fees paid.

drcode 11y ago
Placeybordeaux, you should buy Bitcoin in large quantities in anticipation of this prediction, then panic sell it after the halving, like everyone else who's saying the same thing as you. That way my profit for shorting Bitcoin during the the 2016 halving window will be as large as possible.
this_user 11y ago
Some people argue that the reduced creation of new coins will take pressure off the price which could lead to a rally. Then again, that would only be true if miners were actually selling off their newly created coins immediately instead of holding them while waiting for higher prices. The other aspect is the miner's inevitable margin compression. From the numbers we have seen (e.g. KnC in 2014), it seems that these companies are already operating on razor thin margins. Whatever money they have made, they needed to re-invest into upgraded hardware in order to stay competitive. Unless there is a meaningful increase in price before the reward halving, a lot of miners will likely run into trouble.
caf 11y ago
My prediction: The reward drop will instantly price out of the market a large proportion of the current hash rate. This will make the next 2016 blocks take substantially longer to find than normal, which will result in a large drop in the difficulty. This, in turn, will price a large chunk of mining back in - enough to mean that the following 2016 blocks take substantially less time to find than normal. So I think we'll see see-sawing difficulty in alternate 2016-block periods for a while, until a new equilibrium is reached (at a lower difficulty / lower network hash rate than before the reward drop). I don't think there'll be a significant effect on either the bitcoin price. Transaction fees should rise a bit in the "high difficulty" periods, and drop in the "low difficulty" periods, but once equilibrium is reached they should be much the same as they were before the reward drop.

drcode 11y ago

Placeybordeaux, you should buy Bitcoin in large quantities in anticipation of this prediction, then panic sell it after the halving, like everyone else who's saying the same thing as you. That way my profit for shorting Bitcoin during the the 2016 halving window will be as large as possible.

this_user 11y ago

Some people argue that the reduced creation of new coins will take pressure off the price which could lead to a rally. Then again, that would only be true if miners were actually selling off their newly created coins immediately instead of holding them while waiting for higher prices. The other aspect is the miner's inevitable margin compression. From the numbers we have seen (e.g. KnC in 2014), it seems that these companies are already operating on razor thin margins. Whatever money they have made, they needed to re-invest into upgraded hardware in order to stay competitive. Unless there is a meaningful increase in price before the reward halving, a lot of miners will likely run into trouble.

caf 11y ago

My prediction: The reward drop will instantly price out of the market a large proportion of the current hash rate. This will make the next 2016 blocks take substantially longer to find than normal, which will result in a large drop in the difficulty. This, in turn, will price a large chunk of mining back in - enough to mean that the following 2016 blocks take substantially less time to find than normal. So I think we'll see see-sawing difficulty in alternate 2016-block periods for a while, until a new equilibrium is reached (at a lower difficulty / lower network hash rate than before the reward drop). I don't think there'll be a significant effect on either the bitcoin price. Transaction fees should rise a bit in the "high difficulty" periods, and drop in the "low difficulty" periods, but once equilibrium is reached they should be much the same as they were before the reward drop.