Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: Bitcoin halving to be canceled?
by
Barnabe
on 11/11/2015, 08:48:49 UTC
Once must understand that halving is an essential part of the Bitcoin protocol, aimed at approximating the natural increase in scarcity, observed in other money systems, like gold (as opposed to currencies, like dollar, which can be printed ad infinitum)

The problem is that Bitcoin itself is not natural. As I have said elsewhere (and been attacked by assclowns of all stripes and denominations, lol), Bitcoin, in this aspect, is no different than any other fiat money out there (or currency, if you please), my point being that mimicking scarcity (or any other quality) of its counterparts such as gold doesn't endow it with the resilience and robustness due to their inherent value (entrenched deep in the minds and nature of people)...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Scarcity is part of what gives both gold and bitcoin value. The only reason anything has any value at all is that everyone believes it to be true. This is true of bitcoin, gold, and fiat. Confidence in the particular monetary system is what bestows value, and part of the confidence in bitcoin is the built in scarcity of a hard cap and halving block rewards along the way. If that confidence is undermined, then the value/utility of the monetary system is going to fall, and that's true of gold and fiat too.

Value of gold is set by the laws of nature, which humans cannot change at their whimsy (at least, so far). It doesn't matter where it lives or originates, since humans cannot change their own nature either (just in case you're going to bring forward the argument of subjective value and all that crap). Bitcoin, on the hand, is, like fiat monies, the deliberate brain-child of men, and, as such, it is not "bestowed" with the same level of confidence (that nature provides)...

This "confidence" is undermined by definition

You can summarize this by a simple question.
Would you switch to a "miners-fork" where halfing is not done ?
I know I wouldn't.

Every miner would want to in the short term, but the coins mined in their fork would have no value, because nobody would want to buy them.
Who would want to buy something that is not rare and can be produced Ad vitam æternam ? Plus it would lose a lot of it's value overtime because of the inflation (more coins are produced and always will).

What will happen after the halving is that the supply of bitcoin will be lower (less coins injected into the system) and the price will adjust (each bitcoin will be more expensive because they are more difficult to find).
At the end (long term), the miner's situation will remain the same. He will mine less, but the coins will be more expensive so the end result is the same for them.