Quote from: audaciousbeing on January 11, 2018, 08:20:14 PM

I completely agree with you that until we start helping ourselves the better for us and for bitcoin also. Today we blame the miners for being greedy or even dumping bitcoin for other profitable coins

Isn't that normal? They are trying to make a profit. Frankly speaking, no one out there would be mining Bitcoin because they want to support it. Else, they would be broke fairly quickly.

Quote from: audaciousbeing on January 11, 2018, 08:20:14 PM

The moment we can all have a miner even a solo one that I can confirm my transaction, we have less issue to higher about as it relates to bitcoin.

Yeah and it's also the moment where the hashrate of the network is so low such that governments or any large entities can destroy Bitcoin extremely easily. Miners aren't stupid, they want profit and most of them have Bitcoins as an investment. They wouldn't do anything that harms Bitcoin significantly. Moving to another coin doesn't count.

Quote from: squatter on January 11, 2018, 09:25:09 PM

Bitcoin cannot be a store-of-value (or useful) if typical users cannot transact. There must be network liquidity. There must be a competitive mining ecosystem to prevent censorship. The consequences of lacking such (particularly due to Bitmain's dominance) may become clearer over time.

I just sent a transaction and it has a confirmation in 10 minutes.

Quote from: squatter on January 11, 2018, 09:25:09 PM

ASIC mining may not be profitable for casual users. But consider three things. First, this never-ending trend in difficulty increase (the growth hype phase mentioned above) will not last forever. The time to invest is when blood is in the streets, not when hype is at its peak.

When the difficulty starts to decrease, it means that it is no longer profitable to mine Bitcoin.

Quote from: squatter on January 11, 2018, 09:25:09 PM

Second, "profitability" should not only be considered on a short term overhead basis. Consider mining as a long term investment, not some immediate USD ROI. Also, consider it as an investment in the currency, since decentralized mining is required to secure Bitcoin from majority-miner attacks.

Unfortunately, the "profitability" in the long term will not pay for your hardware, your time nor for your electrical bills. Considering mining as a long term investment, I would rather buy Bitcoins. If the investment fails, at least I don't have a useless $1000 paperweight sitting around. Yes, decentralised mining is required to prevent 51% attack but it isn't profitable for anyone to do so. Miners certainly do not want to have millions of dollars of paperweight either.

Quote from: squatter on January 11, 2018, 09:25:09 PM

Third, consider potential future transactions costs, particularly large UTXO consolidations. At some point, you may need to mine (including pooling hash power) in order to ensure that your transactions are published on the network at all.

No. You don't need any hashpower to broadcast a transaction. Unless you own at least a big farm, you won't be able to confirm your own transaction. Pools don't give a damn about their user's transactions, especially if they are small time miners. I think this argument is more towards scaling as opposed to everyone running a miner.