Quote from: declan- on February 14, 2018, 03:29:25 PM

but is the increasing adoption and mainstream interest of bitcoin influenced by the fomo on the price driving up? or is the recent rapid increase of price a result of increasing mainstream adoption?

It's a combination. Fomo definitely plays an important role, especially because of how people throughout the years have been ignoring Bitcoin, and now suddenly see that they could have made the investment of their life years ago. Great side effect of Fomo is that regardless of people's initial goal (the investment aspect they don't want to miss out on), these people get to understand Bitcoin, and start exploring all posibilities this market has to offer. To cut a long story short, it's extra exposure for Bitcoin that results in adoption and more potential capital being pumped into this ecosystem.

Quote from: declan- on February 14, 2018, 03:29:25 PM

despite the fact that there are multiple events and factors that influence the price of bitcoin, i believe there has to be something out there that influences the price more than anything else. and if it's anything that has a long-term impact on the price more than anything else, it's the block reward.

the laws of supply and demand dictate that the decrease of bitcoins being generated will increase the value of each individual bitcoin. people tend to want something more if it's harder to acquire. i can promise you that, this is coming from someone who collects rare/simple usernames on various social media platforms just because their availability extremely limited. value does not exist outside the consciousness of man, and wanting something that isn't easy to get only makes you human.

Correct. The lower the number of Bitcoins flowing into circulation on a daily basis, the lower the overall availability of on-market coins becomes, and thus the less potential pressure on the price. Great thing is that we have been in a very long phase where there is far more money flowing into this ecosystem, than coin value is being generated. This, especially in the longer term, has a major impact on the market, which we can clearly see when looking at the effect on the price after the previous block halving. The price increase in advance of the previous block halving was pure speculative.

Block rewards throughout the years per day/month/year.

50BTC - 7200BTC mint per day, 216,000BTC mint per month, 2,592,000BTC mint per year.
25BTC - 3600BTC mint per day, 108,000BTC mint per month, 1,296,000BTC mint per year.
12.5BTC - 1800BTC mint per day, 54,000BTC mint per month, 648,000BTC mint per year.
6.25BTC - 900BTC mint per day, 27,000BTC mint per month, 324,000BTC mint per year.

Numbers speak for themselves. Grin