Quote from: wuvdoll on September 18, 2018, 04:30:05 AM

Quote from: Juggy777 on September 15, 2018, 09:56:00 AM

Quote from: Eleanorbro on September 15, 2018, 07:29:12 AM

Just suppose...

What if bitcoin seems to average about 7500 USD or so over a very long period, like a year or even more. Currently, this isn't high enough of a value in USD to really mine anymore with GPU's, if mining for profit in USD anyways. I do not mine with ASIC miners and I really know very little about them, even though I almost bought a Bitmain Antiminer S9 before I build my 8 GPU rig.

Will mining taper off to little to nothing, will difficulty levels be adjusted to compensate miners, or what else?

I would be interested to know some thinking on this, should it become a reality or even close to a reality for some length of time.

I don't think it's possible for Bitcoins to keep a stable price for a year, as we'll have seen it's very volatile and difficult to predict in which direction it's prices may go. However let's take a hypothetical situation, and assume it does happen then yes then the equilibrium mechanism will be in effect, for those miners mining during this period they'll be compensated more bitcoins to make up for their losses.

It has happened before but I really do not see it as a problem for miners. Not like it was stable, but there was a time in the past we had a long period of consolidation before bitcoin started making any moves to the upward direction.

I believe if things get to an equilibrium state and we know in a way, miners are getting something from the increase in price as well of what they get eventually, I am sure at some point, when it becomes less profitable for that reason, a lot of miners will end up bailing out, and then we will see the hash rate dropping and that means more money for the big miners, as I believe they will end up being the ones to stay in the mining sector as time goes on.

it is not about size of the miners, the small ones can stay too. in fact it is more possible for smaller miners to stay even if price goes down. for example if you are a hobby miner who believes in the future of bitcoin and are mining with 1 ASIC at home you usually don't even sell the coins you earn and hold them as an investment.
the main factor determining who leaves first is the cost. if a miner (big or small) is somewhere with cheaper electricity they will remain active even when price falls.