Quote from: NeuroticFish on October 08, 2018, 09:50:09 AM

Quote from: Pan Troglodytes on October 08, 2018, 09:41:32 AM

People leave bitcoin mining for good? No, it cannot happen long term. It is a self-regulating feedback loop. You see, when the profitability drops, people leave mining, hashrate drops, then as a consequence difficulty drops and profitability rises.

This sounds wonderful in theory. In reality, I believe that some miners do mine at a loss (some know it, some not) and some of them even leave this business for good.
But the chance is bigger the miner keeps mining at a loss than coming back after leaving this.

Sure that whoever leaves mining, they do it for good, because to come back they would need to start afresh, make investments again etc.

Rather, what I meant by "people leave mining, hashrate drops" is that people switch between coins that bring most profit. I don't mine today, but back then when I mined you could choose the most profitable coin (it would fluctuate all the time) and I am sure nowadays it is even more automated then back then.

This is why I said that all that self regulates.

Quote from: NeuroticFish on October 08, 2018, 09:50:09 AM

Quote from: Pan Troglodytes on October 08, 2018, 09:41:32 AM

What you may have been seeing are short term fluctuations. Even the halving didn't hurt profitability long term.

Care to elaborate a little? Halving doesn't necessarily get reflected in the price and I am sure that halving the income for the same work (the difficulty won't drop) and consumption is not great for profitability.

Sure, you see, halving is a well expected and timed event. You can incorporate it into your predictions, profit calculations and business plans well ahead of time. As a result, future halvings must be already accounted for in current price levels. Just like dividents or statements of National Bank Officials (capitals intended) are already accounted for in the price levels of stocks ahead of time and only if there is a surprising statement it affects the price after it is announced.

So long term, halving cannot hurt profitability.

Sure, short term all kinds of fluctuations happen (e.g. as there are delays in difficulty calculations, people flock to mine an expensive low difficulty coin, only to change over to the next expensive low difficulty coin when the difficulty of the first one is recalculated).