Re: Is it possible that number of miners will decrease for a while?
Oh it's definitely possible, probably until the price goes high enough for bitcoin to be worth mining again.
The price is already high enough for bitcoins to be worth mining. It's just a matter of which mining operations we're talking about.
The number of miners will probably decrease, but the hash rate -- that's less of a sure thing, and didn't happen in 2016.
Inefficient miners will shut down, but efficient miners may actually be adding hash rate. Until the next difficulty adjustment comes, I don't want to make any big assumptions.
Sorry, can you explain to a layman when the difficulty adjustments happen? I've always thought it's automatic, but can you tell me if it is?