Quote from: deadthings on April 24, 2014, 04:10:40 PM

Quote from: cayars on April 23, 2014, 08:41:36 AM

Quote from: deadthings on April 23, 2014, 01:06:16 AM

Miners always think they're so important. Guess what? They're not.

You are obviously more informed then I then. By all means, please enlighten us how the security of the network holds if we lose mass miners? I'm all ears waiting to hear/learn how this works.

Always happen to enlighten! Yes, miners support network security, but that is a cost of entry that is not factored into the exchange rate of a coin. If a coin is being mined and bought, then it is viable (i.e., worth something). If a coin is not being mined and bought, then it is not viable (i.e., worth nothing). This binary switch of making a coin worth something greater than zero is the ONLY positive impact miners can have on the value of a coin. I explain:

Miners exert downward pressure on the value of a coin in two significant ways. First, miners are necessarily inflationary to a coin. No matter how many of the coin they buy, they will always have more for sale by virtue of the fact that some proportion of their holdings have been essentially plucked out of the thin, blue sky. Second, miners are also necessarily more likely to dump a coin because their investment is associated with a lower cost of acquisition. Therefore, they can still profit by selling the coin at below market values, driving exchanges rates downward.

So, in other words, miners contribute to the difference between 0 and >0. After that, their influence is entirely negative on a coin - investors and only investors are responsible for any subsequent increases in exchange rate.

I don't really fundamentally disagree with what you said but did you answer the question? "enlighten us how the security of the network holds if we lose mass miners?"

But for fun, playing devils advocate:
Could miners not also exert UPWARD pressure also? As an example if investor wanted to buy at price X but the lowest sell price from any miner is X + 1000 then for the "investor" to set the price he would have to pay X +1000 in order to be an "investor". So in this case one could argue the "miner" set the price and not the investor. This is a "glass half full, glass half empty" type thing. Just depends on which side you are on.

In reality it takes both sides to mutually agree on a price and both sides set the price. Same as the stock market, buying food at the super market etc. Supply and demand. Maybe a poor analogy, but could you walk into your local grocery store and tell the cashier you won't pay $4.00 for a gallon of milk but only pay $3.50 and thus you the investor/buyer set the price? Nope. The seller will usually control the price and not the purchaser. It's a fine balance point of what they can get for product/service. Again supply and demand but the seller actually controls the price. If he prices it to high there might not be a sale however.

Now using the same example above it the grocery store purchased 1000 gallons of milk thinking they could sell them all in one week but 4 days in found they still have 700 gallons left they may decide to lower prices or have a "fire sale" in order to get something for the milk before it expires. But again the seller sets the price and the buyer/investor decides if they will pay it. It might go through several rounds before they agree on price.

It's the same as, which came first the chicken or the egg?

But now that I'm done playing devil's advocate. Could you try and tell us why miners don't matter? Especially considering that if we don't have them we have security and other payment processing issues?