you went too literal about the word milks to talk about it a consumable rather then realise i was talking about any product has a real production cost and a separate retail price
Oh, I've asked about clarification on this point earlier. Do you mind? Are you really saying that miners are able to sell their minted bitcoin at a higher price than the "retail" market price? Or perhaps the other way around: that the miners are only able to sell it at a lower price than the "retailers," similar to most other real-world cases, like the milk example?
im saying if production cost of most efficient asics is $48k/btc COST.. only those at $48k+ would sell at $48k+ to break even/profit. no one likes to sell at a loss
those with higher costs would just retain coin and wait for the market to rise before selling
this causes a lack of supply on the market
also those with coin from say 2012 ($6/btc cost) may have sold to someone else in 2017 at $20k, where that buyer of that coin has a now $20k min break even so wont sell for $6 even if that coins origins had a mining cost initially of $6.. if then the guy that bought the $6 mined coin for $20k then sells that coin to someone else in 2021 ATH for $70k. the new buyer sets their break even at $70k so wont be selling their stash for under $70k
thus although the coin mined in 2012 had a mining cost of just $6 it has a current break even cost of $70k thus wont be on the market when the market price is $50k.. and would be retaining the coin off the market and wait for the market to reach their desired amount..
so again less supply willing to sell at <$50k
i for instance am one of the rare ones with coins still held from 20212($6/btc). however im not ready to sell and no i wont be interested in selling at <$50k even if my initial cost was just $6/btc..
those that do panic about markets more than likely already have sold and as such the new buyer sets the new break even amount
when you look at the mining costs and the coin acquisition costs of coin movements (realised value) you start to build a picture of how much coin is supporting certain price levels
if people are willing to sell at a loss. they probably already have. EG those that bought at $70k in 2021 and panicing in the 2022 $15k price range. if stupid enough to sell at a loss. they already have. meaning the new buyer at $15k+ in 2022+ may have more control of emotion to not sell at a loss.
which reciprocally they would sell at profit only in the $15k-$75k range of 2022-2024. where the next buyer then sets their break even above the $15k range. again strengthening the periodic bottoms of 2023-2024 of $25k- ~$50k
and no..its not about the market being $50k today and people are finding ways to sell coin today for $70k-$300k. its about people setting limits of break even to decide to sell now at $50k today OR
hold onto coin because its not yet time to sell, they wait for the market to rise to sell when the market price is right
if people have no intention to sell in the 2024 period of $50k-$70k they wont put their coin into the market, they obviously want to wait for more then $75k before selling so are just holding onto coin and not putting it on the market
then you have to look at the other side of the market.. when there are regions of the planet where it costs $300k to mine (they assess cost before actually investing) they see its not worth mining at $300k a coin and would happily buy coin at $50k+ from the market. which also supports the market and the underlying value because they know chances of getting coin via any market for less is extremely thin, because even trying to get coin via OTC hidden markets of the most efficient mining pools will still have those efficient miners not wanting to sell below $50k today
I don't know if this sub-discussion is worth pursuing for much longer, unless you are actually claiming that Bitcoin doesn't need to fear a vulnerability because the value will never drop below a certain value. Is this really so?
In case truly you are claiming this, let me give a small example that will hopefully convince you that your theory is not applicable here (nor in many other cases):
Suppose that I am a car factory that produces 1000 cars at a cost of $50.000 apiece, and suppose then that it turns out that there is, say, a security flaw (faulty steering or whatever) that almost kills the demand for the car, and that people do not want to buy the cars for more than, say, $20.000. Then I can't just wait for the demand to magically increase to allow me to sell them for >$50.000 at some point. Instead I will be forced to sell them at $20.000.
The theory that you are using implicitly assumes that there is a static demand for bitcoin; that people have a
to collect them. But as User @d5000 also points out, there isn't.
assuming that 'the miners can just wait for the market price to rise again.' This is simply false. If the value of Bitcoin was as sure to rise again as you claim, then EVERYONE would buy bitcoin. No. If the demand for bitcoin drops, the price drops with it (since the supply is steady, at least in periods between Bitcoin Halving dates).