Hi Everyone,
I have a friend who is into Bitcoins a lot more than me, he is on many forums and blogs etc and does a lot of development. He told me at work on Friday that he found out from a source that a major farm 800,000 GH/s will most likely be shutting down in Europe. Apparently this farm owns 2 warehouses and a colocation warehouse (I dont know who?). Apparently electricity prices are just not down as low as mining costs and he will lose money on mining when halving first happens. firstly because there will not be an instant price rise. so his 12.5 will still be worth $5500 where his electricity costs will be more like $7000.
It's great that he is thinking ahead on this and making a good financial decision. After he shuts down the equipment, he may not want to get rid of it right away. If enough other people quit, then it might become profitable for him to turn the equipment back on after a few weeks.
This worries me,
Try not to worry so much. It' isn't good for your health.
I am the proud owner of 47 BTC that I have picked up over the past 4 years.
Congratulations.
Only 47 BTC though? 4 years ago 1 bitcoin was about $5.15. That means you could have bought 47 of them for just $245.
If places start to shut down my BTC will be worthless
Nah. If some miners shut down their equipment, it won't have any direct effect on the value of your bitcoins.
and we need miners to keep the network running.
Sure, but we don't need ALL the miners that we have today. If some of them shut down, then the remaining ones will generate more revenue and therefore remain profitable.
I am so tempted to sell right now just so I have something to show for it.
Well, if you feel that way, I'd be happy to take them off your hands for you.
I'll give you $17,000 for all 47 of those BTC that you think will be worthless.
If one closes, could many?
Absolutely. I expect that about half of them might.
could this actually be the end of Bitcoin as we know it.
Nah. Bitcoin operated just fine with less miners in the past. Those that are able to remain profitable will continue to mine.
will the difficulty be too high to continue the network?
That doesn't even make sense. If the difficulty is to high, then unprofiatble miners shut off their equipment. If there is less hash power on the network, then difficulty is reduced. If difficulty is reduced, then the remaining miners become more profitable. If mining is more profitable, then more miners join the network. If additional mining hash power is added to the network, then difficulty goes back up again. This process of difficulty increasing and decreasing continues until an equilibrium is reached where the remaining miners are just barely profitable.
Sorry I do not know a lot about Bitcoin I just thought it would be good investment.
It might be. It might not be. We'll know in the future. If you want to unload those worthless BTC, just let me know.