Do you seriously think that there's over a 50% chance that the halving will be delayed??
No, I do not know whether the top miners will try it, or any other "little abuse". I believe that they could -- not just in theory, but even taking into account the possible reactions of the community.
Those 4-5 miners would postpone the halving to sell twice as many coins at less than a quarter the price? The halving is priced in and if it doesn't happen there will be a crash. Everybody knows this.
Who says that it will be a quarter of the price?
The past halvings did not have a visible effect on the price. So why would a delay in the halving have any effect -- unless the ideologues go out screaming "BITCOIN IS WORTHLESS" to the world? Now they wouldn't do that, right -- because "destroying the value of the thing you sell is just bad business."
The ideologues would react the same way they have reacted to previous bad news, like the MtGOX collapse, the confiscation and sale of the SilkRoad coins, the China bans, etc.: they will say that bitcoin is "antifragile" and will survive this third fork like it survived the previous two, or even that the change is "good for bitcoin".
In fact, that fork would probably be less traumatic than the previous two, because it would be deliberate rather than an unexpected bug.
There is nothing magical about the current halving schedule. Satoshi could have just as well picked a schedule that skipped 2016 and antecipated the following halvings, and it would have been just as good (or just as bad) as the current one. If he had done that, and we were discussing the opposite change, I am sure the objections would be the same...
yeah, if you had half a clue about the hardcore of bitcoiners (none you mention) you'd be more worried about protecting your own assets than spending time spouting arrant nonsense, bordering on slander, on backwater threads of bitcoin forums ... you've had a pretty easy ride so far trolfi but the clock is ticking friend.
Wait, are you accusing me of slander? Of whom exactly?
Or is that a threat, "stop warning people about the problems of bitcoin, or else"?