What would happen if bitcoin drops so low mining isn't worth it - page 2.

hugolp

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Quote from: Revalin on September 02, 2011, 03:25:43 AM

It's already unprofitable where electricity is expensive (Hawaii, California), so some miners will drop out. That's already happening, which is why the difficulty is starting to drop. I expect this will be a relatively slow process since there are a lot of miners who will keep mining even if it's slightly unprofitable. The difficulty will keep gradually dropping as the exchange rates drop (roughly in proportion).

If a very large percentage of miners suddenly left we'd have a rough time for a bit. That happened to NameCoin, and they had to get through some really slow blocks until the difficulty was adjusted.

If the problem was extreme (like, an overnight 99% drop in hashrate), we could push a new version of the bitcoin client that overrides the difficulty temporarily. This is very unlikely to be necessary.

The difficulty as of last has been quite stable between 10.000GH and 15.000. Where do you get that its dropping?

Revalin

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It's already unprofitable where electricity is expensive (Hawaii, California), so some miners will drop out. That's already happening, which is why the difficulty is starting to drop. I expect this will be a relatively slow process since there are a lot of miners who will keep mining even if it's slightly unprofitable. The difficulty will keep gradually dropping as the exchange rates drop (roughly in proportion).

If a very large percentage of miners suddenly left we'd have a rough time for a bit. That happened to NameCoin, and they had to get through some really slow blocks until the difficulty was adjusted.

If the problem was extreme (like, an overnight 99% drop in hashrate), we could push a new version of the bitcoin client that overrides the difficulty temporarily. This is very unlikely to be necessary.

ercolinux

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Quote from: RyNinDaCleM on September 02, 2011, 02:06:17 AM

Quote from: ercolinux on September 01, 2011, 05:07:13 PM

Quote from: Minsc on September 01, 2011, 04:52:49 PM

and transaction fees also aren't worth it and then everyone just stops mining?

And so there's no new transactions updated? This might happen if bitcoin keeps dropping.

No it don't occour (even if there could be some trouble): when less people mine the difficult will drop so mining rate will remain pratically costant.
Indeed if a lot of people stops to mine in few days the correction of difficulty can took more time to occour so the transaction will slow down for a couple of weeks or so.

To add to this statement; Then you would make more BTC/day, effectively balancing it out!

No you don't (or at least you don't at the beginning): let's say that 50% of miners stops to mine in the some day. Difficult will stay up for 2000block, but now it will take duoble the time to mine some number of blocks. So instead mining a block every 10minutes it will took 20minutes and the difficulty will adjust in 4 weeks instead 2.
And if the drop is higher is even worse: if 90% of miners stops it will took 100minutes to mine a block and so it will took about 5 months to adjust the difficulty level to the new network power.
Indeed is really low the probability that a big number of miners stop in few hours to mine.

RyNinDaCleM

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Quote from: ercolinux on September 01, 2011, 05:07:13 PM

Quote from: Minsc on September 01, 2011, 04:52:49 PM

and transaction fees also aren't worth it and then everyone just stops mining?

And so there's no new transactions updated? This might happen if bitcoin keeps dropping.

No it don't occour (even if there could be some trouble): when less people mine the difficult will drop so mining rate will remain pratically costant.
Indeed if a lot of people stops to mine in few days the correction of difficulty can took more time to occour so the transaction will slow down for a couple of weeks or so.

To add to this statement; Then you would make more BTC/day, effectively balancing it out!

ercolinux

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Quote from: Minsc on September 01, 2011, 04:52:49 PM

and transaction fees also aren't worth it and then everyone just stops mining?

And so there's no new transactions updated? This might happen if bitcoin keeps dropping.

No it don't occour (even if there could be some trouble): when less people mine the difficult will drop so mining rate will remain pratically costant.
Indeed if a lot of people stops to mine in few days the correction of difficulty can took more time to occour so the transaction will slow down for a couple of weeks or so.

Minsc

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and transaction fees also aren't worth it and then everyone just stops mining?

And so there's no new transactions updated? This might happen if bitcoin keeps dropping.

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