Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Hardfork to fix difficulty drop algorithm

From: Paul Sztorc <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2016 15:26:47 -0500

On 3/9/2016 1:30 PM, Dave Hudson via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> The hash rate has jumped up by almost 70% in the last 6 to 7 months and that implies some pretty serious investments by miners who are quite aware of the halving.
There are a few ways in which that information would be irrelevant:
[1.] It is possible that miners expect to breakeven before the halving.
[2.] It is also possible that miners earnestly believe that there will
be no problem -- however:
...  [2a.] This belief may be mistaken.
...  [2b.] Miners may be counting on Core Devs to fix any problems that
come up with anything, this one included.

Also, [3.] many miners believe that the price will increase around the
time of the halving, either for market-microstructure reasons or
marketing reasons. I, personally, think that the price is as likely to
go down as up.

On 3/9/2016 1:30 PM, Dave Hudson via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> These same miners were mining with a coin price around $250 last year so in terms of profitability I'm pretty sure that one around $400 won't be a huge concern.
For some miners, currently it costs $X in electricity per coin mined,
and $400 / 2 is less than X. I do not know how representative this
information is.

Paul