Replying to Avatar Neal

I wonder if late stage adoption of bitcoin makes our current understanding of mining incentives look stupid.

right now there are big centralized mining companies trying to make profit. say there are no more block rewards and fees are so low u can’t make profit.

does that mean there is no incentive to mine? no

you mine so you still have a functional network, so your economic energy doesn’t just evaporate into the ether.

i’d rather have 4 billion bit axes than a handful of for profit mining companies.

i think mining completely decentralizes to match the decentealIation of nodes
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nicnym 8mo ago

None of these arguments ever consider the difficulty adjustment. Why?

It is literally impossible for Bitcoin to be “unprofitable” to mine.

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Tauri 8mo ago

Bitcoin can be unprofitable in the window between difficulty adjustments (~ 2 weeks). Miners know that and may choose to mine at a loss while anticipating correction to the upside or appreciation of their coins.

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Neal 8mo ago

I hear you on the importance of the difficulty adjustment. Nothing in btc works without it.

I think the reason it doesn’t warrant much attention here is there are no guarantees.

A company could hit a bad streak and not get a block for a long while, and the demand for the space on any particular block could be higher or lower. There is no fundamental principle within mining to leverage other than decentralization.

Asics get old, cheaper stranded energy gets pushed out. Mining might be the most competitive industry ever. it’s blood sport, and there will be casualties who can’t make bottom line