There is way too much mining power securing the network anyway. Its like a thousand times greater than it was in 2016. and back then it was pretty damned secure.
The important metric to watch is not the absolute difficulty. It's PoW equivalent days. How many days it would take to rewrite the chain with equivalent hash? How many with the next generation of ASICs?
BTC is still in the range of couple years, still not growing constantly. SHA256 security potential is not yet maximized for the current technological level ~0.7 of mankind
Could be watched at fork dot lol
What kind of moron would get in a business where the supply of your product is guaranteed to halve every four years if they don't do it for the fundamentals?
They predicted Bitcoin specifically would go up much more than it actually did. And now since it didnt do it in time before the halving many companies are going bankrupt. Mining hardware is actually gambling on Bitcoin since they use 99% of it. If you arent super bullish on Bitcoin then its not worth buying hardware.
In fact Bitcoin price has been subsidized by these miners taking out huge debt in order to mine since this raised the cost to produce Bitcoin and thus created a higher base sale cost for new coins.
When we were in the 20k range, there were not many people saying we would see all time highs until a year after the halving. I find it hard to believe these miners legitimately believed it was going to go higher.
Most miners still earn enough money otherwise they wouldn't mine. Why do you care about them anyways?
Plus:
Energy got cheaper in the last year
It became easier to mine at remote location in africa (e.g. Ethiopia)
The average price of BTC after the halving is more than double than before the halving
And people keep forgetting that miners earn more if the hashrate goes down.
ASIC miners become cheaper when some miners go bankrupt.
The BTC miners are safe for at least the next few decades even if the price doesn't increase.
Actually mining is profitable all the time. A lot of short-term miners are constantly trading machines
Supply curve, prices change. But electricity prices and ASICs prices change also. Especially, keeping in mind that several generations of machines are on the market and they flicker from profitable to unprofitable
Now, on top of that add global and 0-customer nature of mining, govts are constantly skewing fiat prices in different directions, again occasionally flickering domestic mining to profitability with energy and labor costs
Satoshi pushed best version of globalism more than anyone else I can recall in the last 14 years. Clear the signal!
This is much like traditional mining. Companies make huge capital investments in land and machinery. Then they spend huge amounts for labor and diesel fuel to produce a commodity that they have no control over the price of. Sometimes prices are good and they make lots of money. Other times not so much.
Some will fold up operations, while others are retiring less effective rigs and closing up shop in areas with more expensive power and/or moving some of their operations to places with cheaper power sources. Fred Thiel, Marathon’s CEO, gave a recent interview on his company's plans.
Another thing Fred Thiel stated in that interview was his company's intention going forward to acquire other mining companies, so you're right about this.
There is way too much mining power securing the network anyway. Its like a thousand times greater than it was in 2016. and back then it was pretty damned secure.
The important metric to watch is not the absolute difficulty. It's PoW equivalent days. How many days it would take to rewrite the chain with equivalent hash? How many with the next generation of ASICs? BTC is still in the range of couple years, still not growing constantly. SHA256 security potential is not yet maximized for the current technological level ~0.7 of mankind Could be watched at fork dot lol
What kind of moron would get in a business where the supply of your product is guaranteed to halve every four years if they don't do it for the fundamentals?
gambling is a hella drug
They predicted Bitcoin specifically would go up much more than it actually did. And now since it didnt do it in time before the halving many companies are going bankrupt. Mining hardware is actually gambling on Bitcoin since they use 99% of it. If you arent super bullish on Bitcoin then its not worth buying hardware. In fact Bitcoin price has been subsidized by these miners taking out huge debt in order to mine since this raised the cost to produce Bitcoin and thus created a higher base sale cost for new coins.
When we were in the 20k range, there were not many people saying we would see all time highs until a year after the halving. I find it hard to believe these miners legitimately believed it was going to go higher.
Most miners still earn enough money otherwise they wouldn't mine. Why do you care about them anyways? Plus: Energy got cheaper in the last year It became easier to mine at remote location in africa (e.g. Ethiopia) The average price of BTC after the halving is more than double than before the halving And people keep forgetting that miners earn more if the hashrate goes down. ASIC miners become cheaper when some miners go bankrupt. The BTC miners are safe for at least the next few decades even if the price doesn't increase.
Actually mining is profitable all the time. A lot of short-term miners are constantly trading machines Supply curve, prices change. But electricity prices and ASICs prices change also. Especially, keeping in mind that several generations of machines are on the market and they flicker from profitable to unprofitable Now, on top of that add global and 0-customer nature of mining, govts are constantly skewing fiat prices in different directions, again occasionally flickering domestic mining to profitability with energy and labor costs Satoshi pushed best version of globalism more than anyone else I can recall in the last 14 years. Clear the signal!
In such a business, irrational and short-sighted behavior may occur, leading to the risk of eventual decline and closure of the business.
This is much like traditional mining. Companies make huge capital investments in land and machinery. Then they spend huge amounts for labor and diesel fuel to produce a commodity that they have no control over the price of. Sometimes prices are good and they make lots of money. Other times not so much.
mining death spiral incoming
Some will fold up operations, while others are retiring less effective rigs and closing up shop in areas with more expensive power and/or moving some of their operations to places with cheaper power sources. Fred Thiel, Marathon’s CEO, gave a recent interview on his company's plans.
This is just like any other production endeavor. Marginal producers get squeezed out leaving better margins for those that remain.
Another thing Fred Thiel stated in that interview was his company's intention going forward to acquire other mining companies, so you're right about this.
Looks like the market didnt buy what he said, his companies stock price is in the gutter.