The Great Halvening Thread

[Inca]

The Halving is 10.1 months away and with it inflation drops to ~4.5%. The cost to keep the price where we are today assuming all miners sell is ~400k dollars a day.

What effect does the forum think this reduction in new coin supply will have on the price? Are any of you worried about the mining consequences or security of the network?

Lets get the predictions down on the site so we can all be massively wrong on the record!

I'll start off. Bullish. I predict these will be a pre halving fomo rally which sends the price up to 700 range before flattening out as the actual halving occurs at or below around 500 dollars for the following months. I suspect traders will try to front run things and this is a great setup for a pump and dump because it is known by all market participants and generally thought of as bullish even though logically the halving will only exert a mild reduction in supply (though miners anticipating this could magnify the effect by all holding their coins in expectation of later gains.

 

[cypherdoc]

i agree. bullish. esp given we've already had our 90% pullback and a languishing mkt for >1.5 yr with sentiment at a low with no hope in sight for block increase. if and when we get that block inc, that should cause a doubling effect for bullishness and a snap back UP that should take us to new heights. will be an interesting year.

 

[Georg Engelmann]

I wouldn't bet on the halving to increase the valuation of Bitcoin as it was known from the very beginning and the production is only 3600 BTC per day so the vast majority of coins that are being sold are probably coming from merchants nowadays.

 

[cypherdoc]

what's interesting is that the late LTC halving didn't have any effect. to me that just means Litecoin is an insignificant project as evidenced by it's mkt share to begin with. of course, could also mean Bitcoin will have the same outcome. but i doubt it, given the network effect.

what's critical is demonstrating to the mass of investors/speculators worldwide that Bitcoin can grow and adapt. that's an ongoing battle.

 

[Peter R]

Ok I'll play:

We slowly grow over the remainder of 2015 and early 2016 back to the $500 - $750 range. Between the spring and fall of 2016, we have a quadfecta of news that is positive for price: a 1MB+ block is included in the Blockchain, the halving is successful, the Winklevoss ETF launches, and there is a major currency crisis somewhere.

This precipitates the largest growth spurt in the history of Bitcoin. The growth spurt takes place in three bubble-phases over late 2016 and 2017 (and causes many people to bail prematurely), reaching a height of $40,000 before 2018 (and then crashing back below $10,000).

 

[Inca]

Sounds good to me Peter.

Love the word quadfecta, too.

I think the CFTC calling bitcoin a commodity is a breakthrough for ETF approval. We just need to wait it out patiently

 

[humanitee]

I wouldn't mind that happening but I just can't see any valuation that insanely high coming that quickly. I'll be surprised to hit $5000 by the beginning of 2017.

I think Inca is on the right track. I'll say $1000 by January 2017.

 

[molecular]

also bullish:

for some perspective, last time looked like this:


that's from from $5 to $125 in 10 month or so.

it'll play out similarly, maybe a little slower. Explanation: there will be a rally before and after the halfing. The one before is people "pricing it in". It may not be as pronounced this time, might already have started and be masked by the bear market. The rally afterwards is the "real effect" of the supply being cut in half. It hits us with a delay and it will surprise many. I also predict that rally will be attributed by the media to something other than the halfing (like last time).

So I'm guesstimating a 10x to 30x bull-run in 2 waves. Timing is harder: start somewhere between christmas and april '16. Top sometime in 2017, maybe late '16.

If I had to put a finger on it: $3,000 by July 1st 2017

 

[Zarathustra]

If history repeats, Molecular, Peter_R and alikes will be right. The stream blockers schouldn't be able to stop it.

 

[sgbett]

Still holding out for 560k

 

[solex]

@Inca

I predict these will be a pre halving fomo rally which sends the price up to 700 range before flattening out as the actual halving occurs at or below around 500 dollars for the following months.

This was very much in my mind too. Looking at the long-term chart $680 was the last major peak (May 2014) after the bull-run, and I can see the market testing it but taking a long time to overcome it.

 

[AdrianX]

This looks very interesting a contactless NFC ring.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/philipcampbell/kerv-the-worlds-first-contactless-payment-ring

@Peter R I just wanted to draw on your NFC private key experience. How do you think they program the ring and do you think it could be safely programed to sign a privacy key transaction?

@Melbustus and @solex your post further back about economic diversity resonated with me. I actually see this art and culture bubbling up Kickstarter has been a classic example.

I was thinking more about productivity from technology. Justus mentioned this a few months ago: the "success" of fiat systems in lasting for many years since the gold standard is because the rapid growth of science and technology has masked a lot of the downsides of unsound money.

This is the deflationary impact of productivity improvements off-setting the worst of CB-backed FRB and government money-printing fever. If tech had stayed still for the 20th Century then the worldwide experiment with fiat would have imploded back to a gold standard soon after it started, like in John Law's days.

It is relevant to technology making work obsolete. Looking at the 50% youth unemployment numbers in Greece and Spain, finds a developing structural change. These countries had a lot of local manufacturing which has disappeared in the maw of Asia in the last 25 years. It is unlikely to come back, so are those young people ever going to work in the conventional sense, or will they be on some kind of government support forever? Support like the 40 million people in the SNAP. Will those numbers ever seriously decline?

Asia isn't safe long-term either. Nanotechnology, self-assembly, robotics, design by AI and 3D printing can decentralise manufacturing, throwing the massive investment in Asian factories into obsolescence. A future with 50% youth unemployment in China or India? It's on the cards.

This might seem to be a global cultural disaster for humanity, that most people cannot find work as it is conventionally known; but it does open the door for more creativity, invention, arts, small entrepreneurial pursuits, alternative lifestyles.

Oops posted in the wrong thread

 

[Fiat_Hodler]

I think there will be a FOMO effect as usual but I am unsure of the price effect besides that it will go up.

Additionally if the media pick up on it like the last time it went to 1k, the general public will be lining the streets to buy bitcoin and become "millionaires" overnight.

Greed is a powerful motivator...

 

[Inca]

40 weeks, 4 days to go..

I wonder if this price rise upwards is accumulation for this event.

One thing is certain, it ISN'T priced in. What a ridiculous idea :0

 

[jaredjoseph]

I predict $500 minimum before Spring settles in. And we should break the last ATH before the end of 2016. 2017 should bring an even bigger peak approaching 5 digits. Not sure if it'll make it, but I thnk it's sure going to try

 

[jaredjoseph]

That was certainly a conservative prediction. As we've seen in the past couple days, Bitcoin isn't concerned about our predictions and will go parabolic when it damn well pleases

 

[Inca]

It certainly will!

37 weeks, 3 days, 14 hours, 10 minutes to go!

 

[Erdogan]

I agree with the most optimistic prediction, but note: Supply in the market sense is not the new coins coming to the miners, it is rather people who have coins but want to have less.

 

[jaredjoseph]

Hey Erdogan, can you please elaborate on your last comment regarding "it is rather people who have coins but want to have less?" Do you mean simply that supply is controlled by how many bitcoins miners are willing to sell?

 

[Erdogan]

I like this explanation:

Say you are into coffee beans, and there is a market between sellers located at ports in Brazil, and buyers (coffee factories) located elsewhere. Coffee is produced, collected at the sellers premises, traded, shipped overseas, brought to the factories, coffee burnt and grinned, then sold to customers for consumption. The important point is that the coffee is produced and consumed.

Then, in times of price volatility, the sellers might stack up some coffee awaiting higher prices, and buyers might want to do the same. These stores can be sold to other holders or used in production later, or even sold back. The point here is that the actors may want to hold an inventory, where they sometimes adjust the volume they have based on expectation of future prices. Now, take away production and consumption, and all you have left is actors holding some beans and sometimes trading with each others. There is now no difference between the exporters and the importers, they are all traders who buy and sell.

With bitcoin, there is no production (*) and no consumption (the coins just change hands and are always in someones possession). So the supply is, in the market sense, how many coins at what price do the actors want to sell. Demand is what the actors want to buy, for how much. Both aggregated. And all the prices they present on the market are based on expected future value, there is no link to any directly usable good.

*) There is production in the block reward, but that is fixed, and you can disregard it if you want. Or not. It makes, in my opinion, no difference. All actors have full knowledge of the future block rewards.