Bitcoin relies on the participation of people and organisations to act as the "bankers" of the system.Called Bitcoin miners, they effectively record each transaction on a ledger called the Blockchain and in return, they are awarded with bitcoins.The process of mining is to do a series of calculations to discover a specific number, and the first one to do so gets the reward of 25 bitcoins (valued at approximately US $10,500).In order to increase their chances, Bitcoin miners have large numbers of computers with specialised hardware that consume significant amounts of electricity.The entire Bitcoin system has been estimated to use about 350 Megawatts of electricity which is the same demand as 280,000 US homes.For miners, electricity usage is the majority of the cost of producing bitcoins and this is why China, with its relatively low energy costs, has become the country of choice for this type of operation.The economics of Bitcoin mining only make sense if the price of Bitcoin is maintained.

Around July 18th however, Bitcoin will go through a process whereby the reward allocated to Bitcoin miners is halved.This happens every 4 years and was added into the design of Bitcoin as a way of slowly reaching the limit of the total number of Bitcoins to 21 million.The design also assumes that as the production of new Bitcoins from the mining process slows down, the incentives for mining will be made up by adding transaction costs to the process.Of course, unless the price of Bitcoin goes up, more pressure will be put on Bitcoin miners to continue operating after their profits have been slashed.Although anything could happen, Bitcoin miners could potentially decide that mining an alternative cryptocurrency like Ethereum might be easier than continuing with Bitcoin.The uncertainty of what will happen after Bitcoin goes through this "halving" process has already had one significant casualty.Bitcoin Group, an Australian Bitcoin mining company was hoping to list on the Australian Stock Exchange this year but last month abandoned its plans for an IPO.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) didn't believe that Bitcoin Group could assure its capital adequacy after the Bitcoin halving process and so clearly ASIC at least didn't think that the price of Bitcoin was going to go up as a result.The truth of the matter is that nobody really knows what will happen.On the one hand, there will be fewer bitcoins being generated each day and some people have argued that this will create a shortage of supply that will drive prices up.litecoin wiki hardwareThis of course assumes that supply of bitcoins is constrained in any way which it is not clear that it is.modify bitcoin walletOn the other hand, Bitcoin miners will be making fewer bitcoins and may have to sell more bitcoins to pay their expenses which could drive the price of bitcoins down.when will litecoin mining end

Ultimately, if the process of mining bitcoins becomes too unprofitable, they will stop altogether and switch to another cryptocurrency and this would largely spell the end of Bitcoin.Unfortunately, predicting anything about Bitcoin is made more difficult because of a number of factors involved in how the mining process works and ultimately what is actually driving the Bitcoin market.bitcoin mt gox newsGiven that Bitcoin is largely an experiment in creating a novel form of currency, the uncertainty is unsurprising.change bitcoin to proof of stakeThe designers of Bitcoin possibly expected that the community would be able to respond to knowledge gained as the experiment ran, but that hasn't turned out to be the case.bitcoin guadagniInstead, the Bitcoin community has been fractured with an ongoing argument of how to modify one aspect of the Blockchain, what size the blocks that make it up should be.

Given that achieving any sort of compromise on this question proved so difficult, the interest in cryptocurrencies is rapidly shifting away from Bitcoin to the Blockchain and to other currencies like Ethereum.Ethereum is like the version 2 that Bitcoin should have had.It has a range of new features that make the Ethereum Blockchain capable of supporting so-called "smart contracts" but more importantly, it is moving away from the extremely wasteful mining process of Bitcoin to another system that promises to be much more efficient.Given that by 2020, Bitcoin is predicted to be globally using more electricity than the entire country of Denmark currently does, a more efficient system can not come too soon.The halving is another bump in the technological and social experiment that has been the evolution of Bitcoin.Whether it derails the project entirely will only become apparent in the months that follow.Explore further: Bitcoin 'mining pool' promises to stay smallReward-Drop ETA date: 20 Jun 2020 23:13:07 The Bitcoin block mining reward halves every 210,000 blocks, the coin reward will decrease from 12 to 6 coins.

Total Bitcoins in circulation:16,408,450 Total Bitcoins to ever be produced:21,000,000 Percentage of total Bitcoins mined:78.14% Total Bitcoins left to mine:4,591,550 Total Bitcoins left to mine until next blockhalf:1,887,888 Bitcoin price (USD):$2,663.00 Market capitalization (USD):$43,695,702,350.00 Bitcoins generated per day:1,728 Bitcoin inflation rate per annum:3.92% Bitcoin inflation rate per annum at next block halving event:1.73% Bitcoin inflation per day (USD):$4,601,664 Bitcoin inflation until next blockhalf event based on current price (USD):$5,027,445,744 Total blocks:472,676 Blocks until mining reward is halved:157,324 Approximate block generation time:10.00 minutes Approximate blocks generated per day:144 Difficulty:711,697,198,174 Hash rate:4.99 Exahashes/s Litecoin Block Halving CountdownHold on to your hats, Bitcoin fans.Some very influential people suggest the Bitcoin price target could crack $500,000 by 2030, and the forecast isn’t as outrageous as it sounds.

This is a tale of a growth story coming into full bloom with the passage of time, gaining worldwide acceptance along the way.At first blush, the premise of this price prediction seems unbelievable.After all, as of this writing, Bitcoin is “only” trading at around $1,215/BTC (bitcoin), which is only around 0.24% of the $500,000 Bitcoin price target.That’s an awful long way to go, now matter how solid the fundamentals may seem.A price appreciation that high would make the internet bubble seem rational by comparison.What could possibly prompt the price to rise 411-fold in less than a decade and a half?The Bitcoin price target comes courtesy of Jeremy Liew and Peter Smith, the first investor in Snapchat and the co-founder and CEO of Blockchain, respectively.They made these predictions recently in a presentation, and were they ever ambitious.Before we dive into those factors, allow me to list the set of assumption these technology elites used for their projections: Both expect a huge increase in electronic money transfers, which have almost doubled worldwide over the past 15 years.

According to The World Bank data, remittance transfers now account for 0.76% of world GDP, or around $600.0 billion.It’s a huge and growing market.Both expect the major catalyst for growth will be greater Bitcoin awareness, along with the growing overall market.This is the catalyst many CEOs of technology companies expect will drive adoption of their products.Jeremy and Peter expect the same to happen with Bitcoin.As smartphone penetration filters throughout the world, expected to top one billion users by 2020, non-cash transactions on these devices will climb dramatically as a result.Jeremy and Peter suspect Bitcoin could account for 50% of all these transactions, which is quite an ambitious projection.Only great things would result with market dominance on that scale.A Bitcoin price target of $1,000/BTC was assumed for 2017, which seemed fairly conservative.This is half of Lombardi Letter‘s Bitcoin price forecast 2017 of $2,000/BTC, and more than 20% discount from the current price.

I suspect Jeremy and Peter wanted to use a round number in their calculations to simplify things; this would be the rational thing to do.Don’t be surprised if Bitcoin could traded much higher than this number in 2017 however.Another assumption used was a Bitcoin supply, which is easy to make since the total number of bitcoins that can ever be in circulation is 21 million.That number is expected to be reached after 2040, and will remain in place unless something drastically changes.There’s talk of a “hard fork,” which could potentially split the Bitcoin network into two if the community can’t agree on a protocol, but nothing suggests a rising amount of bitcoins in circulation.Finally, Jeremy and Peter obtained their ultimate Bitcoin price target by dividing the assumed market cap of $10.0 trillion by 20 million (the amount of fixed supply in circulation).Voila, they come up with a 2030 bitcoin price target of $500,000/BTC and user headcount of 400 million worldwide.All this comes a couple months after another large bitcoin price target raised eyebrows back in February 2017.

According to President and Chief Behavioral Strategist of Lamoureux & CO, Yves Lamoureux, Bitcoin is on a trajectory that will eventually catapult it into bubble territory.This will ultimately take prices in excess of $25,000/BTC or more.As a macro research firm, Lamoureux & CO is in the business of studying trends.It’s analyzed the market and believes the key ingredients in past bubbles are now present in Bitcoin.Lamoureux argues the mathematics of a finite supply coupled with insatiable demand will carry prices much higher, ultimately culminating in a classic “bubble.” (Source: “Why bitcoin will surge to $25,000,” Yahoo!Finance, February 10, 2017.)There’s also been a smattering of lower, but substantial price targets by reputable analysts, ranging from $1600 to $10,000 in 2017 alone.The enormous enthusiasm in the market is sky-high currently, and we’ve already seen two bubble moves that initially took the cryptocurrency from pennies to $250.00/BTC, then a second surge extending prices from $230.00 to over $1,250/BTC (beyond parity with gold).

All this in the matter of six years.The precedent is there and some are expecting subsequent bubble moves to be the most powerful yet.It takes a while to wrap your head around this figure, no matter how ardent of a supporter you are.Ten-sigma moves aren’t the type which happen too often.It’s not something investors can “expect,” like it’s some sort of given.Admittedly, much would need to go right for this scenario to play out, but the credibility of the soothsayers is stellar.That goes a long way.Another thing that goes a long way are elements in Jeremy & Peter’s assumptions, which are playing out right before our eyes.Let’s take the “400 million total users” assumption by 2030 as a prime example.Japan has just recognized Bitcoin as an official currency.The Japanese Cabinet signed a law recognizing virtual currencies like Bitcoin as money, thus removing a huge potential obstacle to growth.Now citizens can make payments, make transfers, and purchase goods with the full confidence that Bitcoin is recognized as legal tender, and fully legal within the framework of the law.

This could provide the springboard needed for a fickle public to finally take Bitcoin seriously as a fiat equal.Such recognition will act to bring Bitcoin out of the fringes and into the mainstream consumer consciousness.(Source: “Bitcoin in Japan: Officially Recognized in April; Asset or Expense?,” Cryptocoins News, March 29, 2017).The same dynamics are happening in Russia.Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev is currently working to make Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies legal sometime in 2018.The impetus for the decision is to fight money laundering by Russia organized crime, and the government has recognized it doesn’t want to steer blind when it comes to knowing about decentralized financial transactions.“The state needs to know who at every moment of time stands on both sides of the financial chain,” said Moiseev, “Just like with bank operations.” (Source: “Russia Caves In on Bitcoin to Open Front on Money Laundering,” Bloomberg, April 10, 2017.)The fact that two major industrialized nations are moving so fast to recognize Bitcoin is an incredibly bullish development.

As we all know, once a couple of influencers jump on board, often the rest follow.This is especially true because of the state’s requirements to understand the counter-parties of each transaction, which they can only do if they bring Bitcoin under a legal tender framework and regulate it.The moment of mass state recognition is upon us, which should then flow to corporate adoption on down to the individual level.This is how Jeremy and Peter’s “400 million total users” becomes plausible.At that number, there will only be about 1/20 bitcoin for every user in the world, so supply/demand dynamics should force valuation high in “folds.” There’s simply much too little supply to accommodate the dollar value cost of global transaction remittances and the cost of goods.People will need to get used to working with fractions, but they will.This narrative also fits into the “cashless society” ambitions our governmental overlords seems determined to impose.India’s decision to remove 500- and 1000-rupee notes from the money supply, effectively removing 84% of hard currency from circulation, is evidence of this.

Despite the fact many citizens were ill-prepared for such a scenario, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pulled the trigger anyway.This has left hundreds of millions scrambling for an alternative to hard currency, and bitcoin interest has been soaring.Indian start-up Unocoin predicts that the number of Bitcoin users in India will grow by approximately 56% per year for the next decade.(, December 2, 2016.)Don’t for a minute think other world governments aren’t watching this grand experiment with anticipation, readying to implement the same tactics, should it prove successful.Any construct which limits the use of physical bills in an economy will interest governments worldwide.Will Bitcoin set a new record price in 2017?The Bitcoin price chart looks fantastic, having fended off several Chinese government attempts to curb demand of exchanges and impose capital controls.Yet, it is still trading near all-time highs and threatening to run again at a moment’s notice.Bitcoin was easily the best-performing currency in 2016, 11-fold higher than its nearest rival, and this may just be a primer.