But buying only makes sense if you can "realize" the gains - for that, the BTC network (i.e. transfers between accounts) has to continue working. In the absence of mining gains from newly-minted coins, rich individuals that want to use their wealth will be paying for mining in transaction fees.
Re:Bitcoin is close to becoming worthless?
by GreaterFool on Monday December 03, 2018 @11:04AM
(#18589768)
I suppose one source of risk is that if enough miners exit then it becomes viable for a bad actor to purchase enough computing power to mount an attack.
IIRC 51% attack happened on one of the bitcoin forks.
“. Similarly, when the price of bitcoin falls and miners exit, the cost of mining decreases. However, the number of miners cannot fall below a certain level, because without the miners providing the computing power to maintain the ledger, the bitcoin blockchain will not remain viable.
Mining at a cost higher than the cost at which you can sell in the futures market destroys value. So, any rational investor — even one who strongly believes the price of bitcoin will rebound — has no incentive to mine if the cost of mining is higher than the future price and is better off buying in the futures market. ”