Miners were forced to close their shops. Atulya Sarin, a Santa Clara University professor, introduced the idea that the token had entered a death spiral. It will now be worth $0
Bitcoin Death Spiral
Several influencers reacted negatively to the theory. In Mastering Bitcoin, Andreas Antonopoulos explained the death spiral phenomenon in a Youtube session. He also gave reasons why it is unlikely to occur. The difficulty of Bitcoin mining is determined by the number of blocks that have been mined. This means that the difficulty will be adjusted every two weeks after the 2016 blocks are mined.
If there is a drop in hash power and only half of the miners participate, the block will be issued every twenty minutes instead. This prolongs the time it takes to adjust the mining difficulty. This causes mining to become less profitable, and many miners leave. This cycle continues, and the miners’ exit causes another drop in the hashrate, which slows down block issuance, creating a death spiral.
The increase in mining difficulty
According to recent reports, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has increased for the first time in October 2018. The rise in mining difficulty has actually been double-digits (or 10%).
Twitterati’s verdict
Alistair Milne, a Bitcoin evangelist, said that the Twitterati actively commented on this activity.
“Remember the Bitcoin mining death spiral FUD?” Just adjusted mining difficulty to +10%
CryptoCoinMaker is a Twitterati who said:
” Miners have either much more electricity than me, or they believe a bounce is coming .”
Kirkins, another Twitterati stated:
“Strange Mining Costs Increased 10% Despite Bear Market”
