This reduction in supply, coupled with a steady demand from long-term holders who regularly invest in Bitcoin (a practice known as Dollar-Cost Averaging or DCA), typically results in a dramatic increase in Bitcoin's price. Such price surges attract new investors to Bitcoin, some of whom become long-term holders themselves. These new entrants not only contribute to the demand but also participate in the network's consensus process by running full nodes. Their economic influence becomes crucial, especially in scenarios involving chainsplits, where they can affect the outcome by selling off coins from the less favored split, thus impacting its value and security.

The consensus mechanism within Bitcoin requires unanimous agreement for any changes to be implemented. This necessity arises from the need to maintain a unified direction and avoid fragmentation that could dilate the network's efficacy and security. In instances where a portion of the community desires a different set of rules, a large enough group with significant economic power can essentially enforce their preferred consensus by economically marginalizing the minority, leading either to their submission to the larger consensus or their diminished economic and network influence.

The interaction between the halvening cycle and the consensus dynamics leads to what can be described as the 'Law of Ossification'. This principle suggests that after each halvening, as new users are integrated into the Bitcoin ecosystem, achieving consensus on future changes becomes increasingly difficult. This difficulty is not just due to the growing size of the community but also because convincing new members about the merit of proposed changes requires time and effort, potentially more than what was needed for previous cohorts. The implication is that if convincing existing users within one halvening period was challenging, persuading the subsequent wave of new users will likely be equally, if not more, demanding. This evolving dynamic suggests a gradual stiffening of Bitcoin's protocol over time, making significant changes harder to implement as the community grows and ages, encapsulated in the concept of "ZmnSCPxj's Law Of Ossification".