This was recently discussed on bitcointalk [1]. Some quotes from that thread: > Because when you have mined a full block and there is a backlog, the difference

This was recently discussed on bitcointalk [1]. Some quotes from that thread: > Because when you have mined a full block and there is a backlog, the difference in income between mining the next block (all full of pending transactions) and going backwards and remining the prior block to take its fees is small (and comes at a cost of decreased chance of eventually being in the longest chain). This is particularly true because new transactions that are arriving cannot be included in the prior block if it is remined. > A supply cap requires a block reward dwindling to insignificance (long before it reaches 0). So the significant mining reward must come from large fees. Mining stability requires a steady backlog of fee paying transactions, which in turn requires a highly constrained block size. [1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5306354.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5306354.0