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> incentives an ever increasing amount of waste that can only increase with time. That is NOT true: The Bitcoin block reward is cut in half every four years -
by eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y ago
> incentives an ever increasing amount of waste that can only increase with time.
That is NOT true:
The Bitcoin block reward is cut in half every four years - an exponential decay! In the long-term it will be zero, miners will only earn transaction fees.
This means that there will be a supply vs demand market, where supply is the willingness of people to pay transaction fees, and demand is miners who consume them.
And there is only a finite willingness to pay fees! So the energy usage has a finite upper boundary through the limited supply of fees.
- eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y agoWhy are you downvoting this? It's right in the source code, this is not just a personal opinion!
- tylersmith 6y agoBecause the energy expenditure is not supposed to halve when the rewards do. The premise of Nakamoto consensus is that the decisions are finalized if and only if the chain constantly has enough hash rate to outpace anybody that might want to rewrite it. If the hash rate were to every halve, the chain would be jeopardy.
- quickthrower2 6y agoThe price of electricity, it's CO2 emissions per KWh and the future price of bitcoin is not in the source code.
- robjan 6y agoThat's a big problem then. That means once the block mining reward turns to zero most miners will have to cease their operation to keep themselves in the black. If that happens, the cost of a 50% attack significantly decreases.
- eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y agoThey will sell off their equipment to the general public, which causes a lot of decentralization, and thus makes a coordinated attack more difficult.
- tylersmith 6y agoDecentralized ownership of ASICs doesn't help if they're not being used. If they are being used then there's no decrease in energy usage.
- jmhyer123 6y agoThat assumes the general public will buy it and use it which isn't likely if the incentive to do so isn't there.
- tylersmith 6y agoExactly this. If a huge industry miner can't afford to run a machine then the average crypto enthusiast can't either.
- eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 6y agoThe general public buys much less yielding investments, they even buy lottery tickets by the millions! And we're not talking black or white here. It's not that miners suddenly will earn zero money. It will just decrease to the point where it may make sense to sell some of the equipment. That equipment might still be somewhat profitable, just not as insanely high as it is now.
- agotterer 6y agoThere's going to be an awful lot of wasted hardware and electricity before mining is complete in ~2140.
- robjan 6y agoWhy would the general public buy ASICs when they can get no utility out of them?