3 ms·
This gets at one of the things I've never quite understood about Bitcoin. Over time the effort to mine a coin goes up - there's a ultimately a set limit on the
by hackeraccount 4y ago
This gets at one of the things I've never quite understood about Bitcoin. Over time the effort to mine a coin goes up - there's a ultimately a set limit on the number of coins that will be produced. Mining coins is where the effort for all operations comes from.
What if the impetus for mining - an increasing worth for a rarer coin - doesn't scale? Couldn't you have a situation where fewer miners reduces the speed of operations so there's less demand which is a feedback on itself.
- ISL 4y agoThe idea was to bootstrap a community of blockchain processors (miners) into existence. Once all the coins are gone, the transaction fees will remain.
- hackeraccount 4y agoAh - I'd forgotten about transaction fees.
- benj111 4y agoA comment above refers to this happening before and transaction fees rising to tempt back miners. This suggests that transaction fees are being subsidised at the moment. So long term what are transaction fees going to look like?
- thatguy0900 4y agoEdited: Apparently I am incorrect.
- remram 4y agoTransaction fees are set freely by the individuals creating those transactions.
- tinus_hn 4y agoMining is solving some kind of puzzle. If not a lot of blocks get mined, the difficulty the puzzle is reduced. This way the system automatically balances so mining a block costs about as much as you gain when you solve the puzzle first.
- gjvc 4y agoI do wish people would not use the term "puzzle" when talking about bitcoin and proof-of-work. The word "puzzle" conveys some sort of strategy and approach beyond trial-and-error. Instead of a puzzle, it is a brute-force search.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nullc 4y ago> it is a brute-force search That usually causes people to assume its a finite haystack with a single needle, e.g. something that has progress, and bitcoin mining doesn't. A lottery is a better analogy but carries its own misunderstandings. All analogies are imperfect. :)
- tinus_hn 4y agoIt’s a huge but finite haystack with a lot of needles, the number of needles depends on the difficulty.
- nullc 4y agoInternal state of sha256 is 512 bits, though the inputs the user can control are limited to about 300 bits. In any case, it's larger than the believed number of atoms in the observable universe. The important point is that there is no progress, each attempt has an independent probability of success. Imagining it as an infinite haystack with a difficulty controlled density of needles still yields the right understanding.
- 4y ago