3 ms·
In essence, if mining incentives go low (and unspoken in title: If transaction volumes stay low so that transaction incentives are also low), then a 51% attack
by jvanderbot 2y ago
In essence, if mining incentives go low (and unspoken in title: If transaction volumes stay low so that transaction incentives are also low), then a 51% attack becomes trivial over time b/c miners drop out.
So, either we start using bitcoin a lot, generating significant transaction fee revenue to keep miners in, or it's doomed to an inevitable compromise.
So they are attacking bitcoin as a stable store of value, but not necessarily as a currency. Is there a road to 1000x more daily transactions? I don't know. It's currently more like a blue chip stock than a currency or asset.
- spenvo 2y agoAuthor here. Yup, that's a decent summary. While transaction volumes aren't mentioned in the title, they are mentioned several times in the article (Scenario #3 is based entirely on transaction volume and Scenario #2 accounts for it).
- superjan 2y agoThe currently agreed protocol leads to < 10 transactions/sec. This can be improved, but 1000x will be challenging. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem