3 ms·
> as of now, Bitcoin hasn't been hacked We should be cautious about whether past precedent applies to future bitcoin, because the bitcoin halving mechanism ens
by paulgb 2y ago
> as of now, Bitcoin hasn't been hacked
We should be cautious about whether past precedent applies to future bitcoin, because the bitcoin halving mechanism ensures that bitcoin enters uncharted territory (with regards to the incentives at play) every four years for the next ~100.
Satoshi's design was that bitcoin would be used as cash and transaction volume would provide the funds to secure the network. That largely hasn't happened (it's a "store of value" now, lightning exists, etc.), so mining incentives are still ~95-98% funded from the exponentially diminishing supply of new coins.
Short of some institution stepping in to secure the bitcoin network by mining at a loss, it's hard not to imagine a 51% attack being relatively cheap on the time scale of decades.
- desumeku 2y agoOne word: fees.
- paulgb 2y agoTransaction fees currently make up a tiny sliver of the mining rewards, and this seems likely to be even more the case the more ways there are to exchange it off chain (like trading ETFs). https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/block-fees-subsidy https://mempool.space/graphs/mining/block-fees-subsidy
- desumeku 2y agoIf bitcoin becomes a world reserve currency like maxis think it will, then in a late-stage bitcoin scenario, the main chain would have such a high demand, and thus high enough fees, that it would serve more as a settlement layer where side-chains take up the majority of user activity, which collects enough in fees to push a transaction to the 'base' bitcoin chain, using the metadata to provide cryptographic proof of its activities (to avoid fraud), kind of like ETH l2's.