Have a look at the charts showing the fees per day [1] and the network deficit [2]. On the one hand fees went up, but before the block reward dropped, on the ot

Have a look at the charts showing the fees per day [1] and the network deficit [2]. On the one hand fees went up, but before the block reward dropped, on the other hand the network operated at a deficit for quite some time. One has of course to take these graphs with a grain of salt because it is quite hard to estimated the real costs of running the Bitcoin network. But I really don't understand what you are arguing for. Once the block reward becomes mostly irrelevant you have essentially two choices - relatively expensive transactions or a weak network, i.e. low hash rate. Don't you agree with that? [1] https://blockchain.info/charts/transaction-fees?showDataPoints=false&show_header=true&daysAverageString=1&timespan=all&scale=1 https://blockchain.info/charts/transaction-fees?showDataPoin... [2] https://blockchain.info/charts/network-deficit?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0 https://blockchain.info/charts/network-deficit?timespan=all&...