1162 sats \ 15 replies \ @orthwyrm 6 Sep 2023 \ on: Tail Emissions Are A Terrible Idea bitcoin
Let's wait and see.
Personally I think if Bitcoin isn't generating significant tx fees a decade from now, then something has gone wrong and it has failed to monetize. No degree of tail emission will help with this.
I also don't know how you pick an appropriate emission level. Too little, and it doesn't meaningfully improve security. Too much, and Bitcoin becomes diluted and less desirable to hold. Price falls, security falls. So where's the sweet spot? 1%? 0.1%?
Lastly, if we really wanted to hardfork to fix security, surely it would be better to instead add features that increase on-chain demand? Ethereum for example has no problem generating tx fees in large part due to stablecoin volume.
I also don't know how you pick an appropriate emission level.
that's so obvious... :)
in case of four years long network difficulty regression - halving should be delayed by next 4 years (to not introduce further destruction to the network security)
this is the only way to set appropriate emission level - because determined by the free market between active and passive users
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I would and one more point to this already great answer: it is not about 21m or the actual tail emission. This is about protecting “changing the rules” attack vector. Once you change this you can start to question block-size, block-times, anything. If Bitcoin is still useful in those few halvings, security budget wont be a problem because fees will generate enough revenue. If not, bitcoin failed, but not because of security budget but because people dont use it.
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Perfect answer
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Bitcoin isn't generating significant tx fees a decade from now
Define significant. how much?
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enough to compensate miners
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I don't know, but I could amend that sentence to:
Personally I think if Bitcoin is operating unreliably due to a lack of on-chain demand a decade from now, then...
Where "unreliably" is taken to mean frequent double spends / very long confirmation times.
Whatever level the tail emission proponents are afraid of, I suppose.
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Personally I think if Bitcoin is operating unreliably due to a lack of on-chain demand a decade from now
Why do you think it will be a lack of onchain demand?
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I think the point you are driving at based on other comments is that altcoins such as BCH manage to stay operational despite much lower miner revenue.
While true, this is missing two key points: a) Confirmation times are required to be way higher for these chains for final settlement, and b) They are seldom worth attacking because nobody uses them for very large transactions.
I doubt one would risk settling a $1B transaction on Bitcoin if the block reward amounted to $1k.
I'm not quite sure the onus is on me to answer this questions regardless; I'm not the one advocating for tail emission.
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I doubt one would risk settling a $1B transaction on Bitcoin if the block reward amounted to $1k.
Why not? You just wait longer. There is no such thing as final settlement in Bitcoin anyway.
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altcoins such as BCH manage to stay operational despite much lower miner revenue.
I used the altcoin example to show how the miners adapt to the environment, no need of protocol change to maintain security.
I believe the BCH example is bad as is a minority hash chain (SHA256). making it more insecure of what bitcoin will be in the future when we do not have the subsidy. I used this example to make a point of how the miners will behave.
In the future, Miners will use the best technology increasing their efficiency and increase the hashrate even more of what we have today.
I doubt one would risk settling a $1B transaction on Bitcoin if the block reward amounted to $1k.
Today (09-06-2023) the last block reward was 8600$
I don't understand why you think is going to be less in the future.
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I dont think the question is whether fees will be more, the question is whether fees will be enough
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Enough to provide enough mining security to be robust to attack from a state-level actor.
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How much is that?
Go and check hashrates of BCH, BSV, LTC, DOGE, etc.
The game theory on bitcoin is that the miners will adapt, the ones who cannot operate with the margins of each epoch, will left the network allowing the ones who stay to make more money.
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Nobody knows how much it is. That's the point. And if you're drawing your comps for btc's desired security budget from a bunch of shitcoins, I don't know what to tell you.
Game theory isn't magic -- all of these parameters are bound together to produce the complex system that emerges. You can't solve it in closed form and predict what will happen.
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Nobody knows how much it is. That's the point. And if you're drawing your comps for btc's desired security budget from a bunch of shitcoins, I don't know what to tell you.
If nobody knows why you think is needed? who will impose this variable?
I gave you an example of shitcoins to make you think.
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