110 sats \ 2 replies \ @Spartan 22 Jul 2022 \ parent \ on: I'm Simon, creator of Mempool.Space. AMA. bitcoin
It's not hard to know. One of the first principals of Bitcoin is scarcity. If you increase the supply, it will no longer be Bitcoin.
That is just the simple truth of the matter. 21 million forever.
It is difficult to solve a problem that does not exist today. If we are at the very beginning of the adoption curve (which I personally believe we are) then the network is only be used at <2% of future network traffic.
This problem is a problem for tomorrow, because we cannot foresee the future and have it hang around our necks like an albatross.
IF this issue needs addressing, then it will be addressed at the appropriate time. That time is not now.
Point well made and taken. Too early to think about it.
I was hoping for a more nuanced response from @softsimon since he is more aware of the fee market development and likely has thought more about it therefore.
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Just based of what I've seen. Bitcoin block size and block space are scarce and the limitations are also very arbitrary. Currently you can do 1 sat/vb, but what happened in 2020 for example is that as soon as the fee market starts for real, it will shoot up to 100 sats/vB .. and we get true price discovery for block space.
What happens when fees go up is that the market adapts, stop doing some transactions, migrate to other technologies like Lightning. This part is very unpredictable. It's like the people 100 years ago that predicted that food and oil would run out in the world... They base their assumptions on current data. We don't know how the market adapt and what scaling tech will exist in 20 years.
Personally I think one thing is for sure,, if Bitcoin is successful and adoption continues,, there will be a fee market enough to cover security. And it will not be like now with empty blocks during a bear market, it will have a steady market price as world trade continues 24/7.
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