Question About Bitcoin Blocks

[o_e_l_e_o]

We'll worry about this after the last SAT is mined, which we probably won't get.

It will become an issue long before then.

The last sat will be mined around 2140. For 40 years before that, the block subsidy will be less than 1000 sats. For 40 years before that (which is 2060, so really not that far away and within the lifespan of many people currently using bitcoin), the block reward will be less than one thousandth of what it is now, at 0.00610351 BTC or less. This is nowhere near enough to support the current level of mining activity on its own. Indeed, in will only take 4 or 5 more halvings for the block subsidy to consistently be less than the amount of fees currently being collected in a block.

Fees will pay a very important part of mining rewards within the next 20 years. We certainly won't be waiting until 2140 for this to be an issue. A combination of more transactions in a block and higher bitcoin price in fiat, as well as times of higher fee rates in sats/vbyte, will need to be enough to sustain a sufficient level of mining activity to secure the network.

[franky1]

Fees will pay a very important part of mining rewards within the next 20 years. We certainly won't be waiting until 2140 for this to be an issue. A combination of more transactions in a block and higher bitcoin price in fiat, as well as times of higher fee rates in sats/vbyte, will need to be enough to sustain a sufficient level of mining activity to secure the network.

you are finally starting to see the light. about why trying to get people to stop using bitcoin has its drawbacks and why increasing the transaction count onchain has its advantages.

one thing i will knitpick from your lightbulb moment.. increasing the sats/vbyte alone is bad enough. but put that along side the inevitable increased bitcoin price.. might help pools. but it damn sure wont help people wanting to transact.. after all it doesnt matter how much a fee is increased to if people have been steered away from making transactions due to offchain ramps and excess onchain fee.

no solution option should be to increase the sat/vbyte.
the only real solution is to increase the transaction count per block thus more people contribute collectively without it costing them their pension personally.

some people only get real world income of $2 a day in developing countries. some only get $40 a day. if you really think people will tolerate $2-$40 fee's+ you are much mistaken. would you use any visa,paypal,venmo, bank service that charges $2-$40+ per transaction, no you wouldnt(be honest) so why think it would even be a idea to think people would pay it in bitcoin.

increasing the fee/byte is just asking to steer people away from bitcoin. and deep down i think you know this.

[o_e_l_e_o]

no solution option should be to increase the sat/vbyte.

It's not a solution, but it will still happen. Simple supply and demand has shown that the fee rate will increase to whatever people want to increase it to, not helped by centralized exchanges and other services paying far higher transaction fees than necessary, and poorly coded wallets and websites suggesting excessively high fees. These periods of higher fees will undoubtedly happen again in the future. Indeed, if we come to a point where it becomes unprofitable for some miners and they drop off the network, then until the next difficulty retarget blocks will be mined more slowly, block space will be at a premium, and fees will increase.

would you use any visa,paypal,venmo, bank service that charges $2-$40+ per transaction, no you wouldnt(be honest) so why think it would even be a idea to think people would pay it in bitcoin.

No, I would not pay fees of $2 per transaction, but I would pay fees of $2 to open a Lightning channel which allows me to make unlimited transactions at negligible additional cost. (I will not be responding to any attempts to derail this thread in to your personal vendetta against Lightning. Those posts can go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5380215.0)

[franky1]

no solution option should be to increase the sat/vbyte.

It's not a solution, but it will still happen. Simple supply and demand has shown that the fee rate will increase to whatever people want to increase it to, not helped by centralized exchanges and other services paying far higher transaction fees than necessary, and poorly coded wallets and websites suggesting excessively high fees. These periods of higher fees will undoubtedly happen again in the future. Indeed, if we come to a point where it becomes unprofitable for some miners and they drop off the network, then until the next difficulty retarget blocks will be mined more slowly, block space will be at a premium, and fees will increase.

no.. fee's do not endlessly increase.. people stop transacting as frequently at first.. and then just find another network to use instead, as you yourself have proven, you dont want to pay a bitcoin fee to transact for daily use, even at $2.. but you are willing to pay it one-off to then go use another network for months.. and the price has not even gone to $40.. yet you have already abandoned using bitcoin and moved to another network (the network you dont like me talking about.hmm)

thus proving you would happily abandon bitcoin due to fee's, as you have stated you already have, rather then you play your supposed "just pay more to support miners" theory
thus your theory has been debunked BY YOUR OWN ACTIONS

yes i know you dont want to scale transaction counts up to allow more transactions without scaling the individual users fee's..
yes i know you dont want more transactions so a cumulative total fee can cover costs, without hindering individuals costs
yes i know you instead want to scale individual fee's up to get people to exodus bitcoin for other networks.
i know, i know, no need for you to advertise it.

i know you think people will just pay more even though you have proven that 'just pay more' game theory does not work in reality. especially in your own use case of you moving to another network
however i also know that YOU know, deep down there is a max people will pay before they give up using bitcoin. so why are you soo entranced on the theory that bitcoin doesnt need to scale transaction count and people will just pay more until they give up using bitcoin..
oh yea we cant talk about your love of other networks as the go to place everyone should use instead. hmmm

if fee's are high but not many people are transacting. its not a case of blocks go slower meaning blocks fill up
if there are in a few decades only say 100 transactions a block due to high fee's where everyone has moved to other networks(you already have). then even if blocks were 10x slower. all 1000transactions can still fit into 1 block.
the solution is not to pressure fee's higher at the risk of losing peoples desire to use bitcoin.. to then pressure pools to pull out from mining because the fee's cant pay the bills..

that silly game is a way to kill bitcoin,
i know its your game.. because you love other networks. but thats not a way to keep bitcoin active and useful and secure.

your game
now
current tx average per block:1419
current fee average per transaction: $2
current mining rate: 190exa

then later
future wish tx average per block:1419
current fee average per transaction: $3
current mining rate: 170exa

then later
future wish tx average per block:709
current fee average per transaction: $6
current mining rate: 150exa

then later
future wish tx average per block:709
current fee average per transaction: $6
current mining rate: 130exa

and so on.
you want less hashpower, less people using bitcoin and bitcoin appearing alot more expensive to use than fiat wire transfers or other native banking systems. where your favourite altnet is the only game in town that appears better than fiat..

shame on you

[o_e_l_e_o]

no.. fee's do not endlessly increase..

I never said they did:

These periods of higher fees will undoubtedly happen again in the future.
then until the next difficulty retarget blocks will be mined more slowly, block space will be at a premium, and fees will increase.

thus proving you would happily abandon bitcoin due to fee's, as you have stated you already have, rather then you play your supposed "just pay more to support miners" theory
thus your theory has been debunked BY YOUR OWN ACTIONS

Not abandoning bitcoin at all, simply using its second layer solutions. And even then, I'm still supporting miners by making channel opening and closing transactions on the base layer. Even when most people are using Lightning, there will still be more than enough transactions happening on the base layer to fill the available block space and pay miners the fees they need.

you want less hashpower, less people using bitcoin and bitcoin appearing alot more expensive to use than fiat wire transfers or other native banking systems. where your favourite altnet is the only game in town that appears better than fiat..

Nice strawman. Once again, I will not be responding to any attempts to derail yet another thread in to your personal vendetta against Lightning.

[franky1]

imagining bitcoin was $1m/btc in 20 years   (1sat = $0.01)
the mining reward was: 0.1953125  ($195,312.50 reward)

lets look at the mining cost per block previously
2018 - 40exa - $35k
2020 - 100exa - $87k (2.5x)
2022 - 184exa - $160k (1.8x)

lets assume a low 2x cost for each 4 year period (for next 5 halving(20 years)),
yep i mean 2x every 4 years not every 2 years (lets keep costs low for example)
starting with 2022 at a 200exa range($174k cost)
2022 - $174k
2026 - $384k
2030 - $696k
2034 - $1.392m
2038 - $2.784m
2042 - $5.568m

this would mean out of the 5.568 COST only 195,312.50 is covered by the reward
$5372 is still needed by the fee's

even if we assume 1sat/byte even in a 4mb space ($2.50/tx in a 250byte lean tx)
thats only 4000000sat (0.04btc($40k)) fee total
so to cover the missing $5.332m of cost would require fee's of 134 sat/byte
meaning an average lean transaction of ~250bytes would be 33579 sat/tx ($335.79/tx)
sorry but no one is going to dare pay that. and blocks wont be willingly full of tx willing to pay that!!

the 'compromise' is either less secure mining per period(lower cost). or more transactions per block(increased combined fee total)
so lets go with a average tx fee of $2.50 on a 250byte lean tx
using the $1m/btc that means each tx needs 250sat(1sat/byte)

but would require either the mining cost to be:
 0.04btc for total fee ($40k fee) + $195k reward - 4mb blocks ($235k mining cost(1.35x difficulty now))
 0.08btc total fee ($80k fee) + $195k reward -  8mb blocks ($275k mining cost(1.58x difficulty now))
 0.16btc total fee ($160k fee)  + $195k reward -  16mb blocks ($355k mining cost(2x difficulty now))
meaning in 20 years the hashrate can ONLY BE DOUBLE 'cost' compared to now but also needs blocks to be 16mb just to cover those costs
meaning. 20 years have passed but the mining cost difficulty has only doubled (not good security)
or lets go with the scenario that people are willing to pay upto.. say $10 to transact
blocks would need to be:
 0.16btc for total fee ($160k fee) + $195k reward - 4mb blocks ($355k mining cost)
meaning in 20 years the hashrate can only BE double 'cost' as now but without increasing the 4mb limit, but people need to pay $10/tx
 0.32btc total fee ($320k fee) + $195k reward -  8mb blocks ($495k mining cost)
meaning in 20 years the hashrate can only BE triple 'cost' as now but with increasing to 8mb limit, and people need to pay $10/tx

again no one will want to pay more then $10 regularly before deciding that its not worth using bitcoin.
after all 'paypal', 'venmo' dont charge $10 a month just to then buy stuff with no internal fee
after all no bank/ western union charges $10 per wire transfer

so no one will feel that $10 is 'value' as a payment network cost of transfer or as a open session peg into a monthly session in another network
so to summarise. if $10/tx is the max people will still think its kinda useful at-a-stretch to use bitcoin in 20 years. it would only allow a 2x of mining cost at current block space in 20 years. (also not very secure for a network after 20 years to only have got 2x more difficult)
or the blockspace will need to increase so that users dont end up paying more, to allow the security difficulty to further multiply by year 20 without costing users more than its appropriate

20 years is a hell of alot of time and we all know portable media 20 years ago was 1.4mb floppies and now its 1tb(1mill x factor)
20 years is a hell of alot of time and we all know internet speeds 20 years ago was 0.5mbs adsl and now its 50mbs(100 x factor)
heck even 10 years ago hard drives were 250gb and adsl was 5mbs.. now both stats are 10x.. yet the transaction count of bitcoin limit has not 10x scaled, because some people that dont want bitcoin to continue use 10/20 year old stats t say why it should not scale now nor for the next 20 years


so them thinking that 4x transaction count in 20 years is bad, is ignoring many things
so them thinking that 2x transaction count in 20 years is bad, is ignoring many things

we need to be in a position of 16mb blocks for a reasonable $2.50 fee/lean tx in 20 years but with only 2x mining cost compared to now
we need to be in a position of 8mb blocks for an at-a-stretch $10 fee/lean tx in 20 years but with only 3x mining cost compared to now

[stepwilli]

What will happen if there are no more bitcoin transactions for some reason? Will mining even be possible then?

I understand that you’re asking this question to understand what it would be like in such a situation. But, such a question is an imaginary question and would never happen at all. There wouldn’t be any such time when there wouldn’t be transactions on the Bitcoin Blockchain. Every minute there are transactions being made on the Bitcoin Blockchain and sometimes the transactions even get heavier than the network can carry and that’s why you would see the fees increase sometimes. So, that’s to show you that such a thing can’t even happen at all, not now that Bitcoin network is a really huge one and there are over millions of people that are using it daily, and buying and selling going on every time.

[savetheFORUM]

Not abandoning bitcoin at all, simply using its second layer solutions. And even then, I'm still supporting miners by making channel opening and closing transactions on the base layer. Even when most people are using Lightning, there will still be more than enough transactions happening on the base layer to fill the available block space and pay miners the fees they need.

Even right now there isn’t much adoption of the lightening network and I am believing that by the time there would be a good number of people who would consider this option, there would be much more like you have said who would be making use of the base layer for their transactions and miners would still be able to generate a lot of income from verifying all those transactions.

That’s not an issue that we should be worrying about  right now because it is not going to happen anytime soon, it would be taking a really long time before all the coins are mined up and we start talking about how miners can survive with just verification of transactions.