Bitcoin timeline quantization

[Come-from-Beyond]

Right now the most part of ASICs is crunching numbers non-stop trying to mine a block. Graphically this would like a solid line. But let's take a look at the future, when the block subsidy is very small and miners earn money by charging fees. Imagine there are only few transactions awaiting confirmation and their fee is not high enough to waste electricity for mining. In this situation most of ASICs will be switched to a sleeping mode, and the timeline will have a gap. While ASICs are sleeping Bitcoin is "losing" the difficulty, the cost of 51% attack is becoming lower. At some point someone may decide to attempt the attack instead of switching their ASICs off. If they fail they can try again next time if a reward is worth it...

Is it a possible scenario?

[tutkarz]

i don't think so its possible because asics are losing value like any other hardware and they have to work non stop because the longer they wait the less they will earn.

[Philj]

I see what you are getting at. No point in mining when there is 0 reward, wait for transactions then start to mine. If a block is found just seconds after the last block, then there may not be any/enough transactions to actually have a reward in it.

I don't think this will happen. Either bitcoin will no longer exist in any real use by the time the block reward goes to 0, or it will be so widespread that there will be plenty of transactions generated every second, enough to reward miners. I'm hoping for the later of those options