Bitcoin security in the long term

[fuguebtc]

When Bitcoin gets to a stage where the mined supply is basically 21m (that is, very little remaining btc left to be mined), will Bitcoin still remain a secure network?  

I think this is a very advanced level of thinking. You know that the amount of block rewards is halved every four years, meaning that one halving is completed after mining every 210,000 blocks. If it continues like this, we will be able to continue effortlessly with Bitcoin till 2150 without any worries. It is hoped that by the year 2150, an alternative solution will be invented. So it is easy to say yes Bitcoin still remains a secure network.

[CaVO32]

When Bitcoin gets to a stage where the mined supply is basically 21m (that is, very little remaining btc left to be mined), will Bitcoin still remain a secure network?  

I think this is a very advanced level of thinking. You know that the amount of block rewards is halved every four years, meaning that one halving is completed after mining every 210,000 blocks. If it continues like this, we will be able to continue effortlessly with Bitcoin till 2150 without any worries. It is hoped that by the year 2150, an alternative solution will be invented. So it is easy to say yes Bitcoin still remains a secure network.

That's a long way to go for bitcoin. So right now, we don't have to worry about such possible occurrence. And we don't even know by that time if bitcoin technology is still in use or already an obsolete tech. And most of us right now, will not see that day anymore.
And regarding quantum technology, right now, it is still more on speculation to how it will impact bitcoin tech. We need to see first the actual effect on bitcoin tech before we conclude on this aspect.

[dothebeats]

Miners will remain to hash and process transactions if bitcoin's price by then reaches a lucrative amount. Though no new coins will be minted, the transaction fees would still be there. Oh and this is 120+ years in the future, and it's really hard to think about what's going to happen by then, especially if lots of threats that could possibly end life as we know it is looming and surfacing every now and then.

But yes, on paper and theoretically, miners will still hash if the world as a whole recognizes bitcoin as money and as a form of an acceptable payment.

[Mituletr]

With the advancement and continuous improvement of Internet technology, the Bitcoin network should become more and more secure, and there will be more miners distributed all over the world. If you want to attack Bitcoin, you need to perform a 51% hashrate attack, which will be very difficult. As Bitcoin is used more and more, people are willing to pay higher fees, and rewards may increase enough for miners to continue to be incentivized to provide security for the network.

[suryana]

And why should security decrease, for what reason?

Not reducing security, but if bitcoin has run out and there are no more miners then there is nothing to help with security in the bitcoin network, because mining will make it very difficult for everyone to add new transaction blocks to the block chain. In simple terms mining makes exponentially cancel a transaction that has already taken place by requesting a rewrite of all blocks after the transaction.

[riso2015]

I am a big believer in bitcoin and security because bitcoin runs on a blockchain network which ensures its security. On the other hand, when the supply of bitcoins has been mined, of course this will be the moment that bitcoin users and investors have been waiting for, because we will see an increase in the price of bitcoin that will soar.

[Hobo66]

The bigger the Bitcoin organize develops, the more secure it gets to be. Over the long term, an natural security tradeoff will happen between the piece endowment and exchange expenses. As the arrange impact gets to be bigger, request for piece space increments, in this way diminishing the require for a square appropriation. We have experimental prove that this can be happening, and future projections see hopeful.

[ranochigo]

I guess you mean that miners' incentive will become less and less overtime. Yeah, that might be true. If we assume that it will be globally adopted in the future and that its price will be less fluctuating, then each halving will simply make miners' profit halved, which means less computational power offered into the network and hence, less security.

It isn't that much of a concern. Miners cannot be concerned with fluctuating prices, so at the prices, we can estimate an electrical consumption of roughly 60Twh per year and that is excluding all the miners that are currently in the midst of being redeployed. Since fees in a block are quite variable, there is no point trying to estimate that. At current electrical consumption levels, the annualized consumption is more than Kuwait's which is quite significant. For each halving, which is every 4 years, for the sustained profits, we expect either a doubling of total transaction fees or price of Bitcoin just to maintain the profit margins.

Not out of the realm of possibility, 4 years is quite a long time. Even if we were to calculate using a far lower bound of computational power, it still wouldn't make sense or neither is it very feasible for anyone to attack it. The effects of halving is most significant at the start, with the transaction fees being more important in the later parts.

[hardiksoni966]

The price volatility inherent in the leading names far eclipses those of other mainstream asset classes. .

[clorasteinberg]

Yes, its security will remain the same throughout whether one hour is left or just 20 minutes.

[kaggie]

It's complicated.

At that time, if it has accomplished its goal, miners will consist of groups that have very high end infrastructure and require that security due to controlling large values of bitcoin, so will continue to mine to ensure it.

OTOH, relying on that principle forever is poor future thinking. Like the year 2000 software bug, some things are thought of as having an EOL, when they can persist for much longer.
I disagree that transaction fees will make up for the mining loss. You want to move the small transactions off chain, which will reduce miners overall. You still have to keep miners engaged, and the block reward does that.

The block reward should be changed now for that time. Instead of a regular halving, it could be a regular 10% decrease to be more stable. The sooner this is agreed on, the easier it will be to ensure this impact later.

[fileo]

We consider Bitcoin as the king of cryptocurrencies. Therefore it is possible that it will maintain as secure investment and of course secure coin now and for the long run. If we have confident in new potential crypto, I guess we have more confident in Bitcoin that it is a secure and good investment for the long run.

[drwoo]

Yes. The compensation for the miners comes in the fees within the blocks. I'm assuming that the volume of transactions by then or the derived fee as a result of off-chain transactions would be sufficient to compensate for it.

It is highly unlikely that Bitcoin would insecure by then. The way the block rewards are reduced gradually pads any impact on the miner's income and we're most likely going to see the impact far sooner than the 2140 timeline.

When you talk about the fees for off-chain transactions, are you thinking about exchanges dividing their profits with miners? Or what other off-chain transactions are there that generate a fee?
For now we still have enough time to figure out a way to make Bitcoin work even when there are no coinbase transactions anymore. But that is still some time to go.

[ranochigo]

When you talk about the fees for off-chain transactions, are you thinking about exchanges dividing their profits with miners? Or what other off-chain transactions are there that generate a fee?

LN as of now still settles transactions on-chain so that'll be opening or closing a channel. If there is a still some degree of scarcity with on-chain transactions, then these kinds of settlement transactions will be more expensive but users won't have to pay a great deal of money when you spread it over to the many transactions that the user could've made while on LN.

For now we still have enough time to figure out a way to make Bitcoin work even when there are no coinbase transactions anymore. But that is still some time to go.

Coinbase transactions will always exist. They're the only required transaction in a Bitcoin block.

[BlackHatCoiner]

For each halving, which is every 4 years, for the sustained profits, we expect either a doubling of total transaction fees or price of Bitcoin just to maintain the profit margins.

You just slightly estimated it. I don't know if it's on your realization, but it seems rather disappointing to me than (probably) to you. The price won't be that fluctuating forever; not that there's a proof for this, but over time, the supply will be steady and if the demand is too (global adoption), then the miners can only rely on the amount of the transactions.

Otherwise, the security will be slowly decreasing over time.

Coinbase transactions will always exist. They're the only required transaction in a Bitcoin block.

I guess he/she means in 2140. They'll reward 0.00000000 BTC, right? Just like OP_RETURNs.

[ranochigo]

You just slightly estimated it. I don't know if it's on your realization, but it seems rather disappointing to me than (probably) to you. The price won't be that fluctuating forever; not that there's a proof for this, but over time, the supply will be steady and if the demand is too (global adoption), then the miners can only rely on the amount of the transactions.

Otherwise, the security will be slowly decreasing over time.

I definitely hope it won't fluctuate forever. Yes, I agree that the point about the fluctuation is completely valid. I'm making a point about having either an increase in the price or the increase in the adoption. Either of which increases the profitability, either by relation to the fees or the profit from mining.

Granted, I do think that I might not be right about a sustained security as there are a ton of factors on that but I don't think that the security (or rather the hashrate) of the network would ever dwindle to dangerous levels. If it ever gets to the point where it is better to be dishonest than to be honest, then that would be a problem because the system fails.

I guess he/she means in 2140. They'll reward 0.00000000 BTC, right? Just like OP_RETURNs.

No as in, there is a difference between a coinbase transaction and the coinbase rewards. Why would the coinbase be zero though, then where do the fees go?

[pinggoki]

When Bitcoin gets to a stage where the mined supply is basically 21m (that is, very little remaining btc left to be mined), will Bitcoin still remain a secure network?  

In my very own opinion bitcoin will be secured in the very long term because although the supply was very small, still the bitcoin will be more profitable due to the less supply the demand will come higher also that's why the bitcoin will be still good in the long term and when it terms to the security of the bitcoin, it will be still secured due to that many people are using cryptocurrency still bitcoin will remain decentralized and secured in the long run.

[BlackHatCoiner]

In my very own opinion bitcoin will be secured in the very long term because although the supply was very small, still the bitcoin will be more profitable due to the less supply the demand will come higher also that's why the bitcoin will be still good in the long term and when it terms to the security of the bitcoin, it will be still secured due to that many people are using cryptocurrency still bitcoin will remain decentralized and secured in the long run.

I don't want to look rude, but I'll have to. You make no sense.

Granted, I do think that I might not be right about a sustained security as there is a ton of factors on that but I don't think that the security (or rather the hashrate) of the network would ever dwindle to dangerous levels.

Nor do I, but the fact that the system makes the miners have a less incentive over time, scares me. There will be times in the future where a miner will earn less than 0.001 BTC for solving a block including the fees. If we assume that the supply (of both $ and BTC) remained the same and compare with the current security, one bitcoin has to cost around 231 million dollars. (~7*33000 = 0.001*x)

Then, we have the lightning network that reduces significantly the amount of transactions in the mempool. Sure, there are lots of factors to count, but, overtime, the system seems to be leaking.

[livingfree]

Yes.

But you don't have to think of it because it will happen for about 100+ years from now. And actually with the remaining supply that it got present for around 2.2M bitcoins left to be mined.

It won't change if it's about network's security, miners will continue to mine it as long as it's profitable.

[ranochigo]

Nor do I, but the fact that the system makes the miners have a less incentive over time, scares me. There will be times in the future where a miner will earn less than 0.001 BTC for solving a block including the fees. If we assume that the supply (of both $ and BTC) remained the same and compare with the current security, one bitcoin has to cost around 231 million dollars. (~7*33000 = 0.001*x)

Miners do not earn 0.001BTC per block for the fees, that is absolutely absurd and should never happen. Currently, miners earn anywhere from 0.1BTC to 1 BTC depending from the network conditions. Average count for the transactions appears to be about 2000 per block (3.3 TPS), so that is far lower than any realistic estimate for any mass adoption or any widely used payment processors, with LN or not. If we were to make optimizations throughout the years and/or make the block size larger, then I don't see a problem with fitting 10x that in a hundred years, maybe even more.

Currently, network throughput for the miners is about ~100EH/s, at it's peak was about 170EH/s. That is quite a large number and shows that even with current block rewards, it is very very far from being remotely profitable for any attackers. Remember, you don't only pay for electricity, you also pay for the ASICs themselves, the landspace, etc. I don't think it's too far of a stretch to assume that by the time block rewards are <1BTC, the fees would supersede it. It should only be a concern if the network becomes insecure *enough* to be attacked, not if the cost of mining can't be matched with the current estimates.