The only thing that is dropped to 0 is the block subsidy, and will happen in 120 years. 51% attack has nothing to do with it, and will always be possible to accomplish (although, unlikely) as long as there's the Bitcoin network.
This is what I was wondering about, In past replies, some were stating miners will only earn through transaction fee commissions, and I think there was hardly any reply focusing on dropping the block reward in btc fractions.
you cannot change bitcoin rules with a 51% attack. you can only change transaction lists by going back and re-doing a block and subsequent blocks to catch up and over take the network to push your version of block transaction lists as the master chain to follow
where the re-done block has different transactions
in 120 years where the only mining income is from transactions.. it then becomes less likely risk of "empty blocks" because having no transactions = no income
however.
if the only income is transactions.. and thus if the total fee's are not totalling a high enough amount to make it expensive to compete on the network. thus not expensive to then re-org.. then that cheap attack makes it easier to perform than now.
so in the next 120 years we really need to push that total fee's per block are substantial amount to not make it cheap to attack.
..
this does not mean make each user pay alot more. as that just makes people not use the network and not do transactions.. but instead increasing the transaction count so the total fee's increase without hurting the average fee per user
now you might understand why scaling bitcoin ONCHAIN is more important than the silly games of "offramping"(removing) users
less users using bitcoin, and those remaining having to pay increasing fee's does not help bitcoin at all for MANY reasons
..
If the case of bitcoin reaching above 120 years occus then bitcoin should have at least 20Trillion marketcap, which is a very good possibility and I think can be achieved.
it does not matter if bitcoin market cap is $20tril because
if a user is having to pay more then a weeks wages to transact. they wont use it. no matter the market price/cap of bitcoin is.
oh and in 120 years.. the "dollar" of 20trill, might be hyperinflated to only be 3 months wage
thus you might even be looking at a market cap of 20 quintillion
where a single users transaction is 1.5trillion (weeks wage)
like how the Zimbabwe dollar hyper inflated
but no one would use bitcoin if fees were a weeks wage due to no ONCHAIN scaling to dilute fees down while offering extra transaction count (as what was demanded in 2014+ as the progress bitcoin should follow)
africa has 1 billion people. but how much % do you think would use a bitcoin onchain transaction when 35cent is a days wage. and $1.50 is a weeks wage
americ and UK still love bitcoin because 35c-$1.50 is just 2-10minutes of minimum wage. which americans and UK people think is the appropriate cost for a 10min transaction
im biitish but i can put my acceptable levels aside and see the issues third world countries have and also the risks in the future if fee's increase and scaling does not