[INFO - DISCUSSION] Security Budget Problem

[cygan]

today i want to show you 4 slides about the topic 'security budget problem'. since the whole thing is more related to mining, i deliberately chose this section for it.
and since we expect next year again the next halving, the topic currently fits even more, because what is in 15-20 years when the block reward will be much less than 0.5-1BTC? should/will then increase the transaction fees in this regard?

on the following website you can run through various possibilities: https://www.btcsecuritybudget.com/
with this thread i would like to open a discussion related to this topic and we can write about all the consequences. the slides should serve for a better understanding of the whole issue



https://twitter.com/BTCillustrated

[1714292144]

1714292144

[1714292144]

1714292144

[1714292144]

1714292144

[1714292144]

1714292144

[kano]

Well it is just a rehash of the question that n00bs often ask about: "what happens when the halving gets to zero"
where the answer is the obvious: txn fees are part of the block reward.
(answered many times on the forum)

The assumption that txn fees are worthless is wrong.

Also, Bitcoin works no matter what the price of BTC is.
It's not some scamcoin being promoted by some individuals saying the price is great and will continue to be great,
then the coin dies in the standard pump and dump and price crash.
Bitcoin is a transaction system that works fine no matter what the value of BTC is.

There's also the assumption made about the risk of the network being overpowered by a large miner if there were fewer miners.
I've even answered that one recently:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5462941.msg62682677#msg62682677

[philipma1957]

Well as a ten year plus year miner I think there several fixes.

My favorite is all stale addresses are considered abandoned in 2059 there will be untouched 50 year old addresses with no withdrawals ever made. Fold them back into rewards if no withdrawal is made in them.

Most people say they hate this. I like it because it is what banks do.

The Ln network may grow and create more fees.
Ordinals may grow and create more fees.

Moving to ten digits not eight could help the network.

[cygan]

✂️
where the answer is the obvious: txn fees are part of the block reward.
✂️

this idea is also held by most Bitcoiners and i also think that the fees could then take a very large share of the miner rewards

✂️
My favorite is all stale addresses are considered abandoned in 2059 there will be untouched 50 year old addresses with no withdrawals ever made. Fold them back into rewards if no withdrawal is made in them.
✂️

how should the whole thing be technically executed, if there are Bitcoins on a BTC address that have not been moved for ~50 years?
a pk for this said address will not be found out in any case
this would also mean that the 1 million BTC that SN most likely holds would then in the worst case no longer belong to him ... or am i understanding this all wrong?

[philipma1957]

✂️
where the answer is the obvious: txn fees are part of the block reward.
✂️

this idea is also held by most Bitcoiners and i also think that the fees could then take a very large share of the miner rewards

✂️
My favorite is all stale addresses are considered abandoned in 2059 there will be untouched 50 year old addresses with no withdrawals ever made. Fold them back into rewards if no withdrawal is made in them.
✂️

how should the whole thing be technically executed, if there are Bitcoins on a BTC address that have not been moved for ~50 years?
a pk for this said address will not be found out in any case
this would also mean that the 1 million BTC that SN most likely holds would then in the worst case no longer belong to him ... or am i understanding this all wrong?

To show the address is active a simple partial withdrawal is all that is needed.

Lets pretend it is blocks 100 to 1100

To show the address that was block 100 just move a fraction say 0.1 btc to the address that is block 101

privacy stays maintained. just do it down the line .1 from 100 to 101 to 102
etc.

If the coins are really abandoned then they become recycle them as rewards.

It movement is shown then the renew for 50 more years.

Essentially Btc has an issue down the road.  if a coin is 10,000,000 and a satoshi is 1 dime

a small fee  of 1 sat per byte  is 14.20 to 22.70

if block size is small and not increase tweak fixed what ever I suspect ltc/doge will be better for miners than btc.

if so miners follow the money and ltc/doge become more secure.

I am not sure how it will unfold.

but.

2024 only 3.125 coins and say .25 in fees.
2028 only 1.5625 coins and say .50 in fees.
2032 only 0.78125 coins and say .60 in fees.
2036 only 0.390625 coins and say .70 in fees. the first halfing that the fees will beat blocks I would be 79  years old.

waiting to see the adjustments that will happen.


2040

[DaveF]

Well as a ten year plus year miner I think there several fixes.

My favorite is all stale addresses are considered abandoned in 2059 there will be untouched 50 year old addresses with no withdrawals ever made. Fold them back into rewards if no withdrawal is made in them.

Most people say they hate this. I like it because it is what banks do.

The Ln network may grow and create more fees.
Ordinals may grow and create more fees.

Moving to ten digits not eight could help the network.

Most banks now have to turn it over to the state who sits on it as unclaimed funds.
https://nj.gov/treasury/unclaimed-property/

I really don't like the concept of pulling it back since if I put something into cold storage and pass it to my friends kids if they want to sit on it and pass it on they should be able to.
I have some paper stock certificates that are still good going back more then 50 years.

But since I'll either be close to 90, or more likely dead by 2059 it's not a real concern

-Dave.

[stompix]

Most people say they hate this. I like it because it is what banks do.

Philllll....prepare to get pitchforked for this!!! 

Well it is just a rehash of the question that n00bs often ask about: "what happens when the halving gets to zero"
where the answer is the obvious: txn fees are part of the block reward.
(answered many times on the forum)

The assumption that txn fees are worthless is wrong.

Common kano!!!!
If the txn fees are the same as they are now in $ terms then the reward a day will be $ 1 million instead of $25 million, so instead of 6 cents per th/s you're going to get 0.24 of a cent, who is going to mine at that price? Nobody so miners will drop one after one till the reward finds a new equilibrium and instead of 400exahash, you have 16 exhash!

Everything works perfectly, I agree with you! Transactions keep flowing, miners keep mining, the only difference is that an attacker doesn't have to spend 4 000 000 x2000 $ to reach 50%, it has to spend only 160 000 x2000$, not even that because there will 380 of exahash capable gear going to be sold at scrap level prices!

From 8 billion needed to 300 million, from 24 GW to 1GW, from the whole world to Riot or Mara alone on their own, that's quite a steep decrease in security, don't you think? Do you really want to see one of those stupid YouTube video stunts of a Mr.Beast on getting 51% of Bitcoin hashrate?

[Coose365]

ik im beating a dead horse but long term solution is to allow more transactions per block. that way when BTC is at $1M it doesnt cost 270 bucks at 100sat/vbyte the more people that are able to pay a txn fee the more fees miners get its quite simple.

also liked the idea of adding more decimals cuz even at a point 1sat/vbyte will hurt and would be impossible to go lower not like anyone is able to pay 1sat/vbyte even today lol

[philipma1957]

Most people say they hate this. I like it because it is what banks do.

Philllll....prepare to get pitchforked for this!!! 

Well it is just a rehash of the question that n00bs often ask about: "what happens when the halving gets to zero"
where the answer is the obvious: txn fees are part of the block reward.
(answered many times on the forum)

The assumption that txn fees are worthless is wrong.

Common kano!!!!
If the txn fees are the same as they are now in $ terms then the reward a day will be $ 1 million instead of $25 million, so instead of 6 cents per th/s you're going to get 0.24 of a cent, who is going to mine at that price? Nobody so miners will drop one after one till the reward finds a new equilibrium and instead of 400exahash, you have 16 exhash!

Everything works perfectly, I agree with you! Transactions keep flowing, miners keep mining, the only difference is that an attacker doesn't have to spend 4 000 000 x2000 $ to reach 50%, it has to spend only 160 000 x2000$, not even that because there will 380 of exahash capable gear going to be sold at scrap level prices!

From 8 billion needed to 300 million, from 24 GW to 1GW, from the whole world to Riot or Mara alone on their own, that's quite a steep decrease in security, don't you think? Do you really want to see one of those stupid YouTube video stunts of a Mr.Beast on getting 51% of Bitcoin hashrate?

Like I said miners will follow the money and ltc/doge could end up being more secure than btc.

As for me liking bank methods maybe 🤔 I jest.

But one bank idea is abandoned property. I like that one. And i will be 102 in 2059 so I will very likely not see that idea happen.

I want to stress leaving all fee rules as is and having btc at 100,000,000 a coin does not fix the fee issues.

Also a ton of harm could be done by sending dust to addresses.

[philipma1957]

well ordinals won't cut down the road as they won't scale well.

0.0000 0000 00 vs 0.0000 0000 for payment fractions and a 8mill block may work.

you need to get enough $$$ value to a block that miners continue to want to mine btc vs

ltc/doge.

a block today is 6.5 x 26k = 169k with the diff and the gear and the ability to screw security I

would argue a btc block is kind of safe from a massive gear attack.

2024 only 3.125 coins and say .25 in fees.
2028 only 1.5625 coins and say .50 in fees.
2032 only 0.78125 coins and say .60 in fees.
2036 only 0.390625 coins and say .70 in fees.  so in 2036 a block with fees is about 1.1 btc

and a coin would need to be 154k

with the 2x diff and 2x efficiency the net work gear value would be about the same and the
market cap would be 3 trillion so now you are guarding 3 trillion with only 5 billion in gear

while today you are guarding 0.5 trillion with 5 billion in gear. same power cost. so not as terrible as it seems. but that 3 trillion would be easier to attack than the 500 billion is now.

and a 400 byte money move would be 61 cents which many would think is cool but the market cap is 6x less secured

so to have same security  to market cap ratio fees would need to be higher.

Scaling issues break down bigly when you project out as to what to do or how to fix them.

My biggest regret about being 66 is I won't live to say 2077 and see if LT/doge wins over btc due to fee scaling problems.

[cygan]

i think it's going to come down to transaction fees going up and then maybe we'll move from the 8-digit to the 10-digit designation
for me it is a little bit difficult to anticipate or to play through the whole thing

in any case i can imagine it very very bad that Bitcoins (which have not been moved for decades) should be 'recreated/remined' again

[stompix]

2024 only 3.125 coins and say .25 in fees.
2036 only 0.390625 coins and say .70 in fees.  so in 2036 a block with fees is about 1.1 btc

and a coin would need to be 154k

with the 2x diff and 2x efficiency the net work gear value would be about the same and the
market cap would be 3 trillion so now you are guarding 3 trillion with only 5 billion in gear

while today you are guarding 0.5 trillion with 5 billion in gear. same power cost. so not as terrible as it seems. but that 3 trillion would be easier to attack than the 500 billion is now.

As I've said it too a lot of times, the security to market cap ratio will definitely fall if it's not propped by the still going up block reward, because if BTC goes up x4 times the fees will not automatically do the same, people won't pay 4x in tx just because a BTC is more expensive now.

So in the .70 fees, 154k a coin you will need $107k in fees, the last block had $3,375, who is going to pay 30x times more? I really wanna see the guys who will be paying $25 to buy a pizza or send money to a casino just because now BTC is at $150k and not use a different coin. The solution is clear, we need more tx to split the cost and increase the overall volume, but, that's not going to happen.

i think it's going to come down to transaction fees going up and then maybe we'll move from the 8-digit to the 10-digit designation

That change won't do anything but regarding the fees, they will only go up by how much people want to pay, if they don't want to do so they simply won't, not even counting that they might not even want to move their coins at all, let alone pay $25 to do so. 

[BlackHatCoiner]

Few transactions? Bitcoin is dead by the security budget problem. Tons of transactions? Bitcoin cannot work as currency, because it's expensive.

To me, the only bet I can count on is sidechains. There is no damned way anyone will run a tail-emission-Bitcoin-fork, it's just a giant red flag from a marketing view point. And indeed, people won't be paying $50 for a transaction. So, either there have to be so many transactions that there will be well-paid by large companies, or the mining income has to come outside the main layer. I count on the latter.

But there exists problem. And the fact that it isn't as much talked as it should is concerning.

[cryptosize]

Value-wise it seems BTC can go a lot higher:

https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/bitcoin-btc-to-reach-100000-by-end-of-2023-and-1-billion-in-2038-predicts-industry-giant-fidelity/

And I said value-wise, not fiat-wise, because I don't believe the current fiat currencies will exist by then (they will be replaced by CBDC sooner than that, this decade I reckon).

Because if the current fiat dollar still exists in 2038 and BTC reaches 1 billion USD, then 1 Big Mac will definitely cost $1000.

The US debt is not sustainable, there's no way we won't have a Great -Currency- Reset sooner than 2038.

So income-wise, I don't think miners will face any issues.

I cannot say for sure if Lightning will prevail or BTC banks (exchanges).

The whole banking model is not really compatible with deflationary currencies such as BTC.

The banking model is perfect for fiat currencies, because there's a lender of last resort (FED, ECB) to bail out commercial banks when one fails. The central bank prints fiat out of thin air and everyone is happy (minus inflation-concerned people).

For better or worse, there's no BTC central bank to bail out failed exchanges. Unless Satoshi came out of the woodwork and donated his stash or something.

There needs to be some kind of innovation, that it's hard to predict right now...

When IPv4 was invented back in 1981, nobody could have imagined RFC 1918. Hell, engineers back then didn't even think we would have or need more than 4 billion devices.

Internet initially was invented for military/university use. Nobody could have envisioned Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok etc. RFC 1918 made IPv4 truly scalable (we currently have 15 billion devices, with only 4 billion 32-bit addresses).

It seems Bitcoin needs its own "RFC 1918" moment, but nobody can predict with absolute certainty what could that be or when it will happen.

Of course there are superior solutions for scaling (such as IPv6) with no ugly hacks such as NAT, but I don't see it replacing IPv4 any time soon.

Maybe because it would cost trillions of dollars to upgrade all internet-connected equipment and nobody is willing to spend that much money, so IPv6 is still a niche thing.

IPv6 in BTC terms = a fork with bigger blocks

[stompix]

So in the .70 fees, 154k a coin you will need $107k in fees, the last block had $3,375, who is going to pay 30x times more? I really wanna see the guys who will be paying $25 to buy a pizza or send money to a casino just because now BTC is at $150k and not use a different coin.

Not fully true. Most node (with default setting) doesn't broadcast transaction which has fee rate lower than 1 sat/vB. Assuming block is full, it guarantee at least extra 0.01BTC per block.

Hmm, I don't get it!?
I assumed in my calculations 0.70 BTC, I just put the dot and not the 0 like Phil did so to avoid a mistake while quoting him
So, I don't understand the minimum 0.01 when we already assumed 0.70 , what did I get wrong here?

I'd just say it won't happen anytime very soon. It's only matter of time before people realize maximum block size limit need to be increased, even with existence of LN and sidechains.

Define soon and a matter of time by Bitcoin standards, cause that could mean 1 year and 10 years and it would till fit both both being extremely fast or extremely slow judging by how things evolve nowadays. And this is one thing I would like to point out, it's no longer 1900 and not 1970, you can't compare the spread the penetration of cars and the internet with embracing a bunch of code that takes no manufacturing, no distribution and furthermore no accessibility problems.

And I'm going to be skeptical about it anyhow, one thing that Bitcoiners have besides other qualities is a sky-high ego, no way they will accept big blockers were partially right.

Value-wise it seems BTC can go a lot higher:
https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/bitcoin-btc-to-reach-100000-by-end-of-2023-and-1-billion-in-2038-predicts-industry-giant-fidelity/

Yeah, another bitcoin IOU papers wanna be seller claiming random numbers, did he say he will eat his *** too?
I need to bookmark this one:


The strict value of BTC or the fees or anything on its own is quite irrelevant if we talk security.
Bitcoin can be 1 trillion or 1 billion, the fees can be 1000$ or 1$, what matters is the ratio between those two
- the entire wealth guarded in the blockchain and at stake in case of an attack
- the amount of money needed to launch such an attack

If you're going to protect 100 trillion with a hashrate that can be bought with 1 million then you (and us collectively) have a problem

[cryptosize]

If you're going to protect 100 trillion with a hashrate that can be bought with 1 million then you (and us collectively) have a problem

1 million? Is that extrapolation or what?

Currently you need 250 billion $ of ASIC equipment and 4 years to manufacture so many chips (assuming you have a big, advanced fab like TSMC) if you want to perform a 51% attack.

TSMC manufactures chips for many clients (Apple, nVidia, AMD etc.), so good luck with that.

If BTC becomes more valuable (not necessarily in terms of USD, but in terms of purchasing power -> how many sats you need to buy a barrel of oil or a gold coin), then miners (and thus the hashrate) will keep increasing, since they will earn more wealth, even via BTC fees only.

I don't see any scenario where miners will abandon the BTC network, unless its purchasing power remains relatively static over time. In that case, yeah, fees alone won't be enough to secure the network.

[cryptosize]

I'd just say it won't happen anytime very soon. It's only matter of time before people realize maximum block size limit need to be increased, even with existence of LN and sidechains.

Who determines what's the ideal block size increase? Regarding Satoshi's 1MB decision, he's most likely no longer alive, so let's spare him.

And if we're going to increase it, why should it be static and not variable (like XMR does)? Variable sounds more elegant to me.

Let's say the ideal size is 32MB or 4GB... what will happen to the forks (BCH, BSV)? What's the usefulness of them if BTC adopts a block size increase?

Currently it's possible to fork BTC into a new chain, but not the other way around (merge forks into the BTC blockchain). And please don't tell me you're going to exchange worthless tokens (BCH, BSV) for a valuable one (BTC) at a 1:1 exchange rate.

And if the ideal size is 4GB, doesn't that mean that datacenter equipment will be absolutely necessary?

Jumping from a Raspberry Pi to Azure cloud equipment is quite a huge jump, don't you think?

I don't see anyone seeking a middle-road solution (something that can be hosted in a regular home PC). I'm not saying a Raspberry Pi, because it's too weak, while Azure cloud is too strong.

Just because a minority of people already have a huge warehouse ready to host a 4GB block-sized BTC blockchain, doesn't mean that everyone has the same luxury.

Loss of decentralization is of no concern to them it seems, judging by the fact they support BSV, along with a narcissist leader and a pedophile.

Of course someone could argue that ASICs also reduced decentralization in the sense of being specialized equipment, but on the other hand they make 51% attacks almost impossible (some people argue that Monero can be easily attacked by Microsoft/Amazon cloud, since it's CPU-based).

I think it would be nice if ASIC PCIe cards existed (like GPU PCIe cards) and if more vendors started manufacturing BTC ASIC chips (Intel at least tried to enter the market). Maybe it's too early for that.

Nobody has been able to answer these questions so far. Give it a try.

[cryptosize]

As I've said it too a lot of times, the security to market cap ratio will definitely fall if it's not propped by the still going up block reward, because if BTC goes up x4 times the fees will not automatically do the same, people won't pay 4x in tx just because a BTC is more expensive now.

What if each satoshi is worth more? That's the point of a deflationary currency.

Even if miners earn less sats, they will be worth more over time.

Transactions will keep increasing, because the network will have more users over time.

And by "users" I don't mean just regular people, there will also be entities such as BlackRock and others using the network.

More users = more fees overall.

Sure, some people will be priced out of the market.

That's where Lightning and even some alts (such as LTC or DOGE) come in. There will be DEX to exchange coins with each other.

I don't envision a future where only a single, all-encompassing currency will exist (whether it's BTC or CBDC) and nothing else.

Probably not what you want to hear, but oh well...

We could increase the block size to 4GB and let Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS host the monstrous blockchain, but I don't see what's the point then. We may as well adopt CBDC if BTC becomes so centralized, no difference really.

[stompix]

If you're going to protect 100 trillion with a hashrate that can be bought with 1 million then you (and us collectively) have a problem

1 million? Is that extrapolation or what?

No, it's an extreme example to underline the problem.
Fess in the last 24h were 26.52 BTC, that's around half of that!

Currently you need 250 billion $ of ASIC equipment and 4 years to manufacture so many chips (assuming you have a big, advanced fab like TSMC) if you want to perform a 51% attack.

To overpower the network right now you need around 4 million S19pro, each was sold at 2k, so that's 8 billion.
Since the hashrate doubled in the last year, obviously you need just two years at the current deployment rate, not a possible production rate!

As I've said it too a lot of times, the security to market cap ratio will definitely fall if it's not propped by the still going up block reward, because if BTC goes up x4 times the fees will not automatically do the same, people won't pay 4x in tx just because a BTC is more expensive now.

What if each satoshi is worth more? That's the point of a deflationary currency.

So if Bitcoin goes to 1 million next month, you will feel it's normal to pay $40 instead of $1 when buying a pizza?
I don't see anyone claiming that a tesla charge could be x100 more expensive and people will till use it just because since their shares have gone x100 times in the last decade! You're still transferring value at a cost, as long as that value is convertible and you have other means of transferring it cheaper then people will migrate to that.

We could increase the block size to 4GB and let Microsoft Azure or Amazon AWS host the monstrous blockchain,

A blockchain with 20MB which would give the same 20 times capacity would generate the need for a 300euros evo ssd in 10 years!
I'm willing to bet there are 100 times more people who have that much porn than there are Bitcoin nodes in this world!

[cryptosize]

To overpower the network right now you need around 4 million S19pro, each was sold at 2k, so that's 8 billion.

I clearly remember Michael Saylor saying on Twitter that you need 250 billion $ of ASICs and 4 years to manufacture them (and chances are in 4 years from now the hashrate will be 4 times higher, so more like 1 trillion $ by then and starting from scratch).

Unless he doesn't know what he's talking about, even though he's the biggest BTC hodler so far.

Not really feasible to perform a 51% attack on the BTC network.

8 billion is peanuts, someone would have done it already if it was so cheap.

So if Bitcoin goes to 1 million next month, you will feel it's normal to pay $40 instead of $1 when buying a pizza?
I don't see anyone claiming that a tesla charge could be x100 more expensive and people will till use it just because since their shares have gone x100 times in the last decade! You're still transferring value at a cost, as long as that value is convertible and you have other means of transferring it cheaper then people will migrate to that.

Yeah, people will most likely migrate to Lightning and/or regulated BTC exchanges/banks.

I'm not saying LN is easy, but neither creating a BTC wallet and storing your keys is easy for the average clueless joe...

A blockchain with 20MB which would give the same 20 times capacity would generate the need for a 300euros evo ssd in 10 years!

20 times more block space probably wouldn't be enough for global adoption (if that's what you envision).

Also, the BTC blockchain is already over 500GB with 1MB blocks, so 20MB blocks would inflate it to 10TB over time. Are you sure a 10TB SSD costs €300?