HODL_FEE BITCOIN HODLERS NEED TO PULL THEIR WEIGHT TOO

[fillippone]

A controversial long-form appeared on Bitcoin Magazine:


OPINION
BITCOIN HODLERS NEED TO PULL THEIR WEIGHT TOO

A call for a fee for hodling Bitcoin, to balance the fact that the mining security budget is currently paid only by people transacting, not people simply hodling.

It goes on:

From the start, the bitcoin ethos is that those who use the network must work at it. Having ownership or stake confers no special privileges. Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake.

Unfortunately, HODLers are not working. HODLers are expecting that others will be compensating miners so that the HODLers’ stake will maintain its value. In today’s design and perhaps inadvertently, HODLers are not living up to the bitcoin ethos.

This proposal is so wrong in so many ways I don't even know where to start.

I will just post a quote I heard in Milano a long time ago, in a bitcoin meet-up with Saifedean Ammous:

“The most subversive thing you can to with bitcoin is saving” ❤

This proposal is so wrong: it messes with protocol in so many wrong ways:

• Economic incentives
• Privacy Incentives
• Operational Risks
• Changing the protocol hinders the "store of value" proposal, which would be hindered by a change in the monetary properties of bitcoin.

Bitcoin protocols work just fine. Meeting with such a stupid proposal can wreck things in many unforeseen ways.
The sole idea of drying out the "dormant "address sounds like a communist quantitative easing on Bitcoin. We already have an ECB

Clearly, an April's fools on a wrong date.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

I saw this yesterday and the idea totally sucks. Sounds like some bull shit, socialist political party policy, some kind of unrealised gains tax.

Bitcoin Magazine probably have some failing mining farm or something. This idea is a total no goer, it’s disgraceful to be honest, zero chance this goes ahead.

[odolvlobo]

Unfortunately, HODLers are not working. HODLers are expecting that others will be compensating miners so that the HODLers’ stake will maintain its value. In today’s design and perhaps inadvertently, HODLers are not living up to the bitcoin ethos.

This proposal is so wrong on so many ways i don't even knwo where to start.

Without getting into the proposal itself, I believe that the quote above does have some merit. People who hold bitcoins receive some benefit from the security that is paid for entirely by the people who transact (once the subsidy goes to 0). It seems reasonable to me for holders to pay for that benefit in some manner that has yet to be determined.

[FinneysTrueVision]

The byline simply says “Bob” as the name of the author. For all we know, some shitcoiner could have come up with this proposal.

Some of the arguments in favor of a hodl fee are not that bad. This could be a way to clean up dust and deal with dormant coins whose private keys have long been lost. The problem I see is that this won’t actually help with the security budget because you would be putting more coins in circulation, which would cause the price of Bitcoin to go down. Hodling is part of what gives Bitcoin value and this would discourage that.

People shouldn’t be charged fees against their will or be coerced into using Bitcoin any specific way. That is what this comes down to and why this will never succeed.

[odolvlobo]

... It seems reasonable to me for holders to pay for that benefit in some manner that has yet to be determined.

Currently, holders pay for the benefit to them through inflation. Personally, I believe that this is the best way to implement a fee for holding bitcoins because it is the simplest and it is effective. However, it is going away as the subsidy goes to 0.

So, my proposal would be to continue the subsidy forever -- a so-called tail emission.

I don't know what the right amount is, and I doubt there is a right amount, but I would do something like 0.025% of the total bitcoins per year. I picked that number because it is very small and insubstantial, but it is not 0.

I'm sure the inflation-is-evil crowd would strongly object because inflation is evil.

...This could be a way to clean up dust and deal with dormant coins whose private keys have long been lost.

There is no problem with dust and dormant coins.

[fillippone]

Unfortunately, HODLers are not working. HODLers are expecting that others will be compensating miners so that the HODLers’ stake will maintain its value. In today’s design and perhaps inadvertently, HODLers are not living up to the bitcoin ethos.

This proposal is so wrong on so many ways i don't even knwo where to start.

Without getting into the proposal itself, I believe that the quote above does have some merit. People who hold bitcoins receive some benefit from the security that is paid for entirely by the people who transact (once the subsidy goes to 0). It seems reasonable to me for holders to pay for that benefit in some manner that has yet to be determined.

Hodling is using Bitcoin, as well as spending and replacing.
By no means should the protocol incentivise one against the other only to preserve the "goodwill of the community".
Also, messing with the monetary system of Bitcoin weakens it beyond any imaginable term.
The value of bitcoin is that the code is law, and intoducing such a distotive fee, could hinder the "immutability" of the digital gold.

[Helena Yu]

Holders are helping Bitcoin indirectly, they're the one who make Bitcoin price can reach $73K.

Even Bitcoin has a maximum supply, but if there are no demands, maximum supply is pointless. It's true that Bitcoin have many utilities compared to other coins, but people will use Bitcoin just as a "tool", without thinking about the price and the maximum supply.

It seems like the miners still haven't move on from a lot money they make when ordinals were attacking the network.

[LoyceV]

Miners are free to create a hard fork in which unmoved funds are bit by bit moved into the block reward. Let's call it Bitcoin Mine Mine Mine.
They'll find out soon enough

[Lucius]

Whenever you think you've read all the possible nonsense, a new one always appears. This reminded me of a proposal by an environmental activist a few years ago who stated that everyone who owns Bitcoin should pay taxes because they are responsible for polluting the environment

[odolvlobo]

Hodling is using Bitcoin, as well as spending and replacing.

Exactly. Hodling is a use of Bitcoin with the costs paid by someone else.

By no means should the protocol incentivise one against the other only to preserve the "goodwill of the community".
Also, messing with the monetary system of Bitcoin weakens it beyond any imaginable term.
The value of bitcoin is that the code is law, and intoducing such a distotive fee, could hinder the "immutability" of the digital gold.

I don't really agree, but I also think it is unlikely that the economics of Bitcoin will ever change.

Holders are helping Bitcoin indirectly, they're the one who make Bitcoin price can reach $73K.

Price is irrelevant. Bitcoin functions the same whatever the price.

[mu_enrico]

I find it similar to the idea of the "spend your money since it will help the economy" mantra by the government. No! People should be free to use the money in whatever they want, whether it be for saving, hodling, trading, etc. So hodlers don't need to feed the miners, and let them self-regulate between hash power and profitability, coins from the block reward (subsidy + tx) should be enough to keep them running. And don't forget that people can't just keep hodling forever, they will cash out at some point and pay the fees.

[Poker Player]

I find it similar to the idea of the "spend your money since it will help the economy" mantra by the government.

By socialist governments. As it's been said it's the same idea as unrealized capital gains tax and other stupid things like that. But this is what awaits us. The ECB already imposed in the last decade a negative interest rate on banks that wanted to keep deposits there and even some banks did the same for large deposits.

I think they will gladly implement this when CBDCs are widely adopted. Don't you spend your money? I charge you an interest/tax/whatever you want to call it.

That a socialist politician proposes it, I am not surprised even if I don't agree with it, but applied to Bitcoin it is a nonsense similar to proposing a Bitcoin redistribution.

[avp2306]

Whenever you think you've read all the possible nonsense, a new one always appears. This reminded me of a proposal by an environmental activist a few years ago who stated that everyone who owns Bitcoin should pay taxes because they are responsible for polluting the environment

It because those people always try to be relevant and what they think that they always create a good idea without even thinking that they are doing to much and they take out the privacy or the rights of people to decide for their own on those proposals they made.

So crazy to think that they come up with this idea then think that what they plan is really good. That's why its better for people seek the capabilities of the politician they vote since if they always choose base on popularity then what they could get are those politicians which serves only for their own interest and not for people who vote them.

Also maybe they see that there's a lot of money on bitcoin industry maybe they also think about that since they can exploit people and gather a lot of money from this industry if they successfully succeed on their proposal to be implemented.

[NeuroticFish]

This proposal is so wrong in so many ways I don't even know where to start.

I will "start that for you". I've missed that "opinion", but, while I can understand that it's probably a paid article and also one controversial which can bring audience, a newspaper calling itself "Bitcoin Magazine" should not have posted that, because imho it shows that they either misunderstood what is bitcoin about (and I mean here the entire philosophy and also the ecosystem), either don't care. In both cases it's bad advertising for them as newspaper.

This would affect collectibles big time, while all the rest would only have to move their coins around every year when the fees are very low.
Then, what about the holders with small amounts, i.e. the vast majority of bitcoiners? Will they just move to altcoins just to not erode their stash of sats?

On the other hand, I trust the devs are not idiots, hence will not implement/merge such a crappy idea. Again, a big -1 to Bitcoin Magazine for accepting to publish that.

[Marvelockg]

On the other hand, I trust the devs are not idiots, hence will not implement/merge such a crappy idea. Again, a big -1 to Bitcoin Magazine for accepting to publish that.

If this kind of article came from a blog that's anti-Bitcoin, it would have been easy to depict the essence of painting this kind of narrative but when you're getting this from a supposed Bitcoin newspaper magazine that has been bullshit about Bitcoin in all of her posts, it just goes to show how far they've missed it at this point in attempting to render a sort of smart analysis that's not giving at all or this is probably a paid advert from an anti Bitcoin source that's aimed at creating negative ripples on people's view about the idea that Bitcoin HODLers contribute nothing to the ecosystem.

First off, HODLers aren't just people that buy Bitcoin at a time and then leave it for years hoping it gets to a particular price and will have to pay compensation for those that causes the price of Bitcoin to pump up. Most HODLers buy and keep on buying and might even sell along the way which comes with using some part of thier holding for transaction fees which also plays its own role with regards to how Bitcoin becomes bullish with time.  Bitcoin transaction fee is an issue for some and if it gets more complicated that they have to pay for holding thier Bitcoin and still pay transaction fees while they intend selling a fraction of it, what then is the difference between Bitcoin and the centralized banking system and how do we expect that it will create a bullish effect in Bitcoin level of global adoption?

Let's just call this a rash and not well thought out theory

[Findingnemo]

Bitcoin protocols work just fine. Meeting with such a stupid proposal can wreck things in many unforeseen ways.
The sole idea of drying out the "dormant "address sounds like a communist quantitative easing on Bitcoin. We already have an ECB

Clearly, an April's fools on a wrong date.

They can't really accept the fact someone can use their money as they wish and these people are so used to control us all the time now pissed off about not having an opportunity to get their hands on it so they are just spitting out their hate towards the decentralisation indirectly by pointing the fingers towards the HODLers.

If miners are not making profits then they are free to leave at any moment but I guess they still make money that's why the hash rate is on the rise over the time.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This proposal is so wrong in so many ways I don't even know where to start.

I read that lousy lump of horseshit and knew intuitively that it's just idiotic, illogical thinking without having to make a list of all the reasons.  Plain and simple, bitcoin was created as a form of money not dependent on banks or governments, and nobody should be suggesting that people shouldn't just save it if they want to.  Any sort of call for a 'fee' for HODLing is simply a call for taxation, and that goes against everything bitcoin stands for.

Jesus.

a newspaper calling itself "Bitcoin Magazine" should not have posted that, because imho it shows that they either misunderstood what is bitcoin about (and I mean here the entire philosophy and also the ecosystem), either don't care. In both cases it's bad advertising for them as newspaper.

That's the truth, brother.  I was thinking of buying a few issues of that magazine in print (and might yet), but I'm not sure if they're always this retarded or if this is a one-off kind of opinion.  Damned if I'd support a publication that suggested taxing bitcoin holders.  My head-with-tin-foil-hat-atop is screaming GOVERNMENT PLANT.  But that's just me; feel free to be as paranoid as you wish.

[larry_vw_1955]

I read that lousy lump of horseshit and knew intuitively that it's just idiotic, illogical thinking without having to make a list of all the reasons.  Plain and simple, bitcoin was created as a form of money not dependent on banks or governments, and nobody should be suggesting that people shouldn't just save it if they want to.  Any sort of call for a 'fee' for HODLing is simply a call for taxation, and that goes against everything bitcoin stands for.

do you tip for good service? if so then think of it like a tip. if not then why would you expect people you don't even know to store all your bitcoin for you until you get around to using them? i understand people don't like to be taxed but taxes are one of those inevitable things in life it seems...

[Yucky]

I read that lousy lump of horseshit and knew intuitively that it was just idiotic, illogical thinking without having to make a list of all the reasons.  Plain and simple, bitcoin was created as a form of money not dependent on banks or governments, and nobody should be suggesting that people shouldn't just save it if they want to.  Any sort of call for a 'fee' for HODLing is simply a call for taxation, and that goes against everything Bitcoin stands for.

do you tip for good service? if so then think of it like a tip. if not then why would you expect people you don't even know to store all your bitcoin for you until you get around to using them? I understand people don't like to be taxed but taxes are one of those inevitable things in life it seems...

If the person in question stored his coin in an exchange and the exchange so desires to task him, it's quite understandable in the general sense, and for most banks that I'm conversant with, they even pay you an interest for keeping your money with them.

When I learned about crypto as a starter, I was told that exchanges are almost the same as banks, and if that's the case,  if I decide to keep my Bitcoin in an exchange, it's supposed to yield interest which is what volatility has already offered. I get taxed when I move my money in and out of the bank and that is what I feel also happens when I store my Bitcoin in an exchange or a wallet and hold it for a given number of years. It's a two-sided privilege, even if it's through an exchange or cold storage that I keep my Bitcoin, both I and the exchange or storage also benefit from it uniquely. I benefit because I store my assets under an exchange or through a chosen wallet and they benefit because my presence as a major holder sends a strong validation about Bitcoin, the exchange, and or the wallet.

[larry_vw_1955]

If the person in question stored his coin in an exchange and the exchange so desires to task him, it's quite understandable in the general sense, and for most banks that I'm conversant with, they even pay you an interest for keeping your money with them.

that's completely different than bitcoin though. the bank lends out your money and makes more of it. if they fail, you still get your money back. that's a fairy tale life. but when you get into something like bitcoin, no one is guaranteeing anything. except the blockchain. if you want your bitcoin maintained for you by the blockchain, but you don't want to pay anything for that. hmm. that's not going to end well.