Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Mining for fee only is unsustainable.
by
unk
on 05/06/2011, 15:18:14 UTC
I personally have no opinion if bitcoin is sustainable with transaction fees only, perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't.

But, why do you think that "thousands of smartest people on the planet" have solved this issue, or, even why do you even think that all of them have given this issue much thought at all?

yes, i was going to say the same thing. first of all, how many developers and economic thinkers of even above-average abilities (for, say, an open-source project) do you think are associated with bitcoin development? my estimate is 6, and in any event it's less than a dozen. second, the issue has been quite contentious, and unresolved, for some time.

'we've talked about it already; see these several discussions...' would be more accurate, and probably more helpful too. bitcoin doesn't stand to benefit from overly grand claims.

(even the 'biggest supercomputer in the world' claim falls flat once you think about it for a second. if you consider mostly uncoordinated enumeration and verification as a 'supercomputer', more cycles per second are used on any number of other loosely distributed activities throughout the world. bitcoin has a few thousand graphics cards behind it; say that instead rather than aggrandising the claim. like all aggressive marketing, it's a turn-off, at least to me.)