Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: 17,800,000 BTC already mined
by
squatter
on 04/08/2019, 06:28:49 UTC
I don't think the bolded statement is a safe assumption to make. The fee market is a function of how full blocks are (at any size) -- it doesn't linearly aggregate fees as blocks get bigger. Increasing block size won't necessarily increase fee revenue because it will also reduce fee pressure by providing more block space. That means more transactions, more bloat and cheaper fees but not necessarily more revenue for miners to replace lost subsidy.

Let's assume that Bitcoin adoption is increasing, regardless of the transaction fees users need to pay. Then all else equal, keeping block weight limit static will increase fee revenue for miners. The same cannot be said if increased adoption (demand for block space) is being negated by increasing block sizes. In that situation, we're left hoping that speculative price increases are enough to incentivize miners.

i am talking about a balance between all these factors instead of an imbalance that damages bitcoin.
we need to increase the "capacity" so that it is capable of handling more users but at the same time we need to keep it at a level that both ensures decentralization and keeps the fee market to prevent cheap spam but not an outrageous fee market where fees reach unreasonable levels.

besides the arguments about fees and miners incentive doesn't belong here for at least another 10 years!

Segwit included a capacity increase, but fees are still so low that there's been little pressure to adopt it. I think we should let people adopt Segwit before pushing for more.

I also don't think we can wait that long to have this discussion, especially given how ugly the block size debate already got in 2017. In 10 years, the block subsidy will be down to 1.5625 bitcoins per block. That's really scary with fee revenue already this low.

We can't keep kicking the can down the road (by raising block size) and coddling users with low fees. Because when the time comes and the subsidy is drying up -- and the system is therefore becoming unreliable -- do you think users will all of a sudden be willing to pay the real cost of transactions? After being subsidized by miners for the first 20 years? I don't know. I'd rather not find out.