But shouldn't in theory reducing the mining reward reduce the aggregate mining cost passed on to the market?
What I assumed was:
mining rewards reduced => some miners shut down (buy masternodes instead or exit altogether) => more rewards for other miners, aggregate mining cost reduced
The equilibrium would be restored with less hashrate, but there is plenty of it to secure the network left.
What you are saying is that in practice the miners don't shut down, but continue to mine at a reduced profit? So aggregate mining cost stays the same, but there are more masternode rewards to be sold.
That would explain it. What is the evidence for it? Is there a miner here that can confirm or add some info?
I understand the second part now, thank you.
Look this way: imagine that Satoshi created Bitcoin as POS.
Ha, got it?
But I want PoW.
It's just that I don't like the impact on the environment.
All that energy has it's purpose, so what I am looking for is a better usage of that energy. Without compromising the competitive mining.
And now, from what I've learned, I have some thinking to do on how the aggregate mining cost fits the equation. We also want to reduce that.