I know its heresy but I'd really like to entertain a discussion on both sides regarding a concern of mine. What if transaction fees aren't enough to incentivize the miners to secure the bitcoin network?
You misunderstood a key point. Bitcoin network created by Satoshi Nakamoto and the income of miners is mainly from their transaction confirmation, not from block rewards, by design.
I think this is a potential problem we may see in the next few decades as the halving continues on. My hope is that we will have enough people using the bitcoin network to have a healthy fee market, but if we have weak periods like now where there are several unfilled blocks, wont miners just turn off their equipment as they are unprofitable? What options or solutions are being discussed to help mitigate this?
Miners have two classes: big miners and small miners. Small miners are mostly weak hands and they will capitulate in bear market. It has happened in the past before last 3 halvings. It will repeat in future in my opinion.
In theory, with each halving, block reward halved and as consequence of it, Bitcoin price should increase (should double its price at least). How about miner transaction fee?
If the transaction fee (in satoshi) for each block remains the same, what do you think about income for miners (only take into account the part from transaction fee, not block reward)?
Let's see two possibilities
- Total transaction fee in satoshi value: remains the same >> income should increase because BTC increases in value
- Total transaction fee in satoshi value increases. Why? In future, I believe there will be more demand on Bitcoin transaction on the network, so people might join fee rate race that give miners better chances to confirm transactions paid by higher fee rate/ vbyte. Then, it will be multiplied by the increase of BTC price. Consequently, we should see a double-effect (positively) on miner income