The Tragedy of the Commons (game theory) occurs when individuals, acting in their self-interest, deplete shared resources to the detriment of the entire community. In the case of Bitcoin, larger block sizes might lead to more transaction throughput but can strain the network and decentralization.

In the IPv4 protocol, IP addresses are used to uniquely identify devices on the internet. However, the pool of available IPv4 addresses is limited, consisting of only about 4.3 billion addresses. As the internet has grown exponentially and more devices are connected, the demand for IP addresses has increased significantly. Various organizations, internet service providers (ISPs), and businesses require IP addresses to allocate to their customers or devices. Initially, IP addresses were allocated freely, and there was no strict regulation on their distribution. However, this led to a situation similar to the Tragedy of the Commons.

As of today, the consensus in the internet network is that each individual does not need to create their own internet service provider. Instead, each person rents a communication channel from one of approximately a million internet service providers. Similarly, a similar consensus could exist in the Bitcoin network, where access to the Bitcoin network is provided to anywhere from one to eight million people or companies, while the remaining eight billion people would either rent access to the Bitcoin network or lease open channels in the Bitcoin Lightning Network.