Will Bitcoin Survive the Tragedy of the Commons?

Discussion in 'Crypto Assets' started by O(1), Sep 8, 2017.

  1. O(1)

    O(1)

    https://cryptofundamental.com/21-done-will-bitcoin-survive-the-tragedy-of-the-commons-271a6cd21b04

    In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for nodes. I’m sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume. — Satoshi Nakamoto


    A tragedy of the commons scenario could arise in Bitcoin if miners or users, acting in their own economic interest in response to lower block rewards, alter their behavior in ways that don’t benefit the network as a whole. Some examples might include:

    • Some miners might stop mining all together. If fewer miners participate, transaction confirmation times could increase, making the network slower, which could reduce the network’s utility value
    • Miners may demand higher transaction fees from users to offset the diminishing block reward. This is expected to happen, but it might make transactions on the Bitcoin network more costly versus substitutes providing similar utility, causing more network participants to leave
    • If there is a reduction in the number of unique miners, the mining pool could become more centralized, making a 51% attack more likely. This could potentially destabilize the network and cause participants to lose trust in Bitcoin