Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future
by rebuilder on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @12:47AM
(#15858846)
Users are not paying for security, they are paying for having their transaction processed. In fact, I don't see that users have any way to measure the security of the network granularly: if secure, everything works. If not, systemwide chaos ensues.
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Re:Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future
by modeless on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @01:24AM
(#15859014)
The security of the network can be measured by any user. Multiply the mining difficulty by the efficiency of mining hardware and the price of electricity and divide by 2; this is the cost of running a 51% attack.
The beauty of the mining mechanism is that having transactions processed provides security at the same time. As long as users see value in having transactions processed they will be willing to fund miners with transaction fees.
However, you're right that users aren't paying for security directly. The fee market may not actually give miners enough revenue to ensure network security. When the block reward goes away electricity consumption will certainly drop (relative to transaction volume), but it may even drop too far to the point where the network is no longer secure from 51% attacks.