Bitcoin's miners face vanishing incentives; 19M+ of its 21M max supply are mined

Re:Bitcoin's miners face vanishing incentives; 19M+ of its 2... by projectsforlife on Sunday June 19, 2022 @08:38PM (#31804999)

There's a contradiction in your reasoning.

Currently the money required to safeguard the bitcoin network is equal to the cost to electrify a small country like Argentina.

You say users can be shielded from the future transaction fees b/c of Lightning. Ok, well where does the money to safeguard come from if mining blocks produces less and less of it -- and users don't pay fees b/c of Lightning?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bitcoin's miners face vanishing incentives; 19M+ of its 2... by ntoskrnl on Sunday June 19, 2022 @08:57PM (#31805098)

LN enables economy of scale. Imagine a future where the majority of txs use lightning (L2), and on-chain (L1) txs are much more rare. One L1 tx may cost 1mBTC. Or if you use L2, a node might charge you and 999 other people 0.001mBTC to route your payments (simplifying here). The amount of money hasn't changed, but it's spread out among more people.

[ Parent | on HN ]