Author: Erik Aronesty 2022-08-18 20:49:55
Published on: 2022-08-18T20:49:55+00:00
The email conversation shared between the participants of the bitcoin-dev mailing list discusses the degradation of Bitcoin due to human greed. The discussion revolves around the decline in hash rate and longer clearance times for large transactions. It is suggested that improving the utility of the chain is the first step towards supporting the demand for blockspace. Research tools like covenants, rgb, and taro can help increase fees, and large miners should invest in advancing these tools as it is in their best interest. The prisoner's dilemma is also brought up, which does not state that zero stakeholders will mine but far fewer. Real-world experiments show cooperation rates of 33%, and stakeholders who want to move large amounts in a reasonable amount of time are incentivized to mine. Changing issuance is not a viable option due to game-theoretic reasons, and it would destroy the value proposition of the chain and fork the coin. The superiority of Proof of Work against Proof of Stake has been discussed enough, and swapping PoW to PoS would be a degradation of Bitcoin. The pain of mining and its instant gratification is compared to delayed punishment, which won't be tiny. If fees are not sufficient, clearance times increase, and large stakeholders are incentivized to mine. In the best case, fees are sufficient, and in the worst case, it degrades to proof of stake, which is fine either way. Overall, the discussion highlights the importance of addressing the issue of degradation in Bitcoin due to human greed.
Updated on: 2023-06-15T22:34:55.446351+00:00