Author: Alex Mizrahi 2015-02-12 12:52:59
Published on: 2015-02-12T12:52:59+00:00
Bitcoin miners are not incentivized to earn the most money in the next block possible; instead, they are incentivized to maximize their return on investment. However, this assumes that all Bitcoin miners act as a single entity, which is not the case since each miner makes decisions independently. Empirical evidence shows that proof-of-stake miners are motivated to keep the network secure, but there are good reasons not to switch to proof-of-stake, particularly because it is not game-theoretically sound. If Peter Todd is the only person interested in maintaining replace-by-fee patches, and he is convinced to abandon them, zero-confirmation payments will be de-facto secure for a couple of years. However, if some faction of miners decides to boost their profits with a replace-by-fee pool and corresponding wallet, it could lead to problems in the future. Therefore, it is important to consider the game-theoretical soundness of any approach before implementing it.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T16:49:32.531746+00:00