Author: alicexbt 2022-07-10 16:38:11
Published on: 2022-07-10T16:38:11+00:00
In an email chain discussing the block subsidy, Alice suggested that `consensus.nSubsidyHalvingInterval` for mainnet in `chainparams.cpp` could be decreased to 195000 to reduce the number of halvings from 34 to 14 and make the subsidy 0 when it becomes less than 0.01. She also expressed doubts about whether consensus could be reached on this change since it would affect the projections and predictability of Bitcoin. In response to this, ZmnSCPxj clarified that the reason to object to perpetual issuance is the impact on censorship resistance and not on price. He explained that the block subsidy erodes the value of held coins to pay for the security of coins being moved, but it is still issued whether or not coins being moved are censored or not censored. Thus, there is no incentive, considering only the block subsidy, to not censor coin movements. He suggested that we should instead prepare for a future where the block subsidy must be removed, possibly before the existing schedule removes it, in case a majority coalition of miner ever decides to censor particular transactions without community consensus. Fortunately, forcing the block subsidy to 0 is a softfork and thus easier to deploy. Finally, he admitted to making some wrong calculations in the last email and pointed out that the change would just be required in `validation.cpp`.
Updated on: 2023-06-15T22:27:17.446190+00:00