Author: Melvin Carvalho 2021-05-25 08:53:40
Published on: 2021-05-25T08:53:40+00:00
In a Bitcoin-dev discussion, a community member named Billy Tetrud proposed that before deciding on tradeoffs that reduce security in favor of less energy usage or less inflation, the community needs to decide on how much security Bitcoin really needs. He further discussed the upper limit of an attack budget for the US and China government considering their respective budgets and seigniorage taken in every year by central banks.According to his back-of-the-napkin analysis, the lower bound on the cost of attack is $1.5 billion, the upper bound on the US government attack is $72 billion, and the upper bound on the China government attack is $720 billion. He also mentioned that security will go up with the price of Bitcoin and that it seems possible that the community currently has enough security. However, he urged the need for more accurate analysis to determine tighter bounds on the cost of attack and likely attack budgets.In the same discussion, another community member pointed out that if block size is increased, there would eventually be so much supply for transactions that there are no fees at all, meaning no security. Different solutions were proposed, but it was agreed that there is not a single solution and that agreeing on what kinds of solutions to use is needed.The discussion on the bitcoin-dev mailing list focused on the issue of enforcing environmental responsibility in the mining industry. It was suggested that entities in the locality could use force to require polluting entities to clean up or face consequences. However, this may be difficult to enforce due to potential political connections between the miners and local government. As bitcoin grows, people may need to be willing to enforce responsible behavior themselves or risk being outcompeted by others who are more environmentally conscious. The solutions proposed were deemed acceptable, but their successful implementation would require careful consideration of various factors.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T22:08:38.894363+00:00