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I’m optimistic over the long run, but I think this is the most important unresolved question in Bitcoin’s hundred-year model. Anyone who says it is obviously solved is hand-waving.
Today’s fee market is not carrying the load. The subsidy still pays miners. Fees are tiny most days. After the ordinals/runes spike, fee share collapsed again, and the mempool has been quiet (lots of txs went to ETFs, and other factors collaborate here).
Long term I'm optimistic: Bitcoin base layer blockspace becomes more valuable as Bitcoin itself becomes more important. High-value settlement, self-custody, Lightning channel management, institutional cold-storage movement, all create real demand for final settlement...
Epoch after epoch (in fiat terms) - daily miner rewards keep going up:
https://elektronics.dev/analytics/blockchain
I keep expecting mining fees to pick up, but we seem to be stuck at ~1sat/vB. At least blocks aren't as empty as they were a little while ago.
Things like the rumors around Iran accepting bitcoin for tolls make so much sense, but I suspect we won't see anything like that any time soon.
I do think a lot of the mempool being empty is because of: 1. the bear market; 2. a lot of financial volume went to ETFs (separate discussion if good or bad). At least some of the trading volume below would have gone to the bitcoin blockchain.
ETFs do bring new players as well. I think it's a net win for Bitcoin in the long term. But brings noise in the ST.
Section 5 below address this as well in more detail:
https://x.com/alphazeta/status/2053918448065929516
How optimistic are you that a sustainable fee-market for miners will develop in Bitcoin?