From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from silver.osuosl.org (smtp3.osuosl.org [140.211.166.136]) by lists.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 00970C0177 for ; Mon, 23 Mar 2020 13:21:03 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by silver.osuosl.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E3494204A7 for ; Mon, 23 Mar 2020 13:21:02 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at osuosl.org Received: from silver.osuosl.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (.osuosl.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id dgIccIyNqybJ for ; Mon, 23 Mar 2020 13:21:01 +0000 (UTC) X-Greylist: delayed 00:21:36 by SQLgrey-1.7.6 Received: from canndrew.org (canndrew.org [199.167.29.165]) by silver.osuosl.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 62F2020337 for ; Mon, 23 Mar 2020 13:21:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: from shum by canndrew.org with local (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1jGMfq-00084L-JD; Mon, 23 Mar 2020 08:59:22 -0400 Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2020 08:59:22 -0400 From: Andrew Cann To: Dave Scotese , Bitcoin Protocol Discussion Message-ID: <20200323125922.GA29881@canndrew.org> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="mYCpIKhGyMATD0i+" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-Mailman-Approved-At: Thu, 26 Mar 2020 04:32:22 +0000 Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Block solving slowdown question/poll X-BeenThere: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15 Precedence: list List-Id: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2020 13:21:03 -0000 --mYCpIKhGyMATD0i+ Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Hi, noob question here: Is there a long-term plan for if the block reward drops too low to ensure the security of the network? IIUC miners only make profit from block rewards and transaction fees, and once the block reward drop to zero we're merely hoping that transaction fees will keep mining expensive enough to stop a state actor or someone from buying enough hash power to attack the network. If that's the case, should we start making plans now to change the protocol to allow an adjustable block reward? Here's a half-baked idea I had of how that could work: Since the block reward dilutes the value of the currency bitcoin holders have an incentive to keep the reward low. However, since the block reward is also (partly) what incentivizes mining, bitcoin holders also have an incentive to keep the reward high enough to keep the network secure. So if bitcoin holders were able to vote to decide the block reward they "should", hypothetically, reliably choose a value that balances these two concerns. You could implement this voting by adding an optional extra field to every txout that signals what the holder thinks the inflation rate should be. If the field is missing you just assume the default value based on the current protocol. Then, whenever a new block is mined, you take the median inflation rate of all the pre-existing utxos, weighted by the utxo value, to calculate the block's reward. Is this idea fundamentally broken somehow? Or are there already better ideas for how to tackle this problem (I don't follow this list very closely)? Or is this actually a non-issue to start with? - Andrew --mYCpIKhGyMATD0i+ Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: Digital signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJeeLKqAAoJEJQq94U5BTTONZEQAKaa+1oOsGDAoyMSrfeSWpAQ Nl/vd0W2ykPrINhq7XpLZJhRpYpZDWnOV/d5C327QuYM0kUduVz2d8C/5KWv1gj/ 8nsONKbdJyOSdTItGPnVs3GKWWUgPr7zL5YH29SnoHQNBWFEODOFZ6fZbJnWKi/g 0kBX2UwfcS8TE+ETeMePcBTpfPDOOv93QiLXQluE/Gb97XRTlON26DiJQLIRWhDZ CASQSs1YXtYlMtwb/hOV1fOQ17eMEvnnImWG3vlKezmXIJSUhQy4BDyC3XO2p9LI aKssXNS12NiLYz6lu+dO2/hw8fc+i+BWuhtXE1hvwy1YLhJF76VT3v1uwOJIsHS2 njSOlnAz6izDKchWK//606dwbUZFKKlrt4bIv18vz8dZPc1I5e2i8djlBlkZ1VlK pjhgJ8RezJ1HkCxlB0V00eoa7FZZ7Fy3pzs+T4XE2vF653C8dxSjAdzL+eT/ZmN9 0SqDU6sfrCvZLJ11UYMrQ9Y2N2dqWhJNSs7X/xfvKMNcDSXk4TXyIjDGGos3tmhs rxubX9dMNwLZXw3wKl7NSpG8Q5a3oqyOP61bPJkHe8JnN3hZQT23MO371pu0lc9L 7IzoX2NGJP60kpByuGvv/sNVezGBfkS5BAgsS9NPgEF/PtZ2qiaYv81yo6jQgzVf RWZ2toLnuj01MM9sFt7p =wAaC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --mYCpIKhGyMATD0i+--