Intro

Once the block reward diminishes greatly, can Bitcoin be secured only by transaction fees? On Unchained, Bitcoin writer Vijay Boyapati and Ethereum Foundation’s Justin Drake debate the merits of Bitcoin’s security model, which Drake says will largely rely on transaction fees as soon as within 20-30 years, not in 100+ years. Highlights:

• Justin’s and Vijay’s professional backgrounds
• why Justin thinks Bitcoin cannot survive solely on fees
• how Bitcoin is currently secured
• what makes Bitcoin’s security subjective rather than binary
• how much it would cost in dollars to 51% attack Bitcoin
• what the Bitcoin network could do in response to a 51% attack
• how to calculate Bitcoin’s security budget
• why Bitcoin's price can’t go exponential forever
• whether a “nuclear option” for Bitcoin miners could protect against a 51% attack
• why nation-states could be either pro or anti-Bitcoin
• why a Bitcoin Standard could be similar to the Gold Standard
• how Bitcoin will change going forward, and why Vijay thinks transaction fees will increase
• why Justin does not think transaction fees will increase enough to secure Bitcoin’s base layer
• how Justin would fix Bitcoin’s security model -- and why he thinks the 21 million hard cap is a meme
• why Vijay does not think Bitcoin’s security model will ever change -- especially the 21 million hard cap
• what Justin thinks Ethereum is doing better than Bitcoin
• why Vijay thinks Ethereum will fail

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Episode Links

Justin Drake

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/drakefjustin
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drakefjustin/
• Recent Unchained appearance:
• • https://unchainedpodcast.com/is-eth-on-its-way-to-becoming-ultra-sound-money-yes-says-justin-drake/ 

Vijay Boyapati

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/real_vijay
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijayboyapati 
• The Bullish Case for Bitcoin:
• • https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-6ecc8bdecc1 

Bitcoin’s Security Model

• Hasu
• • https://ark-invest.com/podcast/bitcoins-security-model-with-hasu/
• Dan Held
• • https://danhedl.medium.com/bitcoins-security-is-fine-93391d9b61a8 
• Nic Carter
• • https://medium.com/@nic__carter/bitcoin-bites-the-bullet-8005a2a62d29
  • https://www.docdroid.net/C7uTY1R/mit-expo-slides-nic-carter-pdf#page=12
• Paul Sztorc
• • https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/security-budget/ 
• Donal McIntyre
• • https://etherplan.com/2019/05/17/why-the-bitcoin-fee-model-will-work/7587/
• Phil Geiger
• • https://unchained-capital.com/blog/21-million-is-non-negotiable/ 
• Jordan McKinney
• • https://medium.com/coinmonks/bitcoin-security-a-negative-exponential-95e78b6b575
  • https://medium.com/coinmonks/bitcoin-security-in-one-chart-694ee3ed8c2d 
• Lyn Alden
• • https://www.lynalden.com/bitcoin-security-modeling/ 
• Princeton
• • https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/publications/mining_CCS.pdf 
• Doomsday economics of PoW
• • https://www.bis.org/publ/work765.pdf 

Basic Info

• How BTC fees work
• • https://river.com/learn/how-bitcoin-fees-work/
  • https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Miner_fees 
• What will happen when all BTCs are mined?
• • Decrypt: https://decrypt.co/33124/what-will-happen-to-bitcoin-after-all-21-million-are-mined
  • River: https://river.com/learn/what-will-happen-after-all-bitcoin-mined/ 

Bitcoin Fees

• https://studio.glassnode.com/metrics?a=BTC&category=&ema=0&m=fees.VolumeSum&mAvg=365&mMedian=0&modal=loginForm 

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