Block rewards in the future (Only Transaction Fees Question)

BITCOIN
#1

I am watching the Block Rewards & Halvenings video and thinking… I know when the rest of the blocks have been mined, the idea is that miners will be rewarded by Transaction Fees, as the idea is that in the future, more people will be using Bitcoin so there will be more transaction fees to support the miners…

But the way Crypto is turning into one interconnected ecosystem, what if everyone just uses alts for the majority of crypto transactions and BTC just becomes a store of value? So BTC transactions would become actually kind of rare, when compared to maybe an altcoin. How would that affect miners in the future?

If you want to make it more complex, what if most people use WBTC, RenBTC, or another BTC peg for the majority of use? Would that not make BTC transactions (and fees) super low?

#2

Alts cannot do everything. BTC is by far the best protocol for sending large sums of money. BTC will always be tied to alts; where to you think the value of alts come from? There are too few on-ramps for alts, most require another crypto to trade, namely BTC and ETH.

Think marketcap- even if an alt protocol may offer advantages, the market cap can limit how much funds can be transferred. If BTC becomes the primary crypto store of value, then what other coin would compete with its market value?

The only reason to use wrapped BTC is to use BTC as a collateral in Defi. Adding BTC to the market is one reason why the marketcap of DeFi has boomed since single collateralized Dai (Sai). It is not in lieu of BTC, it is because of BTC.

So no, everything you mentioned is actually support for why BTC may still be quite active after the last BTC is minted, but that is so long away, no one can know what will be going on then. It is likely to be a completely different world.

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#3

Yes but large sums of money don’t do anything more for the miners then small sums. Its the volume they profit from. I’m not saying Bitcoin won’t be used, just that it wont be used as much since alts do take up a lot of the transaction volume. I agree that BTC dominance will likely stay #1 in market cap, and all other coins will use it to measure value against.

When the white paper was written, I don’t know if Satoshi had envisioned 10k other coins. Lets face it, alts take some value away from Bitcoin and Bitcoin transactions, I think if it wasn’t for alts Bitcoin would be 100X larger right now. I keep some WBTC, just to trade against ETH in metamask using Uniswap.

I agree that if the next several years is anything like the last, we will be in a totally different place, it will be interesting to see how this space plays out for sure.

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#4

This is already the case though; there are so many more transactions on ETH alone. This is due to the chain mechanics. BTC block times are far greater than ETH, so in 1 BTC block, many ETH blocks have already been published. It is like a train/large freighter vs. UPS/DHL; UPS is faster at delivering smaller packages to smaller scale businesses and residential users, and trains/freighters are more industrial scale.

Just because more people are using UPS doesn’t mean heavy freighters are unnecessary. It is just a surface level comparison that fails to acknowledge the why behind it.

If BTC is a store of value, how will alts take value away from BTC? They seem mutually exclusive… Any examples of how Defi has negatively affected BTC price? What about BTC affecting Defi? Which has more weight? Everything points to BTC dominance, even if it is weakening…

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#5

Right now miners are still being subsidized with the block reward. My question was about when the reward decreases. In Ivans blockchain 101 video he said, the idea is that by the time the block reward is gone, enough people will use Bitcoin, that the bitcoin transactions (volume) will be enough to support the miners. But idk if the idea of Alts where accounted for when Satoshi came up with that idea.

At some point (btc) miners will only be making a profit off the number of transactions and nothing else, from my understanding.

I’m not saying there is a problem, I am asking why there wouldn’t be.

#6

I believe it would be naive to think others wouldn’t build their own blockchains. Satoshi should have expected it, as most of the concepts of cryptocurrency are already borrowed technology. BTC was just the first real successful blockchain with significant network adoption.

When speaking of the last BTC mined, we are so far away that it wouldn’t be realistic to apply any of the dynamics of today towards the future. It first has the assumption that these protocols will be maintained for 50+ years. BTC will take that long to mine the last Satoshis, but will these alts persist that long? No one can know…

The real future looks to be about integrating chains, not replacing them. These systems have different mechanics for a reason (if they have any real utility).

Defi alone has been greatly impacted by BTC. With wBTC, BTC value can be added to DeFi, but the BTC value isn’t removed from the BTC network. Most users leverage their value of BTC to make moves without selling BTC, because they do not want to loose the BTC!!! The BTC is just collateral for loans most of the time: the chains are working together, not competing!!

#7

I do also think crypto is becoming a single ecosystem, where everything will soon be interoperable. My thoughts where more technical and maybe a bit hypothetical based on how far from the point we currently are. But even in 8, or 12 years when the block reward is halved a few more times the issue could come into play.

Satoshi may have expected someone to fork Bitcoin, but I dont know if he would have thought things would turn into what they have today. Crypto has taken on a mind of its own, its been really cool to watch as well.

“The real future looks to be about integrating chains, not replacing them.” - 100% agree with that.