From: "Russell O'Connor" <roconnor@blockstream•com>
To: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion <bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Security problems with relying on transaction fees for security
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2022 16:35:02 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAMZUoKmN1Sj=C-asUKCB0hbe-V2fRMsFzNn6kcsJeigbnz3fgQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAHUJnBDYDbgr3C158o7c6_XXdG+kqJruFo=od_RmPFk_GS0udw@mail.gmail.com>
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On Mon, Jul 11, 2022 at 2:19 PM Bram Cohen via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> If transaction fees came in at an even rate over time all at the exact
> same level then they work fine for security, acting similarly to fixed
> block rewards. Unfortunately that isn't how it works in the real world.
> There's a very well established day/night cycle with fees going to zero
> overnight and even longer gaps on weekends and holidays. If in the future
> Bitcoin is entirely dependent on fees for security (scheduled very
> strongly) and this pattern keeps up (overwhelmingly likely) then this is
> going to become a serious problem.
>
> What's likely to happen is that at first there will simply be no or very
> few blocks mined overnight. There are likely to be some, as miners at first
> turn off their mining rigs completely overnight then adopt the more
> sophisticated strategy of waiting until there are enough fees in the
> mempool to warrant attempting to make a block and only then doing it.
> Unfortunately the gaming doesn't end there. Eventually the miners with
> lower costs of operation will figure out that they can collectively reorg
> the last hour (or some time period) of the day overnight and this will be
> profitable. That's likely to cause the miners with more expensive
> operations to stop attempting mining the last hour of the day preemptively.
>
> What happens after that I'm not sure.
>
Miners will learn to create anyone-can-spend outputs to bribe other miners
to build on their block rather than reorg it. (Due to the coinbase
maturity, this will require some amount of floating capital.)
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-07-11 20:35 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 35+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2022-07-11 18:12 Bram Cohen
2022-07-11 18:38 ` micaroni
2022-07-11 18:43 ` Erik Aronesty
2022-07-11 19:45 ` vjudeu
2022-07-11 20:35 ` Russell O'Connor [this message]
2022-07-11 20:52 ` Erik Aronesty
2022-07-11 21:36 ` Peter Todd
2022-07-11 21:56 ` Peter Todd
2022-07-12 0:21 ` Russell O'Connor
2022-07-12 0:37 ` Peter Todd
2022-07-14 0:54 ` Anthony Towns
2022-07-11 21:18 ` Pox
2022-07-11 21:53 ` Peter Todd
2022-07-12 2:47 ` Bram Cohen
2022-07-11 22:19 ` James MacWhyte
2022-07-11 22:26 ` Peter Todd
2022-07-12 0:01 ` James MacWhyte
2022-07-12 0:31 ` Peter Todd
2022-07-13 0:38 ` Tom Harding
2022-07-13 12:18 ` Erik Aronesty
2022-07-11 23:29 ` Anthony Towns
2022-07-12 3:56 Peter
2022-07-12 11:57 ` Erik Aronesty
2022-07-12 15:08 ` Peter
2022-07-12 17:46 ` Ryan Grant
[not found] <mailman.82083.1657699581.8511.bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
2022-07-13 9:43 ` John Tromp
2022-07-13 11:56 ` John Tromp
2022-07-13 12:11 ` Gino Pinuto
2022-07-13 13:29 ` Manuel Costa
2022-07-14 9:33 ` vjudeu
2022-07-14 9:57 ` Erik Aronesty
2022-07-14 11:42 ` Gino Pinuto
2022-07-14 16:01 ` Erik Aronesty
2022-07-14 16:27 ` Manuel Costa
2022-07-15 6:03 ` vjudeu
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