We built lightning to make bitcoin transactions faster and cheaper. but once congestion on layer 1 eased, we started complaining about empty blocks. Eventually, layer 1 will become significantly more expensive and will primarily be used by central banks and large institutions.
Discussion
Why would it be expensive if there are empty blocks? đ¤
Increased transaction volume due to adoption
Adoption by lightning channels?
Adoption by large institutions, governments, central banks, and hnw clients
Don't think institutional adoption will fill the blocks! đ¤
You'll be surprised. Plus, HNW who can afford layer-1 for larger transactions will continue to use it.
I don't deny usage.
I am skeptic about blocks filling with that usage! đ§
Institutional blockspace utilization on weekdays, plebs will be able to use blockspace on the weekends, or pay the fee and do it through the week.
Already seeing that pattern somewhat now. Quite often 1sat/vbyte on Sundays
I think we have to reevaluate the thesis..
As long as inflation exists and central banks and commercial banks continue to print money through fractional reserve system, Bitcoinâs primary use case will remain a store of value.
If no one uses it to make transaction miner will go broke and the network becomes insecure.
Bitcoin canât be a store of values only.
Will commercial mining be a thing in the future? Do commercial bitcoin miners (especially the ones with zero bitcoin on their balance sheets) have any future? Iâd short the fuck out of them.
What do you mean by âcommercialâ? Every business needs to make money and every miner has bills to pay..
Solo miners will disrupt the current centralized mining structure. It might seem like a small effort now, but that will change as Bitcoin adoption grows
Is this wishful thinking or can you name a few industries where small producers are more efficient than scaling ones?
halvings will continue to slash the block rewards. regardless of bitcoin price, because of low transaction fees, many miners are already struggling. like you said, every business needs to make money. now we have solo miners, and they will increase their hashrates exponentially as bitcoin adoption grows. this is great for bitcoin, but not so great for miners.
You still didnât name an industry in wich low quantity producers beat scaled ones.
Also logically it doesnât make sense to me. Why would a producer with a few machines stay longer in business than the big ones?
Big players have much better access to capital and hardware.
solo miners are not in it for profit. imagine 10m bitcoiners running their own 10 th/s miners each. i'd compare solo miners to a small batch côte du rhône wine maker or a gruyère cheese producer in the swiss alps. not chasing scale, just preserving quality and independence.
Beautifully said đ
I hope you are right.
Unfortunately Iâm still not convinced though. If bitcoin becomes the global reserve asset and money of choice for transactions I doubt a bunch of hobbyists will be enough to secure the network from nation state attacks.
If everyone stores their value, they will have an interest to run a miner, even just for heating. It will decentralize the network further. The commercial incentive for mining at scale will diminish over time.
What we need, is more simple miners, a few taps in an app to setup.
Mining is a business and I see no reason why it shouldnât be made primarily by professionals.
In the next 50 years, yes it will be largely conducted by professionals as a commercial venture. As the incentives (block reward) diminish it will drive ASIC chips into more everyday products. Water heating, heating etc
It will be a waste of power to not use an ASIC if your primary goal is heat energy.
Would love that future, but the additional hardware needed will come at a cost, so Iâm not convinced it will happen this way..
I hope that nostr:npub1guh5grefa7vkay4ps6udxg8lrqxg2kgr3qh9n4gduxut64nfxq0q9y6hjy is right; fees will always spike and the mempool will always clear. It's neither a good thing or a bad thing.
That's exactly why it's important to get familiar with Lightning early. Layer 1 remains the foundation, but everyday transactions will happen on Layer 2. Those still relying on cheap on-chain transactions will have to rethink in the future.
Thatâll change soon!
Cleared mem pool means Lightning is working.
I think itâs working. We can talk about the issues with lightning, but thatâs a separate topic.
Layer 2 has been too successful đ