Can Bitcoin Be Secured Only by Transaction Fees? Two Researchers Sound Off - Ep.272

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 Take the annual Unchained survey!
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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