Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, has made Bitcoin long -term alarms (BTC).
In a detailed article on May 29, Drake argued that constantly low transaction costs on the Bitcoin network could make it more and more vulnerable to a 51%attack, a scenario in which a single entity obtains a majority control of the blockchain calculation power.
Bitcoin costs decrease
According to Drake, the Bitcoin costs structure failed to evolve in parallel with its rambling schedule.
He noted that if the three recent rating events have reduced block rewards over the past eight years, transaction costs have not increased enough to compensate for the decline.
According to him, the costs now only contribute 1% of the total of minors’s income, against previous levels and oscillating almost a lower than 13 years of approximately 6.5 BTC per day.

Given this, Drake said:
“Bitcoin’s safety model is broken. If Bitcoin is taken up, the repercussions can carry the entire cryptography ecosystem. Systemic risks cannot be ignored.”
Drake has also challenged the long -standing hypothesis that the costs would naturally increase and end up replacing block rewards.
On the contrary, he argued that the costs are narrowed, and if minors had to rely only at the expense, their income could dive 100x. This would reduce the bitcoin hash power to just 1% of its current strength.
According to Drake:
“This is the trajectory on which we are.
Price increase will not save Bitcoin
Drake rejected the idea that the rise in Bitcoin prices could solve the problem.
He described a scenario in which Bitcoin reaches $ 1 million per room, but still covers only 10% of today’s safety cost if the costs of costs remain unchanged.
He noted:
“Today, Bitcoin is secured by 20 GW – the equivalent of 10 million space radiators. A 90% reduction in minors’ income would result in 2 GW safety – 1 million radiators. For the context, Texas alone produces 80 GW.
Even if Bitcoin had to reach $ 10 million per room, making it a network of 200 billions of dollars, Drake argued that the cost to mount a 51% attack would remain trivial compared to its market capitalization.
He estimated that the construction of 20 GW of hash infrastructure would only cost $ 20 billion, or only 0.01% of the hypothetical value of $ 200 billion in Bitcoin.
Solutions?
Drake has concluded that the current Bitcoin work proof model may not be viable in the long term without structural adjustments.
He therefore proposed several solutions, including the revision of the costs market or the introduction of the tail emission. The latter would imply the lifting of 21 million coins of Bitcoin to maintain the incentives during minors.
In addition, he suggested a transition to proof of proof (POS), a system already used by Ethereum to secure its network.
However, Drake recognized that his ideas are faced with serious resistance in the cultural and ideological framework of Bitcoin.
Meanwhile, he also pointed out that some members of the community have proposed waves that BTC could adopt proof of authority through a consortium of mining pools. But he pointed out that there were few details on this subject.
Given this, Drake concluded:
“Bitcoin is supposed to be antifragile. However, the elephant in the room in the room is not addressed. We can bury our heads in the sand. But the fundamentals become stronger. ”
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