Mystdev70

one does not simply fade the sheep wif hat 🐑🧢

real question: What happens when all 21M bitcoins are mined? Right now, miners spend around 1.8 million kilowatt-hours of energy to mine a single block. At five cents per kilowatt-hour, that’s roughly $92,000. For now, they earn 3.125 Bitcoin. At current prices, that’s $337,500. The incentives work. But the supply is finite. At 21 million, Bitcoin stops emitting. Then miners rely on transaction fees. The problem is, fees make up only seven percent of their income. That’s about $23,000 per block. To cover just electricity, fees would need to quadruple. To cover hardware, risk, and profit... even more. Bull runs help. So do things like Ordinals. But they boost fees temporarily. Not forever. For fees to scale sustainably, Bitcoin needs constant global demand. It must become a settlement layer for the world. Or introduce high-value transaction types we haven’t seen yet. If it remains a static store of value aka "digital gold" - the model breaks. If the incentives break, security weakens. And Bitcoin only works if it's secure. That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about.