How can BTC remain secure once all the coins have been mined and people are only paying via Lightning? There will no longer be any incentive to expend energy to secure the network.
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@Psychedelic_Sunflower Hey! By the year 2140, when the last Bitcoin will have been mined, the system will be fully self-sustaining through transaction fees.
From the very beginning, the block reward was intended only as a bootstrapping incentive to build the network in its early stages and distribute the coins fairly.
To refute the often-cited argument regarding Lightning: Lightning does not replace on-chain transactions, but merely offloads microtransactions. Large Lightning hubs, exchanges, and nodes must regularly open, close, or adjust their channels on-chain. Since on-chain block space is extremely scarce and valuable, these significant settlement processes pay enough fees via the free market to compensate miners in the long term.
Furthermore, the Lightning Network will not be used at all for extremely large transactions: the network simply lacks the liquidity on the individual routes for this, since channels can only hold a limited amount of funds at any given time. Furthermore, when dealing with huge sums, no one will take the risk of processing them via off-chain channels if they have to go on-chain anyway for absolute security—and for large amounts, on-chain fees are negligible in percentage terms anyway.
From the very beginning, the block reward was intended only as a bootstrapping incentive to build the network in its early stages and distribute the coins fairly.
To refute the often-cited argument regarding Lightning: Lightning does not replace on-chain transactions, but merely offloads microtransactions. Large Lightning hubs, exchanges, and nodes must regularly open, close, or adjust their channels on-chain. Since on-chain block space is extremely scarce and valuable, these significant settlement processes pay enough fees via the free market to compensate miners in the long term.
Furthermore, the Lightning Network will not be used at all for extremely large transactions: the network simply lacks the liquidity on the individual routes for this, since channels can only hold a limited amount of funds at any given time. Furthermore, when dealing with huge sums, no one will take the risk of processing them via off-chain channels if they have to go on-chain anyway for absolute security—and for large amounts, on-chain fees are negligible in percentage terms anyway.
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•@Philipwdr Thanks for the explanation 👍
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