So Blockchair put together an educational website specifically about Bitcoin and the Security Budget topic. Honestly think everyone here should go through the whole thing, especially when people start throwing around arguments about how the network's security is or isn't being funded properly.
And even if this never turns into a real problem down the line, it's still worth understanding just to get a clearer picture of what actually keeps the network running. Incentives, basically. That's the core of it.
There are many Bitcoin block explorers but I like Blockchair.com most because they care most about privacy of Bitcoin users. They made their educational initiatives on privacy for Bitcoin users years ago.
You can see their General guidelines for sending BTC transactions.
This new website is another contribution from Blockchair.com for Bitcoin community in privacy concern.
Good website but it seems more like a propaganda page to raise FUD about something that is not an issue.
Look at this junk. That's an increase of block size space by a factor of 100 times. Bitcoin would become centralized like Ethereum and Solana. Is that what you want? One day it is quantum computers the other day it is this idiocy. Being at ATH prices is not enough, you just have to drink the altcoin FUD every day do you?
Security Budget is just another FUD , like quantum computers or claims that if you hold Bitcoin, youll get kidnapped. Security Budget issue doesnt really exist, its just FUD spread by shady shitcoin promoters who say, Bitcoin has a security budget problem, buy my shitcoin instead.
If you dive a bit deeper into this rabbit hole, you realize that the Security Budget problem doesnt actually exist. Pierre Rochard explained it perfectly a few days ago on Twitter,theres no real issue with Bitcoins security budget.
https://x.com/BitcoinPierre/status/1956151795287515230
I'm not comfortable with information on by this website.
This would change behavior on some Bitcoin address that rely on block height for it's spending condition.
While i'm in favor to increase block size, 100x increase sounds too much. Without making TX that use witness data (e.g. Ordinal) to store arbitrary data become non-standard, it'll just open gate for those people to bloat Bitcoin blockchain easily at relative low cost.
They don't mention that miner is smart enough to realize that Bitcoin price will crash if successful 51% attack happens. So whoever bribe them need to make lots of bribe and give the miner time to sell Bitcoin they still own, which makes it less practical than it may sound.
I would worry more about miners are getting centralized because small miners no longer able to earn profit. Then the government bribe the miners not with an intention to ruin the whole market, but they do it with an intention to control Bitcoin by blocking specific transactions/addresses.
Isn't this mean 51% wouldn't happen? AFAIK the cost of hardware and electricity are always increase too.
I believe not. We might start seeing that as a real issue if Bitcoin's price doesn't increase high enough after each halving. If the price doesn't keep up, we probably have two more halvings before the community gets into another serious debate like the Block Size Wars on the road to SegWit.
But if you truly believe it's merely FUD, OK.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Let's see how to think about this. The price has always kept up to date with sufficient increases, so what should I think? That's right, it is going to be a problem soon time to panic!! Are you a teenager?
Talking about bitcoin security, everything has been made possible on its networks, now left for us on how we make use of it, one of the main purpose of the creation of bitcoin was to secure us from the centralized challenges with financial economy, which i think the blockchain technology and bitcoin nodes already made a perfect solution to all that may be the issues with the security and privacy, only when we learn how to go about it base on how we see it.
Bitcoin blockchain is a best secure one in terms of security and people can feel doubtful about Bitcoin blockchain security and don't use it, it's normal. However if they see risk with Bitcoin blockchain in security but want to find a better blockchain, they will be possibly become victims of scammers. They can look around and find some potential altcoins with advertisements as better blockchains in security and even other things.
They must check this website and realize how Bitcoin is best in security.
https://howmanyconfs.com/
Altcoins can not compare with Bitcoin in security of blockchain.
Panic? No ser, it's actually time NOT to ignore the fact that it possibly could be a serious issue in the future, and that it's time to be educated and a time to be INFORMED about it.
Do you believe that a problem/issue will merely go away if you ignore it?
Are you?
Someone with pseudonym b10c shared analysis that some pool already do that.
https://b10c.me/observations/13-missing-sanctioned-transactions-2024-12/
https://b10c.me/observations/08-missing-sanctioned-transactions/
For now, it means the transaction take longer than expected to be included in a block.
As much as people want Bitcoin price to keep rise drastically (in this case, at least twice every 4 years), "Past Performance Is No Guarantee of Future Results".
Past market cycles and performances (in ROIs) mean many things but no market cycle is entirely as same as another past market cycle, and with time, with bigger market cap, Bitcoin price will grow more slowly with lower ROIs than past market cycles.
I think this point is undeniable and unavoidable with all assets, not only Bitcoin.
Casebitcoin.com website has an interesting chart of Bitcoin price doubling time.
https://casebitcoin.com/charts#doubling_time
ZOOM OUT to the maximum. Although in the short-term or medium-term Bitcoin may have price crashes, but as long as the Federal Reserve and the other Central Banks around the globe print money and expand their balance sheets, some of that fiat will find its way in Stores Of Value like Bitcoin.
Open a graph of the M2 - a classification of the Money Supply, then open a zoomed out chart of Bitcoin. Do you see the correlation?
BUT for short/medium-term, I agree with the phrase "Past Performance Is No Guarantee of Future Results". Plus the possibility that the next bull cycle might not make Bitcoin surge as high as the current bull cycle.
It is unfair to call it FUD, lol. Leading voices like Nikita Zhavoronkov, the developer of Blockchair, are legitimately concerned and are calling for continued high fees or even protocol changes to maintain security, while Pierre Rochard minimises the problem by claiming that rising Bitcoin prices offset declining rewards.
Listen, dismissing Bitcoin security budget as FUD is lazy, its security budget is real. We are in a cycle of halving subsidies, which means that 51% attacks become more affordable if fee markets do not change & miners hash power drops.
One thing that comes to my mind with F2Pool starting to censor transactions is if they can still maintain the title of honest nodes since what they are practicing aren't any longer in the interest of the network in it's totality but are slightly diverting their operations to suit their personal interests. With filtering of transactions, they are practicing censorship in their mining operations.
If more nodes with a big hash rate joins their parties, lots of transactions may be stuck unnecessarily on the network, I see that the missing transactions were included in later blocks, but it is disturbing when miners who secure the network start filtering transactions, I see it as a slim threat to censorship resistance of bitcoin perhaps if more nodes begin to filter.
Additionally, would it not be better for there to be a patch on the code to only allow miners to select transactions based on size and fees? I don't know how wrong my suggestions are but I feel something to stop this filtering of transactions would be of great help.
👍
There's actually a Core Developer who was quoted that we will probably go through two more halvings before it's going to be realized as a real and actual issue.
Plus quoting Pierre Rochard, who isn't a Core Developer or an actual developer for that matter, is laughable. He's saying that the Security Budget Issue is FUD, but what if he's wrong? - High probability he IS wrong.
I get your point, but F2Pool action doesn't violate Bitcoin protocol.
You mentioned "nodes" many times, but i think you actually talk about "miners". At least, miners who join different pool (that doesn't censor) have opportunity to earn slightly higher income.
I doubt it's possible/practical when each node have slightly different list of TX on it's mempool and miner can include transaction that never broadcasted before it's included in a block.
That statement completely missed my argument. With people like this there is no solution except wasting time on things that they believe are true. If there are indications of a problem, panic. If there are no indications of a problem, also panic. There are no pressing issues of any kind in Bitcoin, we should think about alien quantum warp computers and asteroids disrupting the security budget by destroying the largest mining farms at the same time.
Of course it is FUD, because it is based on several false assumptions and fearmongering plus a mixture of scam ideas from altcoin land. Who the fuck is going to attack the safest asset in the world with the most hashrate ever in its history? With what and how? Who says that the security budget must infinitely grow? You are out of your damn mind.
Your brain is on the level of a teenager and so is everyone else's who believes in idiocy like this. You have contributed nothing and you want to divert resources to things that you believe are a problem. Next time don't major in fields like sociology.
Statements like this with made up probability prove that you are an idiot.
Happened to stumble across this post. Important topic.
For what it's worth, I'm a 2017 account here with little to no activity, but with mining connections going back to ~2010 or so.
With that said, I do wonder how much consideration there is for the Bitcoin network outside of faith-based security. That's to say, I often get the sense there's an odd, large contingency in the community who finds complacency and... faith... to be adequate security measures.
In the face of widespread geopolitical jockeying/unrest, lightspeed technology, and practically endless capital accessible and rotating around/among/without/within some people & organizations - I find the "faith-based security" and "black swans are impossible" crowd/s to be disappointing, confused, and largely missing the importance around potential realities/futures for Bitcoin.
It's obvious Bitcoin isn't perfect nor will it ever be. It's not unreasonable to hold the position that Bitcoin may need to harden itself defensively - quantum resistance, security budget, or otherwise.
In the name of value and risk analysis, talking about this now and addressing it now - not kicking it down the road - is the correct course of action.
With all that said, I'll get to the broader point of this reply:
SpiderPool is integrating in their user dashboard a Bitcoin-native second subsidy called DMT-NAT. (SpiderPool announcement - X post)AntPool has repeatedly engaged with Tap Protocol, transferring & selling DMT-NAT. (AntPool related X post)F2Pool has repeatedly engaged with Tap Protocol and has transferred DMT-NAT. (F2Pool related X post - 1)F2Pool broadly talked about the Bitcoin security budget and related miner incentivization and efficiency issues. (F2Pool related X post - 2)ViaBTC engaged with Tap Protocol and transferred DMT-NAT on 11/28. (ViaBTC related X post - 1) ViaBTC, one day later on 11/29, briefly mentioned DMT-NAT on an X-Space. (ViaBTC related X post -2(at ~1:48) , ViaBTC related X post - 3)
You'll note that these are all Chinese-based mining pools, four of the five largest worldwide, representing anywhere from 52-63% of world hashpower.
Presumably, these mining pools see value in DMT-NAT and the Ordinals-based Tap Protocol.
Presumably, they see value in a second Bitcoin-native miner subsidy - which will necessarily increase Bitcoin's security budget.
My guess is the other three pools (and whomever else) will be following SpiderPool and integrating and distributing DMT-NAT to their users. This has turned into a sort of arms race from the look of it. Pools run the risk of losing out on hash, users, and profits otherwise. Along with possible degraded security.
The principles behind DMT-NAT originate from a fairly recent insight/innovation/concept titled "Digital Matter Theory." (https://digital-matter-theory.gitbook.io)
Essentially it boils down to this:
_______________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________
1) Bitcoin is the hardest data layer ever.
2) Identified patterns within that data layer can be used as a substrate to create "digital matter" AKA non-arbitrary value/assets.
_______________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________
DMT-NAT is one example of non-arbitrary value addressing the Bitcoin security budget dilemma/discussion/topic. (whitepaper: https://natgmi.com/natpaper)
The associated minting and transactions are fully embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain. It was initially released circa 11/20/2023 as a fair launch, no premines, VCs, or insider allocations. As of block 885588 it's now directed to miners, whether aware or not, at the coinbase level.
DMT-NAT is created by Bitcoin and requires no consensus changes, no faith-based security, no forks, and no argument.
Mining pools and other miners/communities outside of China are running the risk of losing out on a race (not to mention leaving money on the table) if they don't wake up soon.
The larger Digital Matter Theory insight, personally, gives the same mind-expanding ~feeling and vision I got when first learning about Bitcoin itself. "Oh, whoa, wow."
Bitcoins block rewards will continue to halve. Fees will likely remain stagnant or continue trending downwards with the Store of Value narrative/reality. Sustainable incentives for miners is a must if we're taking long-term security seriously.
Ideally, a solution would be one that doesn't require forks, demurrage/taxation, merge-mining, explicit consensus change, faith-based security, and/or nutty argumentation.
Ideally, a solution would be a 100% Bitcoin-native mechanism that expands the security budget from within - not leaving it up to faith (or fees) - non-arbitrarily.
DMT-NAT satisfies those criteria.
BTC
I'll leave it at that and hope this was informative.
Take care - live long and prosper.
_______________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________
Edit 12/9/2025: another related thread for anyone interested: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5565048.msg66122996#msg66122996