Fresh approach to rebooting and refunding the blockchain for BTC

Looking ahead, block rewards might shrink too much. Miners could ditch BTC, leading to a big drop in its value. I’m sharing this post with a concept on how to revamp the blockchain, maybe around 2068. I see the problem of rewards getting too low later on. If the genesis managed to pull in some donation funds while coins are still under 100k, it could help keep the chain alive well beyond 2068. I’ll refine this idea further, but here’s a poll to gather thoughts and suggestions.

-----    there are rounding issues not sure how they get handled not important to covey the idea here is the issue 2028.  1.56250000     so if the difficulty  and efficiency stay fairly stable we need 200k a coin for miners to not quit. possible 2032   0.78125000     "             "                    "                            "                   400k a coin       "                          possible 2036   0.39062500    "              "                   "                            "                    800k a coin.      "                          possible 2040   0.19531250     "            "                    "                            "                  1600k a coin       "                          possible 2044   0.09765625.   "             "                    "                            "                  3200k a coin       "                          possible 2048   0.04882812    "                                                                                   6400k a coin      "                           possible 2052.  0.02441406    "                                                                                 12800k a coin       "                           Maybe? 2056   0.01220703    "                                                                                 25600k a coin       "                           doubtful 2060   0.00610352   "                                                                                  51200k a coin      "                             nah 2064   0.00305176   "                                                                                102400k a coin     "                            100m a coin no way 2068   0.00152588   "                                                                                204800k a coin.    "                            200m a coin nope many have argued fees fix this I have argued confiscate old addresses but a simple plan is fund genesis block with donations it already has 100+ coins instead of 50 and plan to reboot the reward system in the 2052 to 2068 time frame. use the funds donated  plus possibly tax every tx 0.00000010 btc. when the time comes the chain distributes the genesis funds making for larger rewards again. and make blocks every 15 minutes not every 10 so the 1/2-ings occur every 6 years. not every 4. at the moment we are good for about 2048 or 2052 seems that this idea painlessly extends the time into 2100 or later. if the genesis block was to raise 250k coins by 2052 and we were to make the 1/2ing stretch to six years we could last much longer the 0.0244 block due in 2052  could stay at 0.04882812 yeah it would reduce upward price pressure ion btc but by 2052 we won't need it.

I see where you coming from especially with the amount that Bitcoin has to be for mining to be worth while But I'm sure you also aware that this goes against the immutability of Bitcoin One of the reasons hard forks are frowned on. I know this is a matter of perspective but I believe it would kill the title, fixed supply. And would introduce some level of governance like who decides how much to take? Are we also going to move towards coins that haven't moved for some years? Imo if Bitcoin adoption could grow something I believe should happen if Bitcoin makes it to 2068 Fees could help cover this gaps Let's be real Fee has always been what was meant to stay, rewards has always been temporary So I believe if there should be a solution it should come from the direction of fee. Technological decentralization deflation  like its happening with AI's could occur and would synergies well with network adjustment (well this is more hopeful thinking that mining gets cheaper)

I understand your concern actually but Bitcoin’s design already assumes a transition from block subsidies to a kinda fee driven security model, so small future rewards do not automatically mean miners are gonna be abandoned so long block space demand exists. In my opinion using genesis coins or “donations” to reseed rewards would require a hard fork that breaks immutability and even consensus. Genesis coins are actually unspendable and even if used is something I believe will be a temporary subsidy that ends up distorting the current incentives. Changing block times or halving schedules late kinda undermines Bitcoin’s credibility. if security ever needs reinforcement it must come from organic fee growth (including L2 settlement fees) not mods to consensus.

forget fees will never work. terrible idea. when a coin is worth 10 million by 2048 people will not want to pay 100 sats and as for 21,000,000 coins it stays 21 million coins just changes how slowly they vanish. no new coins. no coins recalled except genesis coins   All I see is this march to a cliff around 2048-2056 My way the cliff is sometime in 2100 plus. ------------------------------------------------------------------- so I see so far fuck miners bad idea = fuck miners which is exactly the same as fuck BTC my position is simple if you do not want to extend funding for miners you don't want pow ie go to eth or solana but my bias is I am a miner at heart.

Hmmm I'm seeing bitcoin turning to an asset like gold in the future ending up partly centralized. More big firms are gonna try to HODL a decent amount then it gets more and more scarce as price goes up but the point I'm pretty concerned about is P2P. There's a possibility people may treat bitcoin like a valuable NFT in the future. Only thing that's gonna break mining is if the rate of transaction broadcasts get cut very low and sincerely I partly doubt that it's gonna happen. There are countless possibilities though.

i see your point, at least for the original 50 btc coinbase from the genesis block, but maybe not for the donated ones. the original 50 were left as (apparently) it was just easier to not code a special case for those coins. and the 50 btc coinbase from genesis are already accounted for in the 21 million cap. the donated coins should stay. as they were burned as a tribute. and there was nothing special about those donated coins; they were normal coins. just sent to the genesis addy.

I snipped out a lot.  I will be 69 years old the end of this month. I have no one to leave my coins to as my kids are dead. So for me the cliff that seems to be there the no one seems to want to address is far less of an issue that it would be for a person 20 to 40 years old that will be 50 to 70 years old in 2056 vs my 99. with current fee average of about 0.01btc a block in 2056 may be 0.01+0.01=0.02  so maybe 10 million a coin will be enough to make there be enough mining. but how does this work in 2068. with 0.0015 in rewards and 0.01 in fees net of 0.0115 coins at 20,000,000 a coin means 0.00000099 fee is  0.00000099x20,000,000= $19.80 minimum fee      and the block is worth 0.0115x20,000,000=230,000 maybe fees grow in fiat maybe it works. one could argue that if we average 0.01 in fees we could get to 2068 and be at only 20 mill with it working.

About this idea, i expect it require a hard fork and various node, wallet and other Bitcoin software to be updated. After all, 50 BTC (mined by genesis block) never added to UTXO set. If block size limit is increased, it could make up for low fee on each TX.

yeah satoshi left us the 50 unspendable coinbase coins. for whatever reason. so, aside from being unspent, that 50 from genesis are unallocated so to say, even though they are in the 21 million cap. any other coins at the genesis addy (and even coins destroyed by OP_RETURN) would technically be a double spend if reissued via mining rewards would they not?

There are no rounding issues with subsequent halvings of block subsidy because it's no arithmetic halving. The block subsidy is an integer value in Sats and is halved by shifting its binary representation from MSB→LSB by 1 place, filling with a zero from the MSB side. There's never a fractional part in this process created when you only count in binary Sats and Bitcoin only knows and cares about integer Sats in the blockchain. HalvingSats (integer)⠀⠀⠀Sats (binary)⠀⠀BTCnone⠀⠀5,000,000,000⠀⠀100101010000001011111001000000000⠀⠀50.0000000012,500,000,000⠀⠀010010101000000101111100100000000⠀⠀25.0000000021,250,000,000⠀⠀001001010100000010111110010000000⠀⠀12.500000003625,000,000⠀⠀000100101010000001011111001000000⠀⠀⠀6.250000004312,500,000⠀⠀000010010101000000101111100100000⠀⠀⠀3.125000005156,250,000⠀⠀000001001010100000010111110010000⠀⠀⠀1.56250000678,125,000⠀⠀000000100101010000001011111001000⠀⠀⠀0.78125000739,062,500⠀⠀000000010010101000000101111100100⠀⠀⠀0.39062500819,531,250⠀⠀000000001001010100000010111110010⠀⠀⠀0.1953125099,765,625⠀⠀000000000100101010000001011111001⠀⠀⠀0.09765625104,882,812⠀⠀000000000010010101000000101111100⠀⠀⠀0.04882812112,441,406⠀⠀000000000001001010100000010111110⠀⠀⠀0.02441406121,220,703⠀⠀000000000000100101010000001011111⠀⠀⠀0.0122070313610,351⠀⠀000000000000010010101000000101111⠀⠀⠀0.0061035114305,175⠀⠀000000000000001001010100000010111⠀⠀⠀0.0030517515152,587⠀⠀000000000000000100101010000001011⠀⠀⠀0.001525871676,293⠀⠀000000000000000010010101000000101⠀⠀⠀0.000762931738,146⠀⠀000000000000000001001010100000010⠀⠀⠀0.000381461819,073⠀⠀000000000000000000100101010000001⠀⠀⠀0.00019073199,536⠀⠀000000000000000000010010101000000⠀⠀⠀0.00009536204,768⠀⠀000000000000000000001001010100000⠀⠀⠀0.00004768212,384⠀⠀000000000000000000000100101010000⠀⠀⠀0.00002384221,192⠀⠀000000000000000000000010010101000⠀⠀⠀0.0000119223596⠀⠀000000000000000000000001001010100⠀⠀⠀0.0000059624298⠀⠀000000000000000000000000100101010⠀⠀⠀0.0000029825149⠀⠀000000000000000000000000010010101⠀⠀⠀0.000001492674⠀⠀000000000000000000000000001001010⠀⠀⠀0.000000742737⠀⠀000000000000000000000000000100101⠀⠀⠀0.000000372818⠀⠀000000000000000000000000000010010⠀⠀⠀0.00000018299⠀⠀000000000000000000000000000001001⠀⠀⠀0.00000009304⠀⠀000000000000000000000000000000100⠀⠀⠀0.00000004312⠀⠀000000000000000000000000000000010⠀⠀⠀0.00000002321⠀⠀000000000000000000000000000000001⠀⠀⠀0.0000000133..??0⠀⠀000000000000000000000000000000000⠀⠀⠀0.00000000 While I appreciate new ideas, I don't see how your proposal solves the problem in the long run. It feels like an intermediate (if at all) approach which adds complexity but doesn't provide a real solution. And I'm not even talking about the problematic aspect of confiscating and repurposing (presumably dormant) coins. You can think about the fictional miner Patoshi whatever you want to whom around a million mined coins are attibuted, if you agree with what http://satoshiblocks.info is talking about. We don't really know if this is a single mining entity and if this was Satoshi or someone else. I mention this because why stop at the Genesis block and for whatever purpose "donations" are sent to it. Who stops others to come up with a plan to "repurpose" those more than a million bitcoins, the majority still unmoved, dormant? This is crossing a red line to me... I understand that you're a miner by heart and your personal situation puts a somewhat limited time horizon for your own coins. When I first discovered Bitcoin in 2011 I was fascinated by the fact that I could mine bitcoins myself at home. So, I did. I set me a goal to mine at least one Bitcoin with my measly not-even middle-class GPU back then. Took some time, I certainly paid more for the power to run the GPU miner than it was worth the Bitcoin back then. Guess what, it was fun, I learned a lot, I did some stupid things with the majority of those coins, the rest I hodled. What I could rescue from my nooby stupidity in 2011 and 2014, is now worth way, way more than I spent for power in 2011. So, overall a nice win for me. Why do I tell this here? Well, I think I know a little bit about mining, but definitely not on the same level as the OP. Do I have an idea how to cope with the deflationary block subsidy from a miner's perspective? Not really, not sure. It's the way Bitcoin has been designed and instantiated back in 2009 for a reason. I don't say, we shouldn't change it, but a change should be well thought out and a fix in the long run. Since quite some time, Bitcoin mining is kind of an industrial thing (from my bystander perspective on mining). The majority of mining pools are big players trying to concentrate hash power by concentrating miners and their hash power into a small, quite finite number of mining pools, besides having own mining gear (not sure how many pools have their own mining hardware in addition to trying to attract external miners). As long as mining is profitable such an evolution is very likely inevitable, quite the opposite of decentralization unfortunately. Mining concentrates at spots where power is as cheap as possible, hashing gear wins that has lowest J/Th efficiency, the big players have to continuously shift to most efficient gear as long as global hash power still rises. Smaller miners that can't run in this hamster wheel experience deminishing returns, sometimes to the point that they barely see enough ROI. You'll have to find enough noobs (of fools) that you can sell off your outdated mining gear that has been rendered unprofitable. I certainly didn't think this through because for more than a decade I didn't mine any Mainnet Bitcoin because I know it's not profitable for me personally where I live. I don't have the money to buy recent and efficient mining gear (the new stuff is usually mostly ridiculously priced). I don't have access to competitive power prices, mining-wise. If I were to mine again, then just for fun and the potential kick of lottery mining. (Hell, yeah, we've seen some Apollo miners win a block, haven't we? LOL) What's my view now? When Bitcoin price, block subsidy and tx fees don't give miners enough profit, likely big industrial miners with own gear will vanish. Maybe then it becomes more interesting for Bitcoiners to mine again in huge numbers, decentralized, not-profitable and therefore not with big power-hungry gear, but just to maintain a certain level of security for the sake of it, to maintain Bitcoin going on. Does that makes sense? Sounds a bit idealistic...