Oddbean

That's the point. I can courier gold coins and bars around the country for a fixed price of $25. Increasing Bitcoin mining fees mean very soon only large movements will make economic sense. Lightning wallets aren't secure for storing large amounts and moving it back on or off chain will be prohibitive just to do the weekly shop. When they say Bitcoin is the new gold this is what it means. Ten years from now it's going to sit mostly idle in large wallets out of reach of most citizens while the hoypoloy transact in Montero. The only solution I can see is through more affordable and efficient mining technology to bring about greater numbers of domestic level miners.

People are currently moving huge sums (6 figures+) for a few dollars. At some point in the future it's possible that a single transaction could cost a lot to move, but I think there are a lot of factors. Nothing really to be concerned about as it will be sorted out and L2/L3 are all part of the natural progression in a monetary system. People wondered how the internet would scale, they figured it out. People love to solve problems and make things more productive, so I'm sure we'll figure it out. 🙂 Small transactions are one thing, but when it's large sums of money, Bitcoin is faster, cheaper and safer and that's not going to change. Currently, any transaction can be sent for far less than $25, so I'm not sure the comparison makes sense, but I get what you're going for. Also, the latest super high fees were only because of people making high free transactions on purpose. Partly based on how the transactions were constructed, from what I understand. They could have paid a lot less, but they wanted the extra noise.

I totally agree with all of that, and implicit within it is that Bitcoin is heading towards usefulness for large sums mainly. The pricing structure for block fees is based on what satoshis were worth years ago and I see no sign of any incentive for any solution that would lead to lower fees. What would create such an incentive is some upstart focused on making mining more affordable to create more competition. Currently supply and demand favours the largest miners. So, yes, exactly as you say, technical advances. But if they are market driven as they surely have to be then more accessible mining technology has to be the way.

I've thought about the possibility that once the block rewards get lower the mining could transitions back to smaller communities and groups, but we've already had blocks where the fees were more than the reward... so prob not. Maybe each community that runs a mint also runs some miners. I could see it making sense IF the fees are lower and that way the mining stays active and you have people with incentives to keep things working well. I guess we'll just have to see how the financials work out over time.

Supply and demand... When bitmain need to expand their model and realise efficiency and affordable are the way to go or else leave the door open for competition. Christ I wish I hadn't slept through my electronics lectures.