ETH Reddit Mentions | ChartExchange

His is what ChatGPT Pro says on the matter:
This criticism of Bitcoin is partially valid but materially overstated, and it relies on a static, linear extrapolation of Bitcoin’s security model that most protocol designers explicitly reject. A rigorous assessment requires separating what is theoretically correct, what is empirically unresolved, and what is conceptually flawed.
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1. The core claim: “Bitcoin security collapses as block rewards fall”
What is valid
• Security budget reality:
Bitcoin’s security is funded by miner revenue = block subsidy + transaction fees.
As subsidies halve every ~4 years, fees must eventually dominate.
• Arithmetic is correct:
If Bitcoin maintained today’s hashrate with future subsidies near zero, fees would need to rise materially unless price increases compensate.
• This is not controversial:
Even Bitcoin Core developers acknowledge that the long-run security model depends on fee markets.
Conclusion:
👉 The existence of a long-term security-budget question is real and acknowledged.
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2. Where the argument becomes weak or misleading
A. “Fees must be $50+ per transaction”
This is not required.
The post assumes:
• Constant transactions per block
• Constant security spend in USD terms
• No L2 migration
• No change in miner cost structures
• No price appreciation
All are false assumptions.
Reality:
• Bitcoin’s base layer is intentionally becoming a high-value settlement layer, not a retail payment rail.
• If a block settles:
• Exchanges
• Rollups
• Lightning channels
• Custodians
• Institutional batched transfers
then a $10–$100 fee per transaction is economically trivial, because each transaction may represent thousands or millions of end-user transfers.
This is already observable:
• During peak congestion, $20–$60 fees have been paid without network collapse.
• Fee elasticity exists for low-value users, not for settlement users.
Conclusion:
👉 High fees are not a failure mode; they are an intended design outcome.
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B. “Lower hashpower = easier attacks”
This is directionally true but economically incomplete.
What matters is relative attack cost vs economic value secured, not absolute hashpower.
If:
• BTC price ↑
• Value settled per block ↑
• Miner revenue stabilizes via fees
• Attack incentives remain negative
then lower hashpower does not imply weaker security.
Attackers must:
• Acquire or rent ASICs
• Pay energy costs
• Risk devaluing the asset they attack
• Overcome social and economic countermeasures (reorg limits, checkpoints, exchange responses)
Security is economic, not purely computational.
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C. “Bitcoin needs price to double forever”
This is a strawman.
Bitcoin does not require perpetual exponential price growth. It requires:
• Fee revenue to stabilize at a level sufficient to deter attacks relative to value settled.
That can occur via:
• Modest long-term price appreciation
• Increased settlement demand
• Higher-value transactions
• Layer-2 aggregation
• Miner efficiency gains
Ethereum proponents often overlook that Ethereum implicitly assumes perpetual issuance, which also relies on perpetual demand.
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3. Ethereum comparison: valid contrast, but not a knockout argument
Ethereum’s model strengths
• Ongoing issuance ensures a stable security budget
• PoS security is cheaper per unit of value secured
• Inflation ~0–1% is economically tolerable
• EIP-1559 smooths fee volatility
These are real advantages.
But Ethereum has its own assumptions
• Social consensus is more interventionist
• Protocol-level changes are frequent
• Security relies on slashing + social recovery
• Long-term validator centralization risks exist
• Monetary policy is mutable by governance
Bitcoin optimizes for:
• Credible neutrality
• Immutability
• Minimal governance
• Predictable monetary policy
Ethereum optimizes for:
• Economic efficiency
• Adaptability
• Programmability
These are different design philosophies, not “one is obviously broken”.
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4. What the criticism gets fundamentally wrong
The biggest error
The argument assumes Bitcoin must:
Maintain today’s security model, transaction profile, and usage patterns forever.
Bitcoin is explicitly evolving toward:
• Low-frequency, high-value settlement
• L2-driven retail usage
• Fee-dominated miner revenue
• Security proportional to economic throughput, not TPS
Judging Bitcoin by Visa-like TPS metrics is a category error.
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Final verdict
Validity score: ~6/10
• ✅ Correct to highlight the long-term fee-dependence question
• ❌ Incorrect to assume catastrophic failure or impossibility
• ❌ Over-relies on static extrapolation
• ❌ Misunderstands Bitcoin’s intended end-state
Bottom line:
Bitcoin’s security model is not proven, but it is not internally inconsistent.
Ethereum’s model is more economically explicit, but less monetarily rigid.
This is a trade-off, not a fatal flaw.
If you want, I can:
• Quantify plausible future fee scenarios
• Compare BTC vs ETH security per $100B settled
• Explain why many Bitcoin developers are comfortable with the fee-only future
• Or assess whether PoS actually solves the same problem or just shifts it

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