What should miners do after the reduction of Bitcoin mining income?

Whether you pay attention to digital currency or hold Bitcoin, you must have heard about the fantastic price increase of Bitcoin. In addition to the price of the currency, you should also be familiar with Bitcoin mining.

Bitcoin is not issued by a cryptocurrency institution. It is generated through a large amount of calculations. Anyone can mine Bitcoin through a computer connected to the Bitcoin network. Since the Bitcoin output mechanism was set at the beginning to be a constant total amount and a decreasing output, the output of Bitcoin has become less and less, and mining has become more and more difficult. Even so, the mining industry is still thriving. The reason is that the output of Bitcoin is still considerable at present; the second reason is that the transaction volume of the main chain is high, and the accumulated handling fees also have a good income.

But this situation will not last long. With the continuous influx of new miners, the difficulty of computing power will gradually increase. The computing power required to mine Bitcoin will greatly increase, and the increase in computing power means an increase in costs. The output of Bitcoin is getting less and less, but the computing power is increasing all the time, and the balance between input and output is slowly tilting.

Another source of income for miners: Bitcoin transaction fees, has also become precarious with the introduction of the Lightning Network.

The Lightning Network hopes to solve the Bitcoin transaction congestion problem by establishing an off-chain channel, allowing small payments to go through the off-chain channel and large transactions to go through the chain to ensure the smooth flow of the main chain. Objectively speaking, the idea of ​​the Lightning Network is feasible. Ideally, the Lightning Network can not only solve the main chain congestion problem, but also reduce the transaction time and transaction fees to a very low level, and the shortcomings of Bitcoin micro-payments will likely be made up.

The technology of the Lightning Network is excellent, but it deviates from the original intention of Bitcoin - a peer-to-peer electronic cash payment system. Once the Lightning Network is officially launched, users who are troubled by Bitcoin transaction congestion will definitely try to use the Lightning Network. As the number of users of a certain node in the Lightning Network increases, the user experience will be better, which will cause more and more people to use some nodes, and powerful organizations and institutions will also move in and compete with each other, forming super nodes, which will bring about centralization.

The Lightning Network will move transactions down, and the number of transactions on the main chain will decrease. The total transaction fees in the main chain will also decrease, which is fatal to miners. As mentioned earlier, the output of Bitcoin has decreased, and the mining income of miners is not as good as before. Now if the other income of miners is reduced again, miners are likely to face the situation of not making money or making too little money from mining. If Bitcoin is a company and miners are employees, what the Lightning Network has to do is not just to cut wages, but to lay off employees on a large scale.

Miners will eventually face two choices: leave or mine other coins, either of which is extremely disadvantageous to Bitcoin. Any choice will reduce the computing power required to maintain the operation of the Bitcoin network, and the era of everyone mining will no longer exist. The cost of 51% computing power attack will be reduced, and the security of the Bitcoin network will be reduced. Without the high cost of electricity to back Bitcoin, is trust the only thing left to support the price of the currency?

It is true that miners are profit-seeking in nature, but without the day-and-night work of miners, Bitcoin would not have been able to operate smoothly in recent years. 51% attacks have occurred in the digital currency world. If Bitcoin developers insist on doing so, it would be a bit cruel to the miners.

Is there a way to solve transaction congestion while allowing miners to continue to earn profits and maintain computing power?

The answer is yes, and it is very simple: expand the main chain and increase the block capacity.

But for some reason, Bitcoin developers did not do so, and the community has not reached a consensus. Supporters of large blocks applied this idea to Bitcoin Cash. Unlike Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash adjusts the block capacity to 8M, making the block size large enough to accommodate decades of transaction growth and ensuring that the main chain will not be congested, without considering hardware equipment updates. All transactions of Bitcoin Cash are carried out on the main chain, ensuring the income of miners. In addition, Bitcoin Cash's large block solution naturally has advantages in transaction time and handling fees. This transaction advantage will continue to attract users and merchants to join. The increase in users will bring an increase in transaction volume, and the income of miners will increase accordingly. In this case, not only miners will benefit, but the Bitcoin Cash network will also become more and more secure with the continuous influx of miners.