Title: Near Zero Bitcoin Transaction Fees Cannot Last Forever

Year of Publication: Jun - 2014
Page Numbers: 91-99
Authors: Kerem Kaskaloglu
Conference Name: The International Conference on Digital Security and Forensics (DigitalSec2014)
- Czech Republic

Abstract:


Under Bitcoin protocol and payment scheme, anyone can send any amount of bitcoins that he owns to anywhere in the world via internet, near instantly for near zero fees. While the popular crypto-currency enjoys low transaction fees, a feature that is highly promoted and is working fine for the current state of the Bitcoin ecosystem, we argue that in an unforeseeable future, zero or infinitesimal transaction fees will not be sustainable. We apply a financial reasoning via depicting the interrelation of fees with mining, securing the network against 51% attacks, scarcity of supplies and the price of bitcoin, which in addition are the essential parameters involved in the problem of setting the right transaction fee in the future that we briefly discuss.