I’m listening to Saifedean’s *Fiat Standard* lectures on the *Bitcoin Standard* podcast and keep coming back to one unresolved question.
1. He stresses that everyone should run their own node; node operators keep the network decentralised—“don’t trust, verify”—and I agree. Today this still works, because ordinary people regularly transact on-chain.
2. He also argues against raising the block-size limit, since larger blocks make full-node hosting more expensive. Most day-to-day traffic, he says, will eventually move to Layer-2 or Layer-3 solutions, leaving the base chain for occasional settlement.
My problem: if the bitcoin price rises 100×, on-chain fees climb with it, and only banks (or similarly large entities) ever write transactions to the base layer, what incentive remains for everyday users to keep running nodes? Should we still expect ordinary people to verify the chain when they themselves will “never” use it directly?
#asknostr #btc #bitcoinstandard
Replies (6)
Could be useful for proof of reserves.
Yes, haven't thought about that.
The fees don’t increase if the price of btc increase. Fees are not related to the price of btc, but rather to how many people are making transactions on layer 1 on chain (many people want to transact on layer 1 = high fees).
They do say that one day mostly (mostly, not only) big entities will use layer 1 on chain to transact (because they are the guys who move millions and billions and they need to do it within a certain time frame, and so it makes sense to pay a high fee for them given their situation). But even in that scenario a normal nobody pleb is still incentivized to run a node because:
1) you want to verify yourself with your node that your utxo are real (if you use somebody else node you are trusting somebody else telling you “yes you have these utxo with these amounts”)
2) it is still in your best interest to make the btc network as decentralized as possible and not to trust others to do it for you (especially big entities, because they have never fucked as over in the past/present right?)
3) if there is some dispute in the bitcoin community (like for example now with core/knots) running a node is your way to “vote” in the bitcoin network (you got no node? You don’t get to vote)
I don't see how the fees won't rise, with big actors competing for blockspace.
1. Plebs won't have any utxos on L1☹️
2. Agree
3. Agree
Plebs need to run nodes to defend the system. Checking that the utxos backing their L2/L3 transactions, still exist and are unspent.
So, running a node will transform into a defensive act instead of transactional. Right?
It might be more applicable today than in 50yrs when a 3sat/Vb transaction will be too expensive for regular people to transact on chain. But by then, if enough of us run a node now, there will be enough nodes to prevent centralized entities taking over the network.
Does that make sense.
I’m also going through the Fiat Standard on the podcast.
We both agree that fees will rise, but the reason will be increase of use of the blockchain, not increase of price (although it makes sense the 2 will go hand in hand).
1) what do you mean plebs will not have any utxo on layer 1? Do you think they will use only layer 2/lighting without having any utxo on layer 1?
I don’t think this is what is gonna happen. I see more likely that pleb will use layer 1 only for important transfers and most of all to store their savings, and use layer 2 for smaller payments (what many of us already do now actually)
About the future role of nodes I think is too far ahead in the future to try assess how it will develop (things change in unpredictable way). But I think the 2 main reasons for running a node today will persist in the future too (and maybe other reasons will be added)
