Thought experiment: In 2140, mining will solely rely on transaction fees due to zero block subsidy. This new competition dynamic may result in miners prioritizing valuable blocks over others. For instance, if whales broadcast high-value (and high-fee) transactions at the same time, other miners might attempt to claim those rewards instead of building upon the existing block. Why would they compete for 100m sats when they can get 300m sats? The difficulty would be the same for both. Consequently, this could lead to an increase in short-term chain splits and potential rollbacks for mining the same lucrative transactions. If short-term chain splits become common and depending on fee volatility, rollbacks might extend beyond one block. In such a scenario, would the traditional "six confirmations" rule still provide a perfect guarantee of transaction finality? After writing this, I realized there is a paper on the topic: mining_CCS.pdf #asknostr #bitcoin #mining