Oh, I freely admit that it was a fluke (the one I saw was not the ASIC miner thing, I do remember that.)
If the block you saw is not related to the ASICMiner refund, then show me where you saw a block which generated 200 BTC in transactions fees. I want see with my own eyes if such block even exist...
It wasn't 200 BTC in fees but 2.7 BTC if Biomech is talking about the one i'm thinking of:
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/11731/anomalous-2-7-btc-transaction-fee-observed. It was talked about in this thread recently or at least on bitcointalk i think but i'm not going to search for it.
You may be correct. I haven't had a lot of sleep of late. I saw it about a week ago, either here or reddit.
At any rate, and this is to Augusto Croppo specifically and also a general thought.
I do NOT know a great deal of the technical aspects of bitcoin. I'm still learning, and I am not a mathematician so a lot of it is currently beyond me. That being said, I am well versed in economics, particularly Austrian school, but I have read and understood Keynes to the extent that anyone can understand that gobbledygook. I understand markets and money.
What I am proposing is simple on it's face, but somewhat complex in it's actions. This, I think, is one future avenue to gain widespread acceptance of bitcoin. Yes, it has unique properties that make it IN ITSELF a vehicle for monetary transactions, and yes, I understand that this does not in itself generate fees.
Therefore it is incumbent on the bitcoin community, and especially miners, to implement schemes that DO generate these fees. And yes, this scheme would require a form of banking. This is not egregious. Banking in and of itself is not harmful to economies. Fractional reserve banking is, because it "creates" units of currency that do not currently actually exist. In it's base form, it borrows against what a lender can repay ahead of time. That is dangerous, but not egregious. In it's more modern form, the "central bank" sees those loans as actual money and adjusts the supply accordingly. That's straight up theft in the form of debasing the currency. This we do want to avoid.
But a bank or similar institution issuing debit cards that transact with the network is not a problem, except for technical issues that are frankly minor. I'll say for the sake of speculation that Visa decides to issue the Visa-B bitcoin debit card, and they charge the seller around 1 percent of their transactions. This is normal, actually a bit low. Visa averages around 1.6 percent. Or did about 5 years ago. This does NOT cause a decline in transactions, as accepting Visa gives merchants a huge advantage over those who don't. So now, in this example, you have a bitcoin denominated visa card. Visa already does "currency equivalent" transactions, so this would be trivial to them. Now, let's say that they put 10 percent of their income to transaction fees to facilitate the network. See how this could work?
Further, on a slightly different angle, large merchants like Target or Walmart could issue bitcoin denominated gift cards, with a portion of every sale set as a transaction fee (sale of the g/c). This too would add to the network, and would be advantageous to the merchant as it would be yet another avenue of revenue for them. It costs them nothing, only slightly reduces THEIR income on the purchase fee.
These are just two possible schemes to add to the TX fees in the network. If the miners are participants in such a schema, then it benefits them far beyond just generating BTC via mining, and it helps the merchants to contribute to those who maintain the security of the network. Using personal advantage as a springboard, such cooperative ventures benefit everyone involved, including the consumer who now has another avenue of transaction.
This is somewhat complex, but not overly complicated. This is doable with existing structures and networks. There is NO reason that it shouldn't be done that I can see.
Mainstream adoption WILL increase the value of bitcoin over time due to it's deflationary nature AND the inflationary nature inherent in standard fiat currencies. As more people use the currency, the demand for it will drive it's value upward. This has nothing to do with the network itself, but everything to do with it's artificial scarcity. This is fairly basic economics. The more scarce a thing is that is in demand, the higher the purchasing power of it's owners.
