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Comment by zik | Hacker News Reader

The utility of bitcoin is damaged by the limited maximum transaction rate. It's no help to miners if bitcoin is replaced by another cryptocurrency, which is looking more plausible now than it ever has. In the end they could be collecting fees off a lot more transactions if the block size was larger anyway.

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Is it possible a majority of miners sell their block rewards immediately and have little investment in the long term success of Bitcoin? I know they have hardware investments to recoup, so I'm sure there are many sensitive variables in their financial equations.

If their hardware is viable for an altcoin then it seems like increasing the Bitcoin block size would not be in their best interest. Why not maximize shortterm Bitcoin profits and hedge long term profits with altcoins?

Asics can't be redirected to different alt coins that have a different proof of work. They will run to recoup the costs. That is why bitcoin will be more secure even if prices and transactions drop from a move to an alt.

Miners are playing a game of chicken to milk the fees while hoping users don't swerve to another chain.

Some Asics can mine both Bitcoin and Lightcoin though not at the same time. From a cost perspective they are slightly more expencive, but miners could swap over 2 years to a new coin with minimal issues limiting their long term risks.

I don't see an altcoin beating out bitcoin soon, but if one started gaining traction it would probably have a proof of work system compatible with most miners' asics.

All major miners have spent loads of money purchasing mining hardware, and they all need to run that hardware for a long time just to break even. Higher future Bitcoin prices is critical to their ROI.

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