Bitcoin blocks are like container ships.

You may have heard this metaphor before, but the details are fun to consider. It also helps explain Bitcoin's path to scaling up to handle the entire world's transactions.

A thread...
In 2019, 802M containers were shipped.

A large container ship holds 8,000 containers. If an average one holds 4,000 containers, this means ~200k container ship journeys per year.

Bitcoin has ~210k blocks per year.

Sources: statista.com/statistics/913…, worldshipping.org/benefits-of-li…
The revenue generated by a container ship journey is the sum of fees charged for ~4,000 individual containers.

When new Bitcoin issuance fades away in the coming decades, the revenue generated by a Bitcoin block will be fees from ~2,000 transactions.

bitcoinvisuals.com/chain-tx-block
There is 1,280 cubic feet of space in each container. That's enough to comfortably fit a car.

But usually, a container carries more than one item. The space is large enough for 100 washing machines, or 12,000 stuffed animals.
The cost to ship one container from Shanghai to Los Angeles is ~$1,200.

That means $1,200 per car, or $0.1 per stuffed animal.

Similarly, the fee for a Bitcoin transaction can be shared across many inputs (what exchanges do) or by settling many Layer 2 transactions.
Even if an average Bitcoin on-chain transaction fee ends up costing a whopping $1,200, but represents the settling of 12,000 constituent transactions, the fee per transaction is $0.1.

Visa makes ~$22B in revenue on ~185B annual transactions, or $0.12 per transaction.
In the above scenario, the total fees per block would amount to $2.4M.

That's roughly 10x the value of the newly mined Bitcoin in each block today (6.25 x $35k = $220k).

Put another way, to maintain today's mining industry, need 1/10th the revenue of container ship industry.
In summary,

Bitcoin block = container ship
On-chain transaction = container
Many tx inputs = many smaller items inside container

Fee market will develop fine, like a global shipping industry for digital value.
Edit: Whoops, 210,000/4 blocks per year. Don't multitask and Tweet thread y'all

Overall story remains the same though

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Croesus 🔴

Croesus 🔴 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Croesus_BTC

22 Dec 20
Compendium of my work:

Each tweet in this thread links to my best #Bitcoin analysis threads, articles, graphics, podcasts, etc.

Hopefully the content here proves valuable to your personal Bitcoin journey, or as you help your friends and family on theirs.

👇👇👇
How the halving causes Bitcoin's bull markets:

How the adoption curve compounds the halvings to drive a 10x increase in "adoption adjusted scarcity" every four years:

Read 13 tweets
14 Nov 20
Thread:

Dollars, gold, #Bitcoin - which is the best for storing your hard earned money?

----

All forms of money grow in total value as the global economy grows. What differs is how they do it.

The U.S. prints as many dollars as needed to achieve 2% inflation.
The only way to do this is to pull supply out to the right far enough that it deflates the purchasing power of all existing dollars by ~2%. (For your own good!)

Since 2010, this has meant an average supply increase of ~8% per year. Source: fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2
Gold's supply is not actively managed. However, the free market efforts of gold mining adds ~2% to total supply every year.
Read 5 tweets
13 Nov 20
Ultra-simplified #Bitcoin educational content, #3

(a brief thread)
As time goes on and Bitcoin's network effect grows, educational content gets better, UX/UI of onramps and services get simpler, it gets easier for people to "get it"

Just like with the Internet in the 90s, social media, mobile, etc.

Same chart, now not in log format
If we think about how equipped everyone in the world is to understand that Bitcoin is on a trajectory to become the world's preferred money / dominant SoV... we would have a bell curve distribution, shown here
Read 7 tweets
11 Nov 20
THREAD:

How Early Are We?

As a starting point, here is the analysis I put forward previously on this topic:
However, as @johnkvallis pointed out to me, there are different levels of #Bitcoin adoption, and each level is at a different point in the adoption curve.

When we clearly segment these levels of Bitcoin adoption, it helps illuminate just how early it still is for Bitcoin.
For our purposes, let's segment Bitcoin adopters into four buckets:

1. Casual Dabblers (toe dippers)
2. 1% Allocators (ankle deep)
3. Significant Believers (waist high)
4. Bitcoin Maximalists (gone snorkeling)
Read 23 tweets
23 Oct 20
THREAD:

#Bitcoin halvings cause a supply shock. The slow accumulation of this supply shortage drives a bull market in the ensuing ~18 months.

2012 and 2016 halving -> 2013 and 2017 mania. 2020 halving on track for same.

This thread attempts to visualize those mechanics.
The halving causes new supply to be cut in half, but net demand remains the same. From this point on, a supply shortage accumulates.

Note: areas shown to scale for May 2020 halving. Assumed "available for sale" supply = UTXOs moved in prior month, aka 5% of circulating supply.
Supply shortage slowly accumulates. Net demand is moving twice as much supply into long-term HODLing as mining is creating each month.

Supply "available for sale" on exchanges shrinking, but accumulated impact still small.
Read 11 tweets
11 Jun 20
1) Everyone is familiar with @100trillionUSD S2F model. Critics recoil because it seems to scale too rapidly. What they're forgetting is an intangible amplifying force that I wanted to ballpark quantify: the normal distribution of technology adopters.
2) Some very rough assumptions:
a. Bitcoin as preferred money / savings technology has total addressable market of anyone with $10k+ wealth (2.2B, source: statista.com/statistics/203…). Impoverished communities will also use BTC, but focused on TAM of those with wealth to store
2b. Current penetration is 10M. This is a rough estimate of how many people have $1,000+ stored in BTC, based on 3M addresses with >0.1BTC bitinfocharts.com/top-100-riches…, and accounting for balances on exchange/GBTC ownership/etc.
Read 16 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!