To maintain current economic expenditure on network security, Bitcoin needs $10 worth of BTC paid in fees per second once block subsidies disappear

The current network deficit, meaning the difference between transaction fees and total mining revenue, is $800,000-$900,000 per day:Network Deficits per DayThat comes out to a deficit of around $10 per second.Depending on the average size of the transaction fee, Bitcoin's tx throughput needs to reach different levels to match current revenue rates once the block subsidy disappears, in order to maintain the current level of security from a simple >50% attack where the attacker uses their own mining hardware (as opposed to commandeering it from honest miners).Ave tx feeTx per sec$0.011,000$0.05200$0.2540$0.5020$1.0010$2.005$51$200.25So at the current rate of 1 tps, the average transaction fee would need to rise to $5 worth of BTC to keep mining at its current economic strength. This would drastically reduce write access to Bitcoin, and might not even be achievable due to consumer choice (growing preference among potential adoptees for market alternatives like traditional finance, alt-blockchains, etc as the average tx fee increases).While decentralization has been the main focus of the block size debate, hashrate (mining revenues) and accessibility (cost of transaction) are also important metrics of network utility and health, and should be taken into consideration.The lower the maximum transaction throughput, the more expensive transactions need to be to maintain current mining revenues. The optimal block size limit will strike the right balance between mining decentralization, miner revenue, and write accessibility, and not exclude any of these factors in its focus. via /r/Bitcoin http://bit.ly/1Kr3XHW