Cyber Capital founder and chief investment officer Justin Bons has predicted that Bitcoin (BTC) could collapse within 7 to 11 years.
He pointed to declining security budgets, a rising risk of 51% attacks, and what he calls impossible choices for the network. Bons warns that these fundamental vulnerabilities may erode trust and even lead to chain splits.
Over the years, experts have raised alarms about several risks to Bitcoin, most notably quantum computing, which may undermine current cryptographic standards.
However, in a detailed post, Bons outlined a different category of concern. He argued that Bitcoin’s long-term threat lies in its economic security model.
At the center of his argument is Bitcoin’s declining security budget. After each halving, miner rewards drop by half, reducing the incentive to secure the network.
The most recent halving was in April 2024, with more scheduled every four years. Bons contended that to maintain its current level of security, Bitcoin would require either sustained exponential price growth or permanently high transaction fees, both of which he considers unrealistic.
According to Bons, miner revenue, rather than raw hashrate, is the most meaningful measure of network security. He highlighted that as hardware efficiency improves, hashrate can rise even while the cost of producing hashes falls, making it a misleading indicator of attack resistance.
In his view, declining miner revenue directly lowers the cost of attacking the network. Once the cost of mounting a 51% attack falls below the potential gains from double-spending or disruption, such attacks become economically rational.
Currently, transaction fees account for only a small portion of miner income. As block subsidies approach zero over the coming decades, Bitcoin would need to rely almost entirely on fees to secure the network. However, Bitcoin’s limited block space caps transaction throughput and therefore total fee revenue.