{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,14]],"date-time":"2026-08-14T22:32:15Z","timestamp":1786746735836,"version":"build-2736575974"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"group-title":"SSRN","reference-count":0,"publisher":"Elsevier BV","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"abstract":"<jats:p>Bitcoin's proof-of-work security depends on miner revenue, which falls by half approximately every four years through programmed subsidy halvings. Whether transaction fees can replace the declining subsidy is an empirical question for which the post-April-2024 period provides the first post-fourth-halving sample. I develop a stylised structural stress test that embeds a Budishstyle flow-cost attack measure inside a Prat-Walter-style free-entry hash-rate equilibrium with miner cost heterogeneity. The model produces an analytical decomposition: the dollar attack cost equals the dollar security budget multiplied by a cost-translation ratio equal to 0.51 times the ratio of the attacker's electricity cost to the marginal honest miner's. The complementary leakage share-the fraction of honest-miner revenue that does not translate into security against a well-financed attacker-is the security-relevant residual. I calibrate the model to post-2024halving data and simulate four scenarios through December 2032. In the most adverse scenario (sustained price weakness and fee collapse), hash rate falls by 47% and dollar attack cost by 70% relative to the simulation start. Across all four scenarios, the dollar attack cost remains below 36% of the dollar security budget. I treat these findings as a long-run infrastructure-risk concern rather than an imminent-failure forecast. The risk is material for exchanges, custodians, ETF issuers, institutional allocators, and prudential regulators with exposure to Bitcoin settlement finality.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.2139\/ssrn.6816419","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,27]],"date-time":"2026-05-27T16:55:21Z","timestamp":1779900921000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Bitcoin's Security Budget at the Subsidy-to-Fee Transition: Miner Exit, Attack-Cost Leakage, and Majority-Attack Stress Testing"],"prefix":"10.2139","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-8477-9393","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Boon Chuan","family":"Lim","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"78","container-title":[],"original-title":[],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,14]],"date-time":"2026-08-14T21:52:54Z","timestamp":1786744374000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.ssrn.com\/abstract=6816419"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"references-count":0,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2139\/ssrn.6816419","relation":{},"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"subtype":"preprint"}}