[leereeves]

> It is incorrect to assume that the only, or even the most important, purpose of bitcoin is for transactions.

Transactions may not be the only purpose of Bitcoin, but they are essential to the existence and security of Bitcoin. The block rewards for mining drop by half every few years and will eventually drop to zero. Soon, miners will be paid by transaction fees.

As Satoshi Nakamoto reportedly said: "In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for nodes. I’m sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume."

[lowkey]

Still, the primary purpose is most likely to be security of the network, not transactions which makes the cost to secure the network the better metric.