[Analysis] It’s the settlement assurances, stupid - Nic Carter

Blockchain finality should be measured by the amount paid to miners over time, per Nic Carter. As is vogue, transaction finality is often measured by confirmation time: ten minutes for Bitcoin ($BTC) and 2.5 minutes for Litecoin ($LTC). Time measurements are arbitrary. The amount of energy placed into a block's confirmation is a better metric, measured in mining cost over time. As Carter writes,

The essential process of burying past changes to the ledger under unforgeable cost, provided by proof of cost incurred, provides the same slow-moving settlement assurances. As more blocks accumulate, the gravity of the blockchain exerts itself, and makes distant rewrites colossally expensive and unwieldy.

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