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Bitcoin is eating itself

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Re: Bitcoin is eating itself

#4

Post by beaconstudios »

I'm no bitcoin expert, but would it not be possible to cash out the below-fee-value coins by making a multiple-input transaction consisting of many wallets with Obviously that's pointless at the current fee level (<$1) but if the fee grows high enough, or if there's a way to reach these wallet holders en-masse and convince them of the value this would provide to the network (or get them to short btc in advance of a large sell-off of the gathered coins). Notwithstanding the legality/morality of any of this, it's not my field.

Re: Bitcoin is eating itself

#5

Post by bdcravens »

bantunes wrote: post #3
torbjorn wrote: post #2

How many millions around the world are lost in the form of dropped pennies no one will ever bother to pick up? Is cash eating itself?

Do you think that's a fair comment on the article?

Hang around in a place like r/bitcoin, and you'll find that criticism is often met with redirection toward fiat rather than having a legitimate discussion about how to address shortcomings.

Re: Bitcoin is eating itself

#6

Post by wcoenen »

beaconstudios wrote: post #4

I'm no bitcoin expert, but would it not be possible to cash out the below-fee-value coins by making a multiple-input transaction consisting of many wallets with Obviously that's pointless at the current fee level (<$1) but if the fee grows high enough, or if there's a way to reach these wallet holders en-masse and convince them of the value this would provide to the network (or get them to short btc in advance of a l…

Each input of the transaction requires a signature, which makes the transaction larger and therefore increases the required fee. Here is a random example from a recent block of such a transaction with many inputs, it pays about $52 in fees:

https://blockchain.info/tx/ef29f862f3ceee10ed3e1f04585e18cc2...

So it is more accurate to think of the cost as a fee per byte instead of a fee per transaction. And there's a minimum amount of bytes that's needed to consume any hitherto unspent transaction output.

Interestingly, if bitcoins were to support Schnorr signatures, then the signatures could be combined and then your idea would work. Though this would not be able to salvage the existing unspent transaction outputs that are already secured with ECDSA signatures.

Re: Bitcoin is eating itself

#7

Post by ahartman00 »

On a related note, I wonder how much value is orphaned due to lost keys. If people forget their passwords, they can forget their keys/passphrases. Myself, I just had a hard drive failure. Of course, I have backups, but how many non tech savvy people are diligent about backups?

Considering the total amount of bitcoins is limited by design, this will eventually be a problem. I really dont think bitcoin is a viable currency for mainstream use.

Re: Bitcoin is eating itself

#10

Post by erikpukinskis »

How can you say they are worthless, if all it would take is one miner to include all of those unsigned transactions in a block for them to have worth again?

It's one thing to say miners aren't incentivized to include them today. It's another thing to say no miner will ever have an incentive on any day in the future.

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