Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

Post by SamPatt » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 12:32 AM UTC

owenversteeg wrote: post #62

wereHamster wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is that there will be fewer BTC transactions once LN becomes widespread, especially if people or institutions open long-lived channels between each other (active for months, years, or even indefinitely). Then you'd only have to hit the BTC blockchain a few times a year, at most, and that's a level of transactions which the BTC blockchain can easily handle, even if the whole world population uses it for every…

Let's say "a few times a year" is once every two and a half months. Everyone who wanted to use Bitcoin would then have to pay about $100 a year to use it at today's rates. That's still ridiculous. And fees have increased mostly because the price increased. If people actually started using Bitcoin, the price would skyrocket and fees would rise even higher.

Post by goatsi » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 12:34 AM UTC

agorabinary wrote: post #27

Responding to problems with this article as they appear: 1. Coinbase buckling is a failure of a web application grappling with unprecedented load. Not with bitcoin. 2. The dark web mostly uses Monero, which would not exist without Bitcoin coming along first. Also the notion of a $65 fee on a $250 tx is ridiculous, not to mention a 24 hour wait time. 3. The existence of exchanges and dark web websites that allow you t…

Post by wereHamster » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 12:35 AM UTC

owenversteeg wrote: post #62

wereHamster wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is that there will be fewer BTC transactions once LN becomes widespread, especially if people or institutions open long-lived channels between each other (active for months, years, or even indefinitely). Then you'd only have to hit the BTC blockchain a few times a year, at most, and that's a level of transactions which the BTC blockchain can easily handle, even if the whole world population uses it for every…

Let's say "a few times a year" is once every two and a half months. Everyone who wanted to use Bitcoin would then have to pay about $100 a year to use it at today's rates. That's still ridiculous. And fees have increased mostly because the price increased. If people actually started using Bitcoin, the price would skyrocket and fees would rise even higher.

Post by netsharc » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 12:37 AM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #26

jhiska wrote: post #11

It's not Wall Street's fault or whatever boogie man's fault that the Bitcoin tech doesn't actually work as some idealistic libertarian creator imagined it would; the fault is in Bitcoin's design itself. Even if the price wasn't fluctuating like crazy it simply doesn't work well as a currency due to technical limitations (eg, the time and cost it takes to process a transaction in the real world has always been impract…

I feel like it's a parable about lofty libertarian ideals -- everything's peachy until there's large sums of money involved. Bitcoin is fixable but now there's a financial incentive for never fixing it.

Post by SilverCurve » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 12:41 AM UTC

poopsmithe wrote: post #7

Remember how Coinbase, the San Francisco-based startup which raised more than $200 million in venture capital, put a freeze on my money? Whether it was out of incompetence or an attempt to save itself from selling at an inflated price (at one point, the price of Bitcoin was $3,000 higher on Coinbase than on other exchanges), this was exactly the kind of thing Bitcoin was supposed to prevent. Um no, I don't think so.…