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There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions
41–50 of 149 posts
Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions
#42At 20 transactions per second it's a delay of 3 hours. (200000/20/60/60)
Yet, all other transactions won't stop for these 200,000 transactions. There are constantly more transactions, so the wait exceeds three hours...
Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think something that consistently deflates is already an absurdly flawed currency. It's not exactly an exchange medium if it's better to hold on to it than do something meaningful with it.
It’s not a currency. It’s digital gold. Gold isn’t easy to exchange and it’s deflationary but it’s a good place to store your money for the long term, especially if you live in an unstable country. What makes bitcoin valuable is that it’s gold without any of the downsides of gold. Hop in an airplane with the equivalent of millions of dollars in your pocket without having to trust or ask permission from anyone.
In fact gold does not compare favorably to US equity markets as far as saving your money goes. An investment in an S&P500 index fund in late 2007 (right before the crash) would be worth more today than an investment in gold. An investment in the Dow Jones index in 1900 would be worth about six times as much as an equivalent investment in gold (assuming you held for 117 years, and not counting dividends).
Granted, people in unstable countries may have difficulty investing in the US stock market.
Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions
#44People who actually use bitcoin must be ignorant of all the much more usable and useful alt-coins. Can anyone think of a good reason to actually use bitcoin vs. ripple/stellar/dash/zcash/monero/nem/...? Maybe it's just cause so many platforms have been built around bitcoin?
A lot of these are only faster to transact because they have nowhere near the volume of transactions that BTC has. BTC is also much more widely accepted and understood.
Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions
#45If bitcoin is becoming even more successful (in the sense of high transactions number) and if blocksize remains at ~1 MB, what will be the impact on fees? And could we imagine unsustainable fees?
The utility of bitcoin depends on your perspective. As a means of value exchange, high fees make it less useful. But as a store of value, high fees matter little.
As an example, wasn't there an $80m transaction the other day, where the fee was $20? I wonder what banks would charge to facilitate that?
Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions
#46People who actually use bitcoin must be ignorant of all the much more usable and useful alt-coins. Can anyone think of a good reason to actually use bitcoin vs. ripple/stellar/dash/zcash/monero/nem/...? Maybe it's just cause so many platforms have been built around bitcoin?
Alt-Coins don't have astronomic price increases, are far less accepted by merchants and have far less backing from the finance industry. In short, most altcoins are neither useful for investment nor payment. Which is a shame, because there are some coins that have substantial technical improvements over bitcoin, and nearly all of them can handle more transactions/second than bitcoin
> Alt-Coins don't have astronomic price increases
The really big multipliers have been in so called alt-coins for years. This statement is flat out wrong.
Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions
#47You'll notice the entire Bitcoin community has changed tone. It used to be "this is the currency of the future, down with cash/Visa!" but now you hear "Bitcoin is not a currency, it's a store of value". The wild price swings, slow transactions, high fees, and loq merchant acceptance make it complete garbage as a currency. But as a store of value, none of those arguments apply. It only has to compete with gold bars, w…
The goal posts will stop moving in time with the music.
Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think something that consistently deflates is already an absurdly flawed currency. It's not exactly an exchange medium if it's better to hold on to it than do something meaningful with it.
It’s not a currency. It’s digital gold. Gold isn’t easy to exchange and it’s deflationary but it’s a good place to store your money for the long term, especially if you live in an unstable country. What makes bitcoin valuable is that it’s gold without any of the downsides of gold. Hop in an airplane with the equivalent of millions of dollars in your pocket without having to trust or ask permission from anyone.
>It’s not a currency. It’s digital gold.
Abstract: A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.
Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions
#49People who actually use bitcoin must be ignorant of all the much more usable and useful alt-coins. Can anyone think of a good reason to actually use bitcoin vs. ripple/stellar/dash/zcash/monero/nem/...? Maybe it's just cause so many platforms have been built around bitcoin?
> much more usable and useful alt-coins I agree. I researched Ripple a lot and am sold on it, since it's not just a crytocurrency (XRP Ticker) but is also a protocol that Gates Foundation, AMEX and other banks are using to perform cross-border payments almost instantly and with a lot lower fees and overheads. Are any of the others you mentioned, ex : stellar, dash, monero etc similar to Ripple? If not, what are their…
Stellar is the most similar to Ripple (I think they had code in common at some point). Dash and Monero are a little older, and I don't think they solve the scalability issue in any special way, but are definitely less popular and therefore more usable.
I recommend reading forum posts about these different currencies to get an idea of what people think are the most competitive features/pitfalls. You could google something like "most scalable alt-coins" and then read stuff from reddit and bitcointalk.org. When a few of them have gotten your attention, do a "x vs. y vs. z" search and read more forums. You kinda have to feel it out!
Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think something that consistently deflates is already an absurdly flawed currency. It's not exactly an exchange medium if it's better to hold on to it than do something meaningful with it.
It’s not a currency. It’s digital gold. Gold isn’t easy to exchange and it’s deflationary but it’s a good place to store your money for the long term, especially if you live in an unstable country. What makes bitcoin valuable is that it’s gold without any of the downsides of gold. Hop in an airplane with the equivalent of millions of dollars in your pocket without having to trust or ask permission from anyone.
In the real world you cannot invent new elements, so it's hard to find an alternative for gold. Unfortunately everybody can create Bitcoin alternatives. That's the big difference between gold and Bitcoin.