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Bitcoin is no long the only game in crypto-currency town

economist.com

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Re: Bitcoin is no long the only game in crypto-currency town

#61

Post by [deleted] »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #30
grey-area wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 0-confirmation transaction normally is just fine. It's really not fine at all. The competition is full confirmation transactions on a debit card or bank account in seconds with much lower or zero fees.

>seconds At PoS systems in the US, it's typical to have to wait 30+ seconds for chip cards to go through. I'm guessing that this has more to do with the PoS system / slow internet connection for the store / slow network on the back-end card network, but cryptocurrencies would need to be sub-minute to be ~acceptable for in-person retail transactions. Until that is solved, until cryptocoins are more than speculative se…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin is no long the only game in crypto-currency town

#62

Post by Klathmon »

jonnydubowsky wrote: post #56
Klathmon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all the talk of Ripple being centralized, they aren't by design, and they have a plan in place to reduce and eventually eliminate that centralization (to a point). They decided that it would be a good idea to start centralized, then over time wane themselves out of the "validation" of transactions until it's in the hands of a diverse group of validator nodes where no one person has the ability to change things.

How about the part where the founders hold enough tokens that they could crash the price or manipulate the market at will. I understand that they have loose structures in place to keep them honest, but they could absolutely still act badly. We trust that they won't.

There are 2 things here, There is the cut that the founders hold, and there is the portion under the control of Ripple labs.

Ripple labs has a very strict way of handling the XRP they hold. It's not just "lose structures" in place, they are using the Ripple blockchain to escrow 55 billion of the XRP and release it on a set schedule of (I believe) 1 billion per month, and any that is left over at the end of the month is re-escrowed. So they can't just "flood the market" at any time, there is a set limit to how much they can even sell without hardforking the blockchain in their favor.

The founders have free reign on their 20 billion XRP, but I don't see why they would ever use it to crash the price.

Re: Bitcoin is no long the only game in crypto-currency town

#63

Post by ucaetano »

jonnydubowsky wrote: post #53
ucaetano wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As requested, my white paper: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0858/9696/products/122_102...

You win hacker news today for this double hitter of comments. I love your mental model regarding market cap and implied valuation. Your white paper is more honest then most!

> You win hacker news today

Oh, thanks, although winning hacker news is quite irrelevant when you're a trillionaire.

Now if you excuse me, I'll retire to my orbiting chateau, it's tea time at my geostationary orbital slot.

Re: Bitcoin is no long the only game in crypto-currency town

#64

Post by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg »

Klathmon wrote: post #41
ExactoKnight wrote: post #7

Bitcoin 10 minute block generation times is an inherent problem that unless changed, will doom the protocol to its eventual death. It's like trying to make a 56k modem work, when broadband is available. When litecoin came around a few years ago these were abstract problems, but now that transactions with $10 fees take 36 hours to confirm... the issues are real and a switch needs to happen. Lightning network or not, t…

I know this probably sounds like a stuck record at this point, but Lightning Network can solve this, and will relegate the actual blockchain as an arbitration/settlement layer where the 10 minute blocktime isn't a problem.

LN's security model relies on being able to close a channel before a certain block. This means that there will be periods of time that paying the fee to close a channel in time will be cost prohibitive and the security property evaporates.

That being said we really should see exchange -> exchange txs be conducted over large LN channels, it could off load a lot of pressure off the chain.

Re: Bitcoin is no long the only game in crypto-currency town

#66

Post by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg »

Klathmon wrote: post #62
jonnydubowsky wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the part where the founders hold enough tokens that they could crash the price or manipulate the market at will. I understand that they have loose structures in place to keep them honest, but they could absolutely still act badly. We trust that they won't.

There are 2 things here, There is the cut that the founders hold, and there is the portion under the control of Ripple labs. Ripple labs has a very strict way of handling the XRP they hold. It's not just "lose structures" in place, they are using the Ripple blockchain to escrow 55 billion of the XRP and release it on a set schedule of (I believe) 1 billion per month, and any that is left over at the end of the month…

> The founders have free reign on their 20 billion XRP, but I don't see why they would ever use it to crash the price.

Profit motive?

Re: Bitcoin is no long the only game in crypto-currency town

#67

Post by unabridged »

perseusprime11 wrote: post #28
louismerlin wrote: post #22

I recommend you check out https://raiblocks.net if you're looking for a currency that could compete with Bitcoin as a means of payment. The tech is smart as hell.

And who cares? Nobody is accepting raiblocks as a payment. There are more engineers working on Bitcoin and far more infrastructure around Bitcoin. All these altcoins are pump and dump schemes.

This is what most people don't get, these technologies are all open source. So even if some random coin comes up with a great new feature, bitcoin can just add it or at worst someone can create a fork of bitcoin with the new tech. The value is not the tech, its the network.

Bitcoin has good liquidity and been tested though many drops and spikes. Each time it makes the network more antifragile. No one wants to trust a new currency where a large percent of holders have never been tested and might sell off their entire share at any time.

Re: Bitcoin is no long the only game in crypto-currency town

#68

Post by OhDagny »

XR0CSWV3h3kZWg wrote: post #65

Bitcoin is also one of the least interesting when it comes to innovation. Bitcoin has one of the worst max tx rate. What bitcoin has is the network effect and security, but if the friction from tx fees becomes too high it could be dethroned.

Sometimes inefficiency / inelasticity is a feature.

Sometimes.

Re: Bitcoin is no long the only game in crypto-currency town

#69

Post by ericb »

sf_rob wrote: post #50
ericb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That problem isn't a result of the 10 minute blocks. A 0-confirmation transaction normally is just fine. These are available on Bitcoin Cash.

0-conf isn't fine in many trustless scenarios with Bitcoin because of Replace By Fee.

Agreed, but Bitcoin Cash intentionally has not added Replace By Fee for this reason.

Re: Bitcoin is no long the only game in crypto-currency town

#70

Post by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg »

perseusprime11 wrote: post #28
louismerlin wrote: post #22

I recommend you check out https://raiblocks.net if you're looking for a currency that could compete with Bitcoin as a means of payment. The tech is smart as hell.

And who cares? Nobody is accepting raiblocks as a payment. There are more engineers working on Bitcoin and far more infrastructure around Bitcoin. All these altcoins are pump and dump schemes.

Network effect is real, but that can not defend bitcoin if tx continue to stay prohibitively high.
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