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The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

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Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#41

I still hope that they listen to reason and increase bitcoin’s ability to scale. We are all held hostage by a tiny cabal of developers that think they know what is best and want bitcoin to have a perversely small block size and pitiful 7 transactions per second top speed.

With Segregated Witness (SegWit) enabled on July 21, 2017, the Bitcoin block size has been increased by approximately 1.6 - 2 times. So the TPS should be increased correspondingly.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#42
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But after all the blocks are mined, how does the blockchain even work?

Every time a block is mined, miners are paid in transaction fees + newly generated coins. After 21 million coins have been generated, miners will only be rewarded transaction fees => it doesn't mean blocks will stop being mined; blocks will keep being mined, but without generating new coins out of nowhere.

How is the amount of a transaction fee determined?

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#43

I still hope that they listen to reason and increase bitcoin’s ability to scale. We are all held hostage by a tiny cabal of developers that think they know what is best and want bitcoin to have a perversely small block size and pitiful 7 transactions per second top speed.

Lightning network solves this as do many other things (liquid sidechains)

Lightning Network is not peer to peer which is what most of us signed up for with bitcoin. I don’t want centralized middlemen and their channels, might as well use a bank at that point. Lightning Network isn’t simple and elegant, it is a convoluted mess. The peer to peer foundation of bitcoin is literally in the title of the white paper from Satoshi.

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#44
post #16

Note to commenters: In this context "Bitcoin production" is not mining; they're talking about the development of the protocol being centralized.

This is exactly why decentralized currency is no better than regular currency. Bitcoin is centralized in the hands of a few shady, anonymous exchange owners funding the development.

At least in a capitalist democracy we get to elect the criminals who rob us blind.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning network solves this as do many other things (liquid sidechains)

Lightning Network is not peer to peer which is what most of us signed up for with bitcoin. I don’t want centralized middlemen and their channels, might as well use a bank at that point. Lightning Network isn’t simple and elegant, it is a convoluted mess. The peer to peer foundation of bitcoin is literally in the title of the white paper from Satoshi. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System https://bitcoin.org/…

Can you explain why you think it's a convoluted mess?

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time a block is mined, miners are paid in transaction fees + newly generated coins. After 21 million coins have been generated, miners will only be rewarded transaction fees => it doesn't mean blocks will stop being mined; blocks will keep being mined, but without generating new coins out of nowhere.

How is the amount of a transaction fee determined?

Every block has a limited amount of space for transactions (1 MB previously, 4 and up to 8 technically with segregated witness?) , the person mining the block includes transactions based on fees provided by users initiating the transaction.

If there are tons of people looking to make transactions, fees go up or down based on people's willingness to pay to be included in the next block.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#47
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same hardware. Miners get both a reward for mining (the fixed set of coins) as well as collecting fees. After they’re all mined, it’ll just be the fees.

But after all the blocks are mined, how does the blockchain even work?

[deleted]

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning network solves this as do many other things (liquid sidechains)

Lightning Network is not peer to peer which is what most of us signed up for with bitcoin. I don’t want centralized middlemen and their channels, might as well use a bank at that point. Lightning Network isn’t simple and elegant, it is a convoluted mess. The peer to peer foundation of bitcoin is literally in the title of the white paper from Satoshi. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System https://bitcoin.org/…

Comparing the lightning network with a bank is totally incorrect. Your funds cannot be seized and the middlemen privacy aspect is very similar to the Tor network. I don't think there is a better way of solving a decentralized payment system.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#49
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same hardware. Miners get both a reward for mining (the fixed set of coins) as well as collecting fees. After they’re all mined, it’ll just be the fees.

But after all the blocks are mined, how does the blockchain even work?

Your confusion is why I hate the term "mining". Call it "transaction notary service" and things make more sense. Currently the people with hardware get paid by a combination of transaction fees and inflation of the bitcoin supply. Once all blocks are "mined" they get paid for being notaries only with the fees.

Re: The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning Network is not peer to peer which is what most of us signed up for with bitcoin. I don’t want centralized middlemen and their channels, might as well use a bank at that point. Lightning Network isn’t simple and elegant, it is a convoluted mess. The peer to peer foundation of bitcoin is literally in the title of the white paper from Satoshi. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System https://bitcoin.org/…

Can you explain why you think it's a convoluted mess?

If you read the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network) it highlights it quite well under "commitment transactions."

It takes something that is, in human terms, relatively simple and makes it so convoluted that it's hard to even follow.

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