Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
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Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
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Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
#2I can't be convinced that bitcoin is anything but inevitable, and I think that it will, at some point in the near future, solve its apparent problems by means of a company born from its very ecosystem
Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
#3I can't be convinced that bitcoin is anything but inevitable, and I think that it will, at some point in the near future, solve its apparent problems by means of a company born from its very ecosystem
BTC is going to have issues as long as it takes a significant period of time to confirm a BTC transfer. I'm seeing reports of people trying to buy coffee, but the BTC transfer takes so long to confirm that the customer is long gone before you know whether or not the BTCs really transferred.
Nothing can stop this either, it is innate to the system. BTC confirmations will take on the average 10minutes, but can last much longer in practice. Attempts to mitigate this issue only result in rebuilding credit-cards / accounts / virtual money systems on top of BTC... which then begs the question... why not just use a Credit Card as always?
Litecoin tries to solve the problem by making the block discovery process much quicker (among other things). These "virtual coins" will need to go through several revisions before they're really useful.
Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
#4I can't be convinced that bitcoin is anything but inevitable, and I think that it will, at some point in the near future, solve its apparent problems by means of a company born from its very ecosystem
BTC is going to have issues as long as it takes a significant period of time to confirm a BTC transfer. I'm seeing reports of people trying to buy coffee, but the BTC transfer takes so long to confirm that the customer is long gone before you know whether or not the BTCs really transferred. Nothing can stop this either, it is innate to the system. BTC confirmations will take on the average 10minutes, but can last muc…
Credit card transactions can be reversed weeks/months after they are made. This is necessary to combat fraud, and is part of the reason why fees around 2% exist. In contrast, bitcoin transactions are infeasible to reverse after a few hours.
That said, anything on the order of minutes is obviously too long to wait for certain types of transactions. Litecoin, with a target of 2.5 minutes between confirmations, does nothing to solve this. Bitcoin/P2P cryptocurrencies will need a solution for this problem if they are to be used for in person sales at retailers.
Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
BTC is going to have issues as long as it takes a significant period of time to confirm a BTC transfer. I'm seeing reports of people trying to buy coffee, but the BTC transfer takes so long to confirm that the customer is long gone before you know whether or not the BTCs really transferred. Nothing can stop this either, it is innate to the system. BTC confirmations will take on the average 10minutes, but can last muc…
Credit card transactions can be reversed weeks/months after they are made. This is necessary to combat fraud, and is part of the reason why fees around 2% exist. In contrast, bitcoin transactions are infeasible to reverse after a few hours. That said, anything on the order of minutes is obviously too long to wait for certain types of transactions. Litecoin, with a target of 2.5 minutes between confirmations, does not…
> Credit card transactions can be reversed weeks/months after they are made
Exactly.
The instant approval from the credit card company is a close analogue to a signed transaction. Both prove that the person has the funds available and that they have the authority to authorize the transaction.
The 40-minute confirmation delay is roughly equivalent to the 6 months or so that it takes before credit card transactions become irreversible. At approximately one block mined every 10 minutes, after 40 minutes there would a 4-block-long chain including the transaction. The idea that someone with the resources necessary to discover 5 blocks before everyone else in the network could discover one block would bring them to bear to steal a cup of coffee is insane.
If I'm selling convenience goods - say, under $100 - I'm fine with zero-confirmation transactions. If we're talking $100-$1000, I'd wait until the network confirms it once. If I'm selling you a house, then I'll buy you lunch while we wait an hour or so for 6 confirmations.
Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
#6I can't be convinced that bitcoin is anything but inevitable, and I think that it will, at some point in the near future, solve its apparent problems by means of a company born from its very ecosystem
BTC is going to have issues as long as it takes a significant period of time to confirm a BTC transfer. I'm seeing reports of people trying to buy coffee, but the BTC transfer takes so long to confirm that the customer is long gone before you know whether or not the BTCs really transferred. Nothing can stop this either, it is innate to the system. BTC confirmations will take on the average 10minutes, but can last muc…
If it is a coffee, just accept it at the first block, that should only be a few minutes. For the rare occurance of an orphaned block, it is still less of a loss than the normal credit card processing fees for a typical day at such a place.
Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
#7I can't be convinced that bitcoin is anything but inevitable, and I think that it will, at some point in the near future, solve its apparent problems by means of a company born from its very ecosystem
BTC is going to have issues as long as it takes a significant period of time to confirm a BTC transfer. I'm seeing reports of people trying to buy coffee, but the BTC transfer takes so long to confirm that the customer is long gone before you know whether or not the BTCs really transferred. Nothing can stop this either, it is innate to the system. BTC confirmations will take on the average 10minutes, but can last muc…
> Attempts to mitigate this issue only result in rebuilding credit-cards / accounts / virtual money systems on top of BTC... which then begs the question... why not just use a Credit Card as always?
Because you can have the benefits of both worlds.
Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
#8I can't be convinced that bitcoin is anything but inevitable, and I think that it will, at some point in the near future, solve its apparent problems by means of a company born from its very ecosystem
BTC is going to have issues as long as it takes a significant period of time to confirm a BTC transfer. I'm seeing reports of people trying to buy coffee, but the BTC transfer takes so long to confirm that the customer is long gone before you know whether or not the BTCs really transferred. Nothing can stop this either, it is innate to the system. BTC confirmations will take on the average 10minutes, but can last muc…
Can't there exist a company that accepts Bitcoin transactions on behalf of clients (shops) and guarantees them? Even if a transaction fails, the company coughs up, and to make ends meet they charge a small per-transaction fee.
Even without this, it's quite possible that bad bitcoin transactions will be far less costly to shops on average.
If a shop sells a coffee for $2 paid for by a bad bitcoin transaction, the shop seller has made around a 50c loss (stock mainly).
If a shop sells a coffee for $2 paid for by a later charge backed credit card transaction, the shop seller is charged $15[1], plus the 50c stock loss for a net $15.50 loss! You'd have to have over 30 bad bitcoin transactions to equal that level of loss.
Chargebacks are a money making operation by the credit card companies, at the expense of merchants. Bitcoin helps a lot.
Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
#9"Creator" of Litecoin - is this some kind of joke?
Litecoin is a trivial fork of Bitcoin. Litecoin uses scrypt instead of SHA256 for proof-of-work and the total number of coins is 84 million instead of 21 million. That's it!
Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
BTC is going to have issues as long as it takes a significant period of time to confirm a BTC transfer. I'm seeing reports of people trying to buy coffee, but the BTC transfer takes so long to confirm that the customer is long gone before you know whether or not the BTCs really transferred. Nothing can stop this either, it is innate to the system. BTC confirmations will take on the average 10minutes, but can last muc…
Can't there exist a company that accepts Bitcoin transactions on behalf of clients (shops) and guarantees them? Even if a transaction fails, the company coughs up, and to make ends meet they charge a small per-transaction fee. Even without this, it's quite possible that bad bitcoin transactions will be far less costly to shops on average. If a shop sells a coffee for $2 paid for by a bad bitcoin transaction, the shop…
Why would a consumer put up with such a company? You've got the economics backwards.
Consumers want features such as reversibility of transactions, money back guarantees, and reward points. Credit Card companies offer _customers_ rights, not the business.
Businesses put up with credit card companies because it brings them additional business.
If you want to create a pro-business "transaction framework", go on ahead. (indeed, the Apple Store does this. All restrictions are strictly for pro-Apple reasons). But consumers are only willing to put up with so many pro-business storefronts.