Live data from Hacker News

Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin

blog.coinbase.com

11–20 of 53 posts

Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin

#11
post #6

Earlier 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…

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.

First block may take anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour. No one knows when the next block will be discovered.

Are you just going to hold up the line while you wait for the next block? Or are you going to just accept zero-block transactions?

Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin

#12
post #2

I 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 can function perfectly well as a supplement to traditional currencies, but it cannot replace them. The needs for currency by the private economy is not fixed, tying an anchor around your political ability to respond to those changing needs is not wise. I can count the number of incidents of runaway inflation on one hand, whereas incidents of runaway deflation are much more common and persistent.

Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin

#13
post #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!

https://github.com/litecoin-project?tab=members

Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin

#14
post #2

I 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…

I do not think you sufficiently understand Bitcoin or double spend attacks work.

You should read this section of the Bitcoin FAQ: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#Do_you_have_to_wait_until_my_...

Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin

#15
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bec…

As a merchant, I would certainly prefer to suffer the loss of a few small transactions than pay 2 to 3 percent of every transaction to a payment processor. I imagine losses due to double-spends would be comparable to those of accepting counterfeit currency--miniscule, due to the high-risk of perpertrating fraud for such a small reward.

Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin

#16
I hope that this does not have a detrimental affect to the future development of Litecoin.

For most, Litecoin to Bitcoin is seen as what Silver is to Gold. Silver in this sense is credited with its ability to stabilize the price of gold. My opinion is that if there is to be a future for digital currencies there must be more then one option available. Currently Litecoin is the leading alt-coin based on Market cap (which is linked to its value)

Disclosure: Bullish on both BTC and LTC

Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin

#17
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bec…

As a merchant, I would certainly prefer to suffer the loss of a few small transactions than pay 2 to 3 percent of every transaction to a payment processor. I imagine losses due to double-spends would be comparable to those of accepting counterfeit currency--miniscule, due to the high-risk of perpertrating fraud for such a small reward.

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin

#19
post #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!

How does it feel to be so embarrassingly ignorant all the time?

Re: Coinbase hires Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin

#20

Earlier 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…

Mtgox is aiming to do this. That way if you both have mtgox accounts its just a database update.
Post reply on HN