41–50 of 53 posts
"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!
But hey, there sure were a bunch of lines of code changed to change the name! :P
Just a FYI: Litecoin does NOT confirm faster than bitcoins. Based on how the core bitcoin protocol works (which litecoin does not alter), a halving in confirmation time is also a halving in reliability of the confirmation.
In practice it doesn't seem to matter. For example btc-e.com who accepts both bitcoin and litecoin for trading makes you wait 3 confirmations for bitcoin and 6 confirmations for litecoin. So you are correct that 1 litecoin transaction is not as reliable as 1 bitcoin transaction but they are not making you wait 12 litecoin transactions. Given that btc-e has a lot to lose on double spend attacks I think it's a good mea…
If blocks are too fast you start getting very large reorganizations.
Today litecoin has almost no transactions, so its lower interblock time is not a problem... Yet.
Just a FYI: Litecoin does NOT confirm faster than bitcoins. Based on how the core bitcoin protocol works (which litecoin does not alter), a halving in confirmation time is also a halving in reliability of the confirmation.
If an attacker does control 50-plus percent of the total mining power, you're basically screwed. Increasing the total confirmation time doesn't increase the cost of a 51% attack by enough to be worth attempting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.…
Some consumers would rather have lower prices and happier merchants than rewards points. I'd much rather pay for my coffee in digital cash than pay an extra 2%+ to facilitate the transaction. If the product is poor, I just won't buy it again. Same goes for lunch, etc. Cards that return ~1% back highlight a problem; the transaction fees are too high. $0.10/bitcoin transaction [1] is also steep for minor transactions.…
Have you ever looked at what you're paying for in a credit card? Basically nothing. The merchant pays for everything. (occasionally, the merchant passes back the savings to you... like the occasional gas station that doesn't take credit cards, or a store that only accepts credit cards on purchases over $5)
Consumers pay damn near nothing on credit cards. That is why they use them.
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…
"Confirmed" has two definitions depending on if you apply it to credit cards or Bitcoin: 1 "Confirmed with a certainty that's good enough for values less than 10,000USD" ) Credit cards are good for this basically instantly... unless the register is "taking longer than normal today." It is on the order of seconds. Notice that PayPal doesn't accept credit card payments over 10K AND takes a large percentage. The same is…
Obviously, if you're a merchant, you want to reach the point of irreversibility sooner. But consumers want 30-day money back guarantees. The credit card companies provide that guarantee if stores do not (and will retract the money from the business's account).
Consumers do not have privileges with BTC, once spent, the money is gone. There is no 3-day window to contest the transaction, there isn't any 30-day money back guarantee.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some consumers would rather have lower prices and happier merchants than rewards points. I'd much rather pay for my coffee in digital cash than pay an extra 2%+ to facilitate the transaction. If the product is poor, I just won't buy it again. Same goes for lunch, etc. Cards that return ~1% back highlight a problem; the transaction fees are too high. $0.10/bitcoin transaction [1] is also steep for minor transactions.…
FYI, default minimum transaction fee is 0.0001 BTC in current version, or about $0.01.
Mea Culpa.
"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!
Charlie Lee is well aware of this. He created Litecoin to stop endless requests to change bitcoin to a faster confirmation time, even though the benefits are scarce.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Confirmed" has two definitions depending on if you apply it to credit cards or Bitcoin: 1 "Confirmed with a certainty that's good enough for values less than 10,000USD" ) Credit cards are good for this basically instantly... unless the register is "taking longer than normal today." It is on the order of seconds. Notice that PayPal doesn't accept credit card payments over 10K AND takes a large percentage. The same is…
What you don't get is #2 is a feature of credit cards. Consumers don't like irreversible spends. Obviously, if you're a merchant, you want to reach the point of irreversibility sooner. But consumers want 30-day money back guarantees. The credit card companies provide that guarantee if stores do not (and will retract the money from the business's account). Consumers do not have privileges with BTC, once spent, the mon…
Is anyone else surprised that the creator of Litecoin needed to take a job? Given that the market cap of Litecoin is 53 million I would have expected the creator to have mined a good amount of that in the early days. Of course he may have just wanted to take the job and not needed it but I would have assumed he would have worked on something for the Litecoin ecosystem.