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Bitcoin 2014 – Top predictions

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Re: Bitcoin 2014 – Top predictions

#2

Post by nwh »

> There will be less than 5 alt-coins (out of the 50+ in existence) that will survive 2014

From what I've seen the number is more like 3-400.

> Bitcoin community will solve problems including that of ‘anonymity’

Sorta already has, it looks like CoinJoin will be implemented into the mainline client when it's mature enough.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0;all

> Kryptokit and Eric Voorhees’ Coinapult are promising start-ups in this direction.

I desperately hope they don't gain any userbase, they are both woefully insecure products. Kryptokit can't even maintain the claims it's authors make. "It has no central server" — yeah why are these requests going back to your server then? The community suffers when it's relying on insecure, half baked software like that.

Re: Bitcoin 2014 – Top predictions

#3

Post by [deleted] »

nwh wrote: post #2

> There will be less than 5 alt-coins (out of the 50+ in existence) that will survive 2014 From what I've seen the number is more like 3-400. > Bitcoin community will solve problems including that of ‘anonymity’ Sorta already has, it looks like CoinJoin will be implemented into the mainline client when it's mature enough. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0;all > Kryptokit and Eric Voorhees’ Coinapult ar…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin 2014 – Top predictions

#4

Post by marc0 »

I'd say most of the predictions are sound. No 10 goes a bit too far though. Anyway, what I can't understand is why this rumor of bitcoin being anonymous (No 4) is so persistent (maybe wishful thinking?). What's necessary here is not a further technical development but rather some PR work (outside and unfortunately also inside the community of bitcoin users).

Re: Bitcoin 2014 – Top predictions

#7

Post by fab13n »

Mining: if we're to believe in free markets, fees will adjust to the amount of available CPU resources. I hope that it won't be profitable enough for people to dedicate farms to mining, but that companies with a lot of CPU power will rentabilise their spare CPU cycles by doing a bit of mining with it. This would be reassuring, as it would keep mining decentralized, which is important to maintain trust in bitcoins.

Re: Bitcoin 2014 – Top predictions

#8

Post by josephagoss »

fit2rule wrote: post #5

The BitCoin Browser is going to be very significant. I hope someone 'good' emerges to capture that market. It'd be rotten if there were a "Microsoft Bitcoin browser" and an "OSX Bitcoin browser" ...

I may have misunderstood, but I think his point '8' is more akin to saying that Bitcoin needs it's killer app, kind of like how the browser was the killer app for the internet.

Re: Bitcoin 2014 – Top predictions

#9

Post by nwh »

fit2rule wrote: post #5

The BitCoin Browser is going to be very significant. I hope someone 'good' emerges to capture that market. It'd be rotten if there were a "Microsoft Bitcoin browser" and an "OSX Bitcoin browser" ...

The thing is just that it's ridiculously hard to make a Bitcoin client that works, is secure, and doesn't introduce completely nonsense quirks. Armory has been around since 2011 and still has major issues parsing the blockchain and making transactions that aren't padded incorrectly, MultiBit doesn't use change addresses and makes it painfully obvious how much money you have. There's not much margin for error and you certainly can't have a closed source (read Microsoft) branded client.

Re: Bitcoin 2014 – Top predictions

#10

Post by Kiro »

fab13n wrote: post #7

Mining: if we're to believe in free markets, fees will adjust to the amount of available CPU resources. I hope that it won't be profitable enough for people to dedicate farms to mining, but that companies with a lot of CPU power will rentabilise their spare CPU cycles by doing a bit of mining with it. This would be reassuring, as it would keep mining decentralized, which is important to maintain trust in bitcoins.

> I hope that it won't be profitable enough for people to dedicate farms to mining

Maybe I misunderstand you but isn't that already happening?

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