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Why Ethereum is outpacing Bitcoin

venturebeat.com

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Re: Why Ethereum is outpacing Bitcoin

#11

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

opportune wrote: post #7
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The miners only process transactions that have higher and higher fees. This makes lower fee transactions take forever to be processed or never happen at all. Since bitcoin limits how many transactions that can occur in a set amount of time it creates this awful fee-based backlog. The self-serving and shortsighted bitcoin community has argued and bickered amongst itself so long about how to fix this that it may be too…

Is this a conscious decision on behalf of the miners themselves, or is it a result of mining becoming increasingly more difficult?

My understanding is that it is fueled by greed and desire for short term gains at the expense of bitcoin health in the long run.

The people involved aren't the most admirable folk. For instance, this is the leader of the biggest mining company- https://twitter.com/jihanwu/status/731902686379933697?lang=e...

A good contrast is that Vitalik Buterin, one of the founders of Ethereum recently said the gas fees for Ethereum are too high (they were still quite low compared to bitcoin) and the miners voluntarily just lowered the gas fees, which determine the transaction costs. It seems to be a very different community running each currency.

Re: Why Ethereum is outpacing Bitcoin

#12

Post by ssharp »

yellowapple wrote: post #5

"In a world where people are used to online payments being confirmed instantly, Bitcoin transactions can take anywhere from tens of minutes to several hours, depending on how busy the network is." Online payments (via traditional means) are by no means "confirmed instantly". The authorization happens more-or-less instantly, but that's only the first of multiple steps in the transaction process; the actual transfer of…

For someone buying something, authorization is all that matters.

Re: Why Ethereum is outpacing Bitcoin

#13

Post by agumonkey »

dpc_pw wrote: post #9

The whole reason why Ethereum is "outpacing" Bitcoin is easiness of taking money from clueless "investors" that feel like they missed the boat on becoming rich through Bitcoin. https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/i-was-wrong-about-ethereum-80... It's going to be a big mess, one this bubble pops.

Not so fast, it's not "only" a bubble.

Re: Why Ethereum is outpacing Bitcoin

#14

Post by plokiju »

opportune wrote: post #7
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The miners only process transactions that have higher and higher fees. This makes lower fee transactions take forever to be processed or never happen at all. Since bitcoin limits how many transactions that can occur in a set amount of time it creates this awful fee-based backlog. The self-serving and shortsighted bitcoin community has argued and bickered amongst itself so long about how to fix this that it may be too…

Is this a conscious decision on behalf of the miners themselves, or is it a result of mining becoming increasingly more difficult?

the miners are running software that decides which transactions to include, and I'm sure the software has some logic where it will pick the highest-fee transactions when they can't include them all

Re: Why Ethereum is outpacing Bitcoin

#15

Post by kgwgk »

agumonkey wrote: post #13
dpc_pw wrote: post #9

The whole reason why Ethereum is "outpacing" Bitcoin is easiness of taking money from clueless "investors" that feel like they missed the boat on becoming rich through Bitcoin. https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/i-was-wrong-about-ethereum-80... It's going to be a big mess, one this bubble pops.

Not so fast, it's not "only" a bubble.

You're right, there are several bubbles.

Re: Why Ethereum is outpacing Bitcoin

#16

Post by theptip »

yellowapple wrote: post #5

"In a world where people are used to online payments being confirmed instantly, Bitcoin transactions can take anywhere from tens of minutes to several hours, depending on how busy the network is." Online payments (via traditional means) are by no means "confirmed instantly". The authorization happens more-or-less instantly, but that's only the first of multiple steps in the transaction process; the actual transfer of…

There's two ways of interpreting "online payments" here. Through the lens of ACH/wire payments, your point is spot on.

However, I suspect the author meant Venmo/Paypal etc.; that's certainly how I interpreted the sentence. I'd argue that those services are better comparisons for P2P payments, especially in the US, where most consumers are not able or inclined to give out their bank information to receive an ACH payment.

Compared to those incumbent online P2P payment services, Bitcoin really is starting to lag behind in that regard.

Re: Why Ethereum is outpacing Bitcoin

#17

Post by pdog »

It's pretty clear what's happening. Ethereum (ETH) is rising because people are buying into initial coin offerings (ICOs). They aren't holding ETH, so they don't care about the price of ETH rising in terms of Bitcoin (BTC) or dollars. The ICOs are the significant holders of ETH. They haven't sold their ETH because 1) the price of ETH is still rising rapidly, 2) they don't yet need to access the funds for development, and 3) smart contracts connected to token sales usually allocate ETH for future use. Eventually, ICOs will begin to sell or distribute their ETH to fund the development of their projects.

Re: Why Ethereum is outpacing Bitcoin

#18

Post by gfodor »

dpc_pw wrote: post #9

The whole reason why Ethereum is "outpacing" Bitcoin is easiness of taking money from clueless "investors" that feel like they missed the boat on becoming rich through Bitcoin. https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/i-was-wrong-about-ethereum-80... It's going to be a big mess, one this bubble pops.

People have been expecting the crypto bubble to pop for almost a decade now, but prices continue to rise.

At some point you have to admit that this isn't tulip bulbs.

Re: Why Ethereum is outpacing Bitcoin

#19

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

pdog wrote: post #17

It's pretty clear what's happening. Ethereum (ETH) is rising because people are buying into initial coin offerings (ICOs). They aren't holding ETH, so they don't care about the price of ETH rising in terms of Bitcoin (BTC) or dollars. The ICOs are the significant holders of ETH. They haven't sold their ETH because 1) the price of ETH is still rising rapidly, 2) they don't yet need to access the funds for development,…

I don't think that is true at all. Most people can't even get in on the ICOs.
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