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Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#11

Post by kybernetikos »

jen729w wrote: post #4

IMHO (because to claim to "know" anything about how this is all going to turn out is to be a fraud), Bitcoin is the proof of concept for this whole crypto thing. It was the first. It was the genesis idea. But good lord, do we think it's the actual solution? What would be the odds? I imagine that Bitcoin will play its part as the public face of the blockchain revolution, but something else - or many other somethings -…

> it'll happen because Bitcoin is not the technically best solution in this incredibly exciting field

Not only that, but it's shown that it doesn't have the ability to make the changes necessary to innovate and stay current.

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#12

Post by coolio2657 »

soyboysam wrote: post #9

Someone should take the word 'hacker' out of this sites name. I have never seen a discussion between highly competent experts on here before.

You clearly failed to understand what 'hacker' means in this site's context, which is here a general term for a tech-savvy, overall outside-of-the-box thinker that desires to read a variety of interesting things (and maybe discuss them).

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#14

Post by cwyers »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #5

It's not really designed to handle every little transaction. I would expect it to be used by exchanges and banks as a settlement layer, with most transactions happening off-chain. It's a mistake to look at recent news, because this has been known since the very beginning.

There is a thread on the site with the original Bitcoin paper right now. The first sentence of the abstract:

> A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.

A peer-to-peer network without going through a financial institution. The design was certainly intended to scale up to large numbers of small transactions.

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#15

Post by soyboysam »

coolio2657 wrote: post #12
soyboysam wrote: post #9

Someone should take the word 'hacker' out of this sites name. I have never seen a discussion between highly competent experts on here before.

You clearly failed to understand what 'hacker' means in this site's context, which is here a general term for a tech-savvy, overall outside-of-the-box thinker that desires to read a variety of interesting things (and maybe discuss them).

hn started getting interested in bitcoin the same time as my parents.

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#16

Post by badminton1 »

The idea is that bitcoin is decentralized. But common sense tells you that by having an append only system, eventually you will need a supercomputer to deal with the blockchain.

Naturally, the blockchain will have to be hierarchical, or find ways to compact it.

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#18

Post by dawhizkid »

andrewtbham wrote: post #7

My understanding is... There is a scaling problem. It could be help by increasing the block size (like segwit2x) But the miners don't want to fix it because they like the high transaction fees.

I thought the big miners were the ones pushing for increasing block sizes b/c it would create an even higher barrier to entry to successfully mine a block that would allow the big miners to get bigger and consolidate power...
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