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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?

#151

Post by jstanley »

username223 wrote: post #146
jstanley wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing the value of 1 US dollar with the agreement that a dollar bill is worth 1 US dollar. The dollar bill is worth 1 USD because the government asserts that. That doesn't make 1 USD anything. It just means the dollar bill is worth 1 USD. The government has no power to prop up the value of the USD if the world decides it's worthless.

> The government has no power to prop up the value of the USD if the world decides it's worthless. I don't see "the world" deciding USD is worthless anytime soon: people in third world nations keep pristine US cash in their closets as a store of value; a lot of international trade uses dollars as a common currency; etc. If "the world" decides that dollars are worthless, that will be the least of my problems while I'm…

Agreed. I think the USD only has value because enough people believe it does, and I think that will continue to be the case for quite some time.

Same for BTC.

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

#152

Post by jiggunjer »

Xorlev wrote: post #131
whiskyant wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize bitcoin is constantly evolving and can change its code right? If another crypto creates a better scaling tech, bitcoin can incorporate that idea.

Can, but won’t as has been proven repeatedly.

Proven when? He said better tech,not bigger blocks.

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

#153

Post by programmarchy »

betterunix2 wrote: post #134

Bitcoin involves broadcasting all transactions; that is obviously not scalable, regardless of block size, regardless of PoW, regardless of other design details.

You don't have to broadcast all transactions to all parties. Merkle trees can summarize past transactions, so not everyone needs a copy of the entire blockchain.

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

#154

Post by makomk »

etherael wrote: post #120
eterm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" Peer to peer cash. Not "Gold", not "asset", but "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash".

Bitcoin cash is still that.

Bitcoin Cash does indeed have very low fees... and about a tenth the transaction volume of Bitcoin proper, with few places using it, mainly just a handful of people involved in creating it.

It's certainly not as ridiculous an option as it was back before the difficulty adjustment fix when its supporters were promoting it as the fast option despite it usually taking days for transactions to confirm (supporters responding that block times were as low as a minute sometimes, and they were right... except it was a entirely bimodal distribution, with most of the time spent in the "hours per block" part).

However, the increased transaction capacity people are promoting is still about 100x its current transaction rate, and it's entirely unclear how well it'd handle scaling up by that much in practice. Especially since I'm pretty sure it lacks some of the scaling work that the original Bitcoin has. Also, the rampant dishonesty and all the attempts by sites and services owned by a guy with a major investment in it to trick people into thinking it is Bitcoin don't inspire confidence.

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

#155

Post by omio »

zrm wrote: post #93
colordrops wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is being missed by your analysis is that the value in a blockchain comes more from the network than the tech. There are thousands upon thousands of blockchains of no value. You could fork bitcoin or some other chain right now and start it on your laptop. Doesn't mean anything - the network is the value. So taking this into account, when the shackles of Bitcoin's simplicity and limitations become unbearable, the…

> What is being missed by your analysis is that the value in a blockchain comes more from the network than the tech. That is the reason why anyone can't just create a new coin and expect everyone else to value it, but that doesn't mean there can't be any viable competitors. And if a competitor with a sufficient advantage got popular enough, it could take the lead. For example, the hack Bitcoin used to become popular…

That wouldn't work because mining blocks also validates transactions.

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

#156

Post by jiggunjer »

wmnwmn wrote: post #145

Not only is BTC epicly badly designed (energy consumption=Denmark) but it doesn't solve a problem that anyone actually has (and neither do any of the other cryptos). Nobody uses them to pay for things, and nobody has any incentive to start doing so, because paying for things is not currently a problem. Compare with the Internet boom: along with the stock bubble, millions of people began using this new tool which chan…

You must not have any experience with international transfers or currencies other than euro and USD.

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

#157

Post by TimJYoung »

rescripting wrote: post #142
noobermin wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds a hell lot like changing the goal posts.

Does that matter? If you're looking to develop a drug to treat hypertension but end up with Viagra by accident instead, do you throw it away because that wasn't the original goal?

It certainly matters if you've still got a lot of people running around telling anyone that will listen that the drug is a sure-fire cure for hypertension.

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

#158

Post by erikpukinskis »

noobermin wrote: post #137
moduspol wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a different cryptocurrency. Seriously. And I'm not trying to be cheeky. If Bitcoin ends up only being a settlement layer, it'll still be a colossal success just being a decentralized, supply-limited, uncensorable, world-accessible payment system and store of value. If someone else solves the scaling debacle better, I'll be the first to recommend that normal people switch to it. But it's not easy, and the world is…

This sounds a hell lot like changing the goal posts.

No, plenty of us have been saying this for a long time. Here is a HN post from 5 years ago where I say:

“even if it's only ever used for politically sensitive transactions, and it never takes off as a consumer payment service, it will be a very big economy” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5526684#5526972

The goalposts for Bitcoin have always just been “can it sustain its market cap?”

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

#159

Post by ojr »

moduspol wrote: post #89
mchristen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The size of blocks is not core to the algorithm of Bitcoin though. What would you say to the person trying to send $30 only to have $20 of it eaten up in fees? Come back later when you can afford to use Bitcoin?

Use a different cryptocurrency. Seriously. And I'm not trying to be cheeky. If Bitcoin ends up only being a settlement layer, it'll still be a colossal success just being a decentralized, supply-limited, uncensorable, world-accessible payment system and store of value. If someone else solves the scaling debacle better, I'll be the first to recommend that normal people switch to it. But it's not easy, and the world is…

the velocity of money increases price, look at how the price of litecoin is rising when bitcoin mempool is congested, if Coinbase didnt play politics, Bitcoin Cash will be pumping right now too, decentralized exchanges are coming though in the coming years it will change the whole market dynamic

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

#160

Post by jiggunjer »

busyra wrote: post #138

Off Topic: Is anyone else creeped out by having an open ledger? As soon as I transact with someone or an entity, they now have access to view my wallet's holding/transactions via pub key. I don't know how I feel about Overstock having that information.

You never use the same address twice. scatter received coins over other addresses.
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