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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?

#241

Post by scotty79 »

pmorici wrote: post #226
scotty79 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you give a recommended fee it can go as fast as ever.

This is such a silly comment. This is like saying that you have a Bus with 20 seats and 40 people that want to ride. Your advice isn't get a bigger bus it is get to the bus stop earlier. It doesn't matter how early everyone gets there in the end there are only 20 seats.

You are right although I don't fully understand your analogy but bitcoin never guaranteed all transactions will go through because it couldn't because noone could make a system with infinite capacity.

20$ transaction fee is an incentive for the users to restrain themselves to smaller number of larger transfers.

Is the limit too strict? Probably. Miners still get a lot from mining rewards and don't need to be incentivised with fees yet, but there must be some limit that will force people pay for transactions because when mining rewards end there will be nothing to keep miners mining.

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

#242

Post by moduspol »

pmorici wrote: post #229
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…

"Use a different cryptocurrency." I started using Bitcoin Cash instead and I'm loving it. All the good parts about Bitcoin Core w/o the brain dead approach to scaling.

Yep. I expect the fee market alone will drive normal people toward Bitcoin Cash.

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

#243

Post by mitchellberry »

pmorici wrote: post #229
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…

"Use a different cryptocurrency." I started using Bitcoin Cash instead and I'm loving it. All the good parts about Bitcoin Core w/o the brain dead approach to scaling.

If i gave you a search algorithm with a big db then asked if it could done quicker would you prefer to spin up more cpu's or try to improve the algorithm?

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

#244

Post by pmorici »

jeremyjh wrote: post #233
pmorici wrote: post #220

The piece you are missing is that this problem is a direct result of the Core dev teams deliberate choice not to scale. They have a strangle hold on development and vehemently opposed any proposal to scale through block size increases as was the original intent. Bitcoin Cash isn't having these problems and won't have these problems in the future. Many people aren't aware of the underlying issues driving the transacti…

So if we say it “won’t” scale - would that be more accurate? It can, but chooses not to? Seems like a distinction without a difference.

The point is it is a team issue not a tech issue. The team behind Bitcoin Cash which is rooted in the original Bitcoin block chain is scaling Bitcoin w/o issues. The Bitcoin Core team who has control over development of the legacy chain is the problem not the technology itself.

It would be like if there were two auto makers one claimed that you can't make a car that holds more than two people and refused to do so. Along comes another auto maker and builds a bus off the same concept. Doesn't mean that automobile tech is bad it means the team insisting it can't / won't scale is incompetent.

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

#245

Post by grubles »

moduspol wrote: post #242
pmorici wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Use a different cryptocurrency." I started using Bitcoin Cash instead and I'm loving it. All the good parts about Bitcoin Core w/o the brain dead approach to scaling.

Yep. I expect the fee market alone will drive normal people toward Bitcoin Cash.

Dogecoin has much cheaper fees than Bcash and its block confirmation target is around 1 minute -- roughly an order of magnitude cheaper and faster than Bcash.

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

#246

Post by etr-strike »

spookthesunset wrote: post #187
etr-strike wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If proof of stake proves itself to actually work, Bitcoin will adopt it. Migrating a 200 billion dollar network to an untested PoW proposal would be irresponsible. Arbitrarily increasing blocksize without addressing propagation delay and centralization impacts is also irresponsible. Bitcoin has been tirelessly working on the scaling problem in a responsible way. SegWit will allow up to 12t/s. Mimble Wimble and Schnor…

> If proof of stake proves itself to actually work, Bitcoin will adopt it. I wouldn't hold my breath for that. Bitcoin still is having a holy war about increasing the blocksize. One side effect of this whole deal is it shows that it is incredibly hard, if not possible, to change a decentralized system. By its very design, it will be all but impossible to make any breaking changes to bitcoin at this point. > Lightning…

Lightning isn’t vaporware. Follow the project on github, they are very active. Better yet, watch the first lightning transaction happen on mainnet which occurred just last week: https://youtu.be/a73Gz3Tvx3k

With regards to blocksize, the only reason it’s not widely embraced is because it’s known to directly impact propagation delay. One side couldn’t care less about centralization, the other side cares dearly. SegWit was activated, which compresses transaction size and doubles transactions per second without impacting propagation delay. Mimble Wimble and Schnorr signatures are coming soon, which are also soft forks and compress transaction size even further. There’s plenty of change happening that are all very intelligent scaling solutions. Big blocks are not intelligent nor difficult to implement.

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

#247

Post by crispytx »

I think you're right. Bitcoin sucks. It cost around $5 to make a single transaction back in August, and that was when Bitcoin was at 1/3 of its current price in US Dollars. Does anyone know what the cost to make a single transaction is today (in US Dollars)?

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

#248

Post by etr-strike »

KirinDave wrote: post #200
etr-strike wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If proof of stake proves itself to actually work, Bitcoin will adopt it. Migrating a 200 billion dollar network to an untested PoW proposal would be irresponsible. Arbitrarily increasing blocksize without addressing propagation delay and centralization impacts is also irresponsible. Bitcoin has been tirelessly working on the scaling problem in a responsible way. SegWit will allow up to 12t/s. Mimble Wimble and Schnor…

I'll believe any of that will work when people don't cite Satoshi's holy insight as a reason why the block size shouldn't increase.

It shouldn’t increase because simulations of increasing blocksize have demonstrated centralization. If we didn’t care about decentralization we’d just use a database.

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

#249

Post by pmorici »

grubles wrote: post #245
moduspol wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I expect the fee market alone will drive normal people toward Bitcoin Cash.

Dogecoin has much cheaper fees than Bcash and its block confirmation target is around 1 minute -- roughly an order of magnitude cheaper and faster than Bcash.

Doge has unlimited inflation it is nothing like Bitcoin Cash.

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

#250

Post by akvadrako »

spookthesunset wrote: post #187
etr-strike wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If proof of stake proves itself to actually work, Bitcoin will adopt it. Migrating a 200 billion dollar network to an untested PoW proposal would be irresponsible. Arbitrarily increasing blocksize without addressing propagation delay and centralization impacts is also irresponsible. Bitcoin has been tirelessly working on the scaling problem in a responsible way. SegWit will allow up to 12t/s. Mimble Wimble and Schnor…

> If proof of stake proves itself to actually work, Bitcoin will adopt it. I wouldn't hold my breath for that. Bitcoin still is having a holy war about increasing the blocksize. One side effect of this whole deal is it shows that it is incredibly hard, if not possible, to change a decentralized system. By its very design, it will be all but impossible to make any breaking changes to bitcoin at this point. > Lightning…

> I wouldn't hold my breath for that. Bitcoin still is having a holy war about increasing the blocksize.

It doesn't matter - it can fork. And if the fork offers something compelling, it will get used. Even Bitcoin Cash, which is not (very) compelling, is now tradable more than most altcoins.

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