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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?

#251

Post by adangert »

Many say that Bitcoin's primary use is a store of value and a horrible medium of exchange. In that light, being unable to make small transactions makes sense, you store your wealth in Bitcoin and leave it there, kind of like a savings account, the high fees and slow transactions don't matter because you are not moving funds. High fees also reduce the amount of transactions in kind of an equilibrium,the higher fees go, the less people are willing to transact, thus lowering fees to the point of usability.

The other camp that wants to use Bitcoin for small transactions is either in the illusory lightning network camp, or more realisticly investing in bitcoin cash. In my opinion, bitcoin has proven itself to be a great store of value but a poor medium of exchange, so just treat it as such.

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

#252

Post by gst »

KirinDave wrote: post #173
gst wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~20M transaction per month are an arbitrary limit. The economic majority recently decided against increasing that limit, but this doesn't mean it's not going to get increased at some later point.

There are very good technical reasons for that limit. It is not as simple a problem as "voting".

Of course there are technical reasons for that limit. But whatever the correct size of the limit is - the current limit is almost certainly too low. The Ethereum blockchain is able to handle a significantly higher amount of transactions without implementing all of the performance optimizations that Bitcoin has (such as compact blocks).

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

#253

Post by pmorici »

mitchellberry wrote: post #243
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.

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?

I would spin up more CPUs. Because changing code in the near term is expensive and hard. Spinning up more CPUs is cheap and easy and ensures my company remains successful while I optimize the algorithm.

Using your analogy Bitcoin Core is saying they are going to shut down Bitcoin service to all new users until they implement a new algorithm that hasn't been proven yet and is still years away from being ready.

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

#254

Post by ascorbic »

adangert wrote: post #251

Many say that Bitcoin's primary use is a store of value and a horrible medium of exchange. In that light, being unable to make small transactions makes sense, you store your wealth in Bitcoin and leave it there, kind of like a savings account, the high fees and slow transactions don't matter because you are not moving funds. High fees also reduce the amount of transactions in kind of an equilibrium,the higher fees go…

Anything that fluctuates in value by 20% of more in a day can't be called a store of value.

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

#255

Post by fooker »

matt4077 wrote: post #166
moduspol wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh it absolutely is. I'll acknowledge that. If Bitcoin is amazing at 7/12 of the things it set out to do, and sticking to those seven will pave the way for the other five to be done by other cryptocurrencies, that's fair to me.

Yeah, well.... It would seem "transactions" should be among the things that a currency does well.

Not necessarily. Bags of grain or N cows did not do transactions well. Yet they were successful as currencies for millennia.

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

#256

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

garmaine wrote: post #43
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm living in a different world than yours. Where I live, it's all different that what you said. The block size hasn't increased. Instead, a new chain forked out with an 8MB block size, it's called Bitcoin cash. Lightning network hasn't launched yet. A few people are testing alpha on the main net and that's it. (Btw I'm a skeptic of lightning network so i'm not advocating lightning network here).

Segwit was a 4x block size increase. Lightning works. You can go download the repo and make apps with it today.

> Segwit was a 4x block size increase.

I am starting to feel like you guys all live in a different earth than me. On the earth I live, SegWit did not increase 4x block size.

> Lightning works. You can go download the repo and make apps with it today.

Everyone I know who has ACTUALLY downloaded and run the node thinks is extremely underwhelmed. I suggest you follow your own advice and go download lightning network client and run it yourself and try to use it and see what happens. Then we can talk.

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

#257

Post by pmorici »

grubles wrote: post #239
pmorici wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about Bitcoin Cash. You must be confused "Bcash" is a fork of zcash that hasn't launched yet.

Didn't you hear there's an existing fork of Bitcoin called Bcash too? This new altcoin you're talking about will have to change their name, because we all know starting an altcoin with the same name as an existing one doesn't go so well.

Either way neither of those "bcash"'s are What I'm talking about Bitcoin Cash. I think you are confused.

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

#258

Post by grubles »

pmorici wrote: post #249
grubles wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bcash is already over-inflated relative to Bitcoin due to its mining algorithm. When the block reward diminishes enough, and fees don't supplant it, Bcash will hard fork to infinite inflation.

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

#259

Post by wildmusings »

KirinDave wrote: post #167
moduspol wrote: post #79

Others here are touching on Bitcoin being like the "1.0" of cryptocurrency, but it's actually a lot more than that. In the public eye, it's a symbol of what cryptocurrencies can be. You're suggesting Bitcoin just proved it can't scale, but it actually just proved it did--just not with transaction volume. The network continued to process transactions averaging one block every ten minutes exactly as it was built to do,…

Bitcoin is a lot of things, and many of them interesting, but suggesting that ~4 t/s is impressive or "scaling" is an insult to kids in high school writing rails apps that can do 100x the volume. We already know at least 2 obvious ways to improve the transaction flow rate of bitcoin in trustless ways, and many others are being proposed that do not also create energy arms races. Please don't redefine success.

I’m not sold on Bitcoin but I don’t agree with your definition of what it needs to be successful. There is no reason that actual bitcoin end-users need to deal directly in bitcoin. If Bitcoin were to ever become a major currency, a big if, there would be financial institutions (banks) issuing instruments (physical or digital notes) backed by real bitcoins held by those institutions. Real bitcoin transactions would be mostly performed between such institutions, or anyone else willing to pay the higher transaction fees. Most people would have their needs perfectly served by relying on bitcoin banks, at least for performing frequent transactions. Though they might very well seek to hold large sums directly in BTC.

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

#260

Post by grubles »

pmorici wrote: post #257
grubles wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't you hear there's an existing fork of Bitcoin called Bcash too? This new altcoin you're talking about will have to change their name, because we all know starting an altcoin with the same name as an existing one doesn't go so well.

Either way neither of those "bcash"'s are What I'm talking about Bitcoin Cash. I think you are confused.

Don't feign ignorance. You know exactly what I'm talking about. :)
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