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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?

#321

Post by FireBeyond »

xorcist wrote: post #317
FireBeyond wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do not think that people who invested a lot in this didn't think this through at least as much as you have. Yeah, it's not like I can go on to /r/bitcoin and read multiple dedicated screeds along the lines of "I'm recommending my friends to invest savings in BTC for retirement". Whereupon someone replies "They should keep something in a Roth IRA for diversity", and the OP comments, "What's a Roth IRA?" Yes, there a…

Is the argument that you think Reddit users are representative of Bitcoin investors? Most of the time it feels like these discussions are stuck rehashing old arguments in circles, but this was truly innovative. Thank you for not being predictable. As for the argument itself, I think you are correct not to make any investment decisions based on what you described.

With 520,000 subscribers, is your argument that Reddit is -not- a statistically notable segment of Bitcoin investors?

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

#322

Post by tymmc »

puranjay wrote: post #101
thatcat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say stop storing your spending money as btc, it's an asset not cash. Can you liquidate your 30$ peice of gold in < 4 hours for market value? Probably not.

Yes, a "currency" should be treated as an asset, not cash. The pro-BTC arguments are becoming absolutely inane

It's classic goalpost-moving.

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

#323

Post by etr-strike »

theWatcher37 wrote: post #291
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…

The lighting network completely undermines the entire purpose of bitcoin, and blockstreams seeming desire to sabotage bitcoin for daily use coincides suspiciously with their outside “investment”. If you read the original bitcoin white paper it is clearly evident that the purpose of bitcoin was as a currency. These insane fees, wait times, and rediculous technical decisions by core have made it such that bitcoin is be…

Yea, no. Lightning network still depends on the bitcoin network. All it means is any two parties can transact off chain and settle up later. Not sure what the problem is.

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

#324

Post by djhworld »

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…

It makes me a bit sad the way bitcoin has gone, I remember buying things with BTC a few years ago.

Some sites even built "order status" page that gave direct feedback of the transaction e.g. confirmations. I thought that was really cool.

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

#325

Post by Symbiote »

lawn wrote: post #208
runeks wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe most mining operations make use of hydro-electric power, simply because it’s much cheaper than burning off coal.

Also practically free hydro-electric power which would otherwise be wasted.

That's not true at all. If the power were not used by Bitcoin miners, it would be used by other industries, and less more-expensive (coal etc) power produced by other power plants.

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

#326

Post by gruez »

Bombthecat wrote: post #186
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,…

Dude, It literally stopped accepting transactions. After 72 hours your transaction is dropped. Without further notice. Until then you must guess if it was processed or not.

not really. by default, bitcoin core rebroadcasts your uncofirmed transactions periodically (not sure about the other clients). so as long as your client is open once every 72 hours, it won't disappear from the mempool. whether it gets confirmed is another story.

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

#327

Post by etr-strike »

jondubois wrote: post #286
etr-strike wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The lightning network is not a decentralized solution. It gives more power/trust to a few large exchanges.

How is allowing two parties to transact off chain, and settle up later on chain, not a decentralized solution?

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

#328

Post by etr-strike »

rspeer wrote: post #202
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…

20 entire transactions per second? Amazing! Who has ever heard of software that could do 20 things in a second?

I don’t think I ever claimed 20 t/s was sufficient. Just pointing out the throughput has increased by an order of magnitude and there is a tremendous amount of ongoing innovation in this space.

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

#330

Post by tymmc »

Klinky wrote: post #90
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my thought as well, and I don't understand why it isn't more commonly stated. The sheer chances that the very first implementation of this technology turns out to not only be viable for long-term success, but is actually adopted as such, seems extraordinarily low. There's what I call the "football" effect. The player jumps on the football after a fumble, and while he's the first to grab it, there's a handful…

There's also something called "first mover advantage", which kind of contradicts your "football effect". There have been a ton of altcoins created, none of which have crushed Bitcoin. Bitcoin is still holding on to the football quite handily.

I'm personally skeptical that incumbency is a significant advantage, particularly given that Bitcoin now is impractical to use directly for most transactions. If your transactions are being done off the blockchain and it's trivial to switch to denominating them in a non-Bitcoin currency, and there's no particularly strong reason for people to accept Bitcoin as payment over a different currency, what's the barrier to entry for a new crypto-currency?
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