Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by mungojelly » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:32 AM UTC

badminton1 wrote: post #16

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.

Common sense does tell you that, but knowledge of computer science tells you otherwise (and of course where it contradicts common sense is the only place science is useful). The appending grows linearly, the price of storage falls exponentially, so storage wins in the end (regardless of the multipliers). Too bad really, as it would be more interesting if chains got too heavy and we had to constantly switch to new ones.

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

#42

Post by nikkwong » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:33 AM UTC

moondev wrote: post #30

badminton1 wrote: post #16

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.

Dosen't the blockchain already compact? Correct me if i'm wrong but once a block is hashed and confirmed as the most recent block, why would you need to store the previous blocks?

Full nodes must store the hashes that are generated from previous blocks. If they didn't, how would you know that the most recent hash really is the generated as a result of hashing the previous block recursively? A malicious attacker could forge a previous block, act as the next one is the current block based on the hash of the forged block, and there would be no way to verify that the hash of this block is valid or invalid.

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

#43

Post by garmaine » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:35 AM UTC

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #26

TD-Linux wrote: post #3

I don't know what you mean by "prove". People have known about the block size limit for years. It's been increased, but most haven't updated their software to make use of it yet. Lightning now works on mainnet, but no one is using that either. Maybe it's more proof that no one cares?

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.

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

#44

Post by badminton1 » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:37 AM UTC

gt_ wrote: post #39

zhte415 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash is decentralised.

In America, cash production is only legally done by one centralized entity, and it is done by them on a regular basis. As far as I know, this holds true in all developed nations.

However, let's say I run a dollar store. Can I afford to do an exhaustive verification for every dollar I receive? maybe not.

There are security features built into each bill that help me establishing if it's legit or not, that I can do myself without third parties.

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

#45

Post by ericsoderstrom » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:38 AM UTC

People now envision bitcoin as 'store of value', and less like an actual currency. I imagine there are many technical and financial reasons why it will never be suitable as a currency. (Deflationary by design, technical limitations on size of blocks leading to slowness of transactions)

Does being unsuitable as a currency mean it's also unsuitable as a 'store of value'? The answer to that isn't obvious to me.

The value of the US dollar comes in part from our ability to pay taxes with it (and perhaps ultimately from the US military). Cryptocurrency has no central authority to enforce its value via taxes or military, and isn't particularly suitable for day-to-day transactions. Without either of those properties, I have a hard to imagining it being a particularly good store of value. But we'll see. I think we're all watching an interesting experiment unfold in real time.

I don't think the current price of btc has anything to do with whatever utility it may or may not have as a currency or store of value. The price is entirely informed by speculators hoping to sell it the following day for 100% ROI. I think a collapse is inevitable.

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

#46

Post by garmaine » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:39 AM UTC

asddkk wrote: post #29

badminton1 wrote: post #16

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.

This has always seemed to me to be the elephant in the room to me. I brought this up with some ethereum devs at one point in a forum a year or two ago, and they addressed the questions pretty openly and graciously, but I still wonder about it. Essentially, they talked about the presumption of branches, subchains, etc. When that happens it seems the system would be a little more complicated than the classic crypto-lib…

Lightning allows instantaneous and cheap payments without the need to hit the chain. Mimblewimble allows for pruning of block chain history down to a few dozen bytes per historical transaction in the limit. If it is still an issue then at some point we could decide to checkpoint the UTXO set of a block sufficiently buried in the past (say, 1+ year) and just sync from there.

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

#47

Post by runeks » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:40 AM UTC

barnacs wrote: post #36

> How is this expected to work with 7 billion people using it for every tiny financial transaction? https://lightning.network/ tl;dr: a network of off-chain, transitive payment channels. two on-chain transactions (to fund and settle channel) allow for ~unlimited, ~free, ~instant transactions across a p2p network of nodes off-chain

Payment channels (which Lightning Network uses) allows for unlimited transactions, but not an unlimited number of users, because — as you say — two on-chain transactions (deposit+withdrawal) are required to initiate and finalize a transfer. Given that the Bitcoin blockchain can only handle ~20M transaction per month, this means only 20M people can deposit to/withdraw from the Lightning Network (LN) per month.

To this critique, some reply that merchants will just start trading unsettled (off-chain) LN transactions to pay their suppliers, but no one has presented any model of how this would work in a real economy, with merchants needing to pay suppliers, who need to pay their suppliers, who need to pay their employees.

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

#48

Post by tarsinge » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:41 AM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #21

I don't think you're wrong and there are other problems too. Widespread Bitcoin adoption would require more energy for mining coins than the entire world can currently produce.

How is energy consumption correlated to adoption? Thought it was the result of the mining “competition”, as the difficulty adjusts to the mining power

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

#49

Post by xg15 » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:41 AM UTC

TD-Linux wrote: post #3

I don't know what you mean by "prove". People have known about the block size limit for years. It's been increased, but most haven't updated their software to make use of it yet. Lightning now works on mainnet, but no one is using that either. Maybe it's more proof that no one cares?

"No one cares" is interesting.

That's as if there was a frenzy to buy a new brand of car and no-one cared that the cars' engines actually break down after 50 meters.

That being said, I think it's true - but it's a hint that the current "mass adoption" is mainly fueled by speculators and not by people who genuinely believe in it's purpose as a currency.

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

#50

Post by thanatropism » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:42 AM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #38

soyboysam wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I stopped mentioning my parents the same time I moved out of my childhood room.

I moved out of my childhood's room but still have an active conversation (if by WhatsApp only) with the folks. We have been discussing Israel a lot this week, for example.

You should appreciate your parents while they're there, they are finite beings.