Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily. Bags of grain or N cows did not do transactions well. Yet they were successful as currencies for millennia.
times have changed since...
They have, and we have bitcoins instead of bags of grain.
Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?
471–480 of 501 posts
Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?
#472Quantum computation will prove much more about the limitations of these cryptocurrencies that we expect.
#shorsalgorithm
Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?
#473Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a problem that hasn't been solved (yet). That shouldn't diminish all the other things that BTC does successfully.
When the correct answer is “bitcoin“, what is the question? I genuinely, genuinely, don’t see any task for which it is the best solution — not even for anonymous online payments or secret ways to store wealth.
"what is the most well tested and carefully developed payment system today that allows me to have complete control of my funds without having to trust any third party?"
Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
The number I've seen is about 1 gigawatt, +- 50%. That's about one big power plant. It could be worse. Bitcoin mining is centralized in mining centers running custom ASICs, mostly located in cold areas with cheap hydroelectric power. That wasn't the original plan. If Bitcoin mining was widely distributed, we could have a billion laptops mining in the background. Laptops running 24/7, wearing out their ICs through ele…
They're not running in places with cheap hydroelectric. It's cheap coal. It's all coal. https://qz.com/1054805/what-its-like-working-at-a-sprawling-...
In Sichuan it's at least partly hydroelectric. In northern China it's probably mostly coal. People mine in other places, too, even here in Shenzhen.
Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The barrier to entry is low. The barrier to mass adoption is high. Bitcoin is winning that war handily compared to any other cryptocurrency. There are definitely flaws with Bitcoin that will need to be ironed out, but the world's most elegant cryptocurrency is useless if no one has heard of it or uses it. First mover and marketing often trumps technological advantage. A non-techie doesn't care about Ethereum or Monero, but they do care about Bitcoin when the news is talking about how valuable it is everyday. Bitcoin is changing the mindset of what money is to the masses, this can't be said for other cryptocurrencies.
Perhaps Bitcoin will fail at some point in the distant future, but for the time being it is absolutely the most influential cryptocurrency, this can easily be seen by all altcoins' value being pegged to their BTC conversion rate.
Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bitcoin cash is still that.
For those who don't know, Bitcoin forked into 1 "new" Bitcoin (kept the name, changed the model from currency to speculative asset), and 2 Bitcoin Cash, that continued development along the original crypto- currency design. https://www.investopedia.com/tech/bitcoin-vs-bitcoin-cash-wh...
This is not accurate at all
Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who is going to pay you for your Dogecoin if no one wants to hold them?
Who's going to work for USD if no one wants to hold them?
No one, but that's an irrelevant hypothetical because people do want to hold them and that's unlikely to change. Even if people in the US did want to get paid in a different currency, they would still need some USD to pay their tax bill.
Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?
#478Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is certifiable.
I mean from an end user perspective maybe but it's always been an auction where you can buy yourself priority. Nothing has really changed except now there are more people bidding higher.
The thing that has changed is that the supply has been artificially limited where as before there was ample supply.
Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?
#479Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bitcoin Unlimited is successfully testing 1GB blocks: https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-unlimited-reveals-gigablock... As I already wrote what matters is propagation between miners which is already very fast, even according your own link, which examins propagation throughout the network as a whole not between miners specifically.
This news article doesn’t tell me anything other than if you have a few state of the art computers geographically close all connected to a state of the art internet connection they will maybe be capable of mining 1gb blocks. If that’s your idea of research, best of luck to bcash.
> bcash
triggered
Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?
#480Earlier quoted context omitted.
What Bitcoin does absolutely is impressive, just not in terms of transaction volume. Comparing it to a rails app is pointless. If we can improve the transaction rate without risk, then let’s do it. It just gets tiring seeing post after post suggesting it’s a valueless failure if it can’t be used for coffee. Let’s just keep it in perspective. It doesn’t need to supplant Visa to be successful.
The entire purpose is to replace fiat. It’s objectively a failure if you can’t buy coffee with it.
It is to replace central bank control of the money supply (which happens to be fiat).