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Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling

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Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling

#61

Post by kbaker »

petertodd wrote: post #44
kbaker wrote: post #17

Warning for those who are not following this debate closely: This is an incredibly polarizing discussion. Approach all comments and articles posted about this subject carefully. Though I'd like to try and provide a summary for people who don't know what's going on. Bitcoin desperately needs to scale to handle higher transaction demand. It can take multiple hours for transactions to be confirmed, and due to the demand…

> It can take multiple hours for transactions to be confirmed, and due to the demand, fees are high ($2-3 per transaction for fast confirmation.) The idea that Bitcoin's high transaction demand makes transactions slow is a serious misconception. Bitcoin transaction fees are a supply and demand system, and each transaction you send is a bid for the limited supply of blockchain space. If you place a sufficiently high b…

I guess I was meaning more work has to be done on the wallet software side to make sure fees get adjusted correctly and that this is explained clearly. With new users this can be a point of confusion, sometimes for a new user it is hard to connect the dots between checking the "low fee!" box where your transaction may not happen for hours or days. Or users collecting a lot of dust transactions from a faucet or something then having no way to move them.

But I definitely agree that it is working 'as designed' at the moment, and actually handling the situation of high demand reasonably well. And I can't wait for new technologies to become available on top of BTC for innovation at a global scale.

BTW thanks for all the work you have done with Bitcoin, I hope you have been able to stay above the fray on this issue for the most part.

Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling

#62

Post by thefalcon »

Meekro wrote: post #48
kbaker wrote: post #17

Warning for those who are not following this debate closely: This is an incredibly polarizing discussion. Approach all comments and articles posted about this subject carefully. Though I'd like to try and provide a summary for people who don't know what's going on. Bitcoin desperately needs to scale to handle higher transaction demand. It can take multiple hours for transactions to be confirmed, and due to the demand…

The saddest part of this whole thing to me is how it has destroyed the bitcoin community. Just a few years ago, we were close-knit and friendly. We loved "to the mooon!" memes every time the price rose. Every new business accepting bitcoin was an excuse to throw a party. We organized meetups and talked tech and wrote wild essays about what it would take to replace government-backed currencies across the world. We wer…

I find the various communities to be sharply divided, yes, but only some of them are heavily moderated. On the other side, you just get downvoted into oblivion if you disagree - but at least your comment isn't hidden from those who seek it out. I agree that it takes the fun out of things.

Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling

#63

Post by dwaltrip »

nicky0 wrote: post #9
Analemma_ wrote: post #8

To people entering this comment section: if you're not totally caught up on this debate and only have a passing interest in Bitcoin-- leave now, there's nothing for you here. This thread is going to be a lot of sound and fury from the two sides of the civil war, and little else.

I occasionally dip in to r/bitcoin and am repeatedly baffled by the whole debate; both in its inscrutability and the level of (let's say) "passion" exhibited. Still I have no real clue of the issues.

There is a good number of early bitcoin enthusiasts who have found great solace in the supposed mathematical and technical "purity" that bitcoin offers. They perceive undesired changes to be almost sacrilege, destroying this one island of purity in a dark world.

They will often assert strongly that certain claims are undeniably true from a technical perspective, without stating the large number of assumptions inherent to the conceptual framework they use to make such claims.

Many would argue that their assumptions are not all obviously reasonable, yet rarely does the discussion even manage to broach these underlying aspects.

Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling

#64

Post by solotronics »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #34

I have no horse in this race. I don't own any BTC. What I find fascinating about Bitcoin is how completely unapproachable it is. All of this technical bullshit is too much for a layperson, let alone an uninterested developer. If you want normal people to use this as a meaningful currency, the currency has to just work. So far Bitcoin has proven to me over and over again that it just doesn't work. What the fuck is "Em…

this is the point where you leave the decision making up to those that fully understand. Just because you don't understand how something works doesn't mean its not useful. Do you know exactly how the internet works? probably not. Do most people understand exactly how dollars come into creation? no. Are these things valuable? yes.

Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling

#65

Post by Rmilb »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #34

I have no horse in this race. I don't own any BTC. What I find fascinating about Bitcoin is how completely unapproachable it is. All of this technical bullshit is too much for a layperson, let alone an uninterested developer. If you want normal people to use this as a meaningful currency, the currency has to just work. So far Bitcoin has proven to me over and over again that it just doesn't work. What the fuck is "Em…

As a lay person they shouldn't care unless it solves a problem they have. It is only too much for a layperson until bitcoin is a good answer for the problem they have. From women in Saudi Arabia who cannot own bank accounts, to the people of Argentina and Venezuela who are desperate to move their wealth into another asset, bitcoin still offers them an answer despite its great volatility.

One bitcoin is worth more than the current world reserve currency because the market demands it. Even if it is mostly speculators with cheap money that flows from all of the central banks printing it and offering negative interest rates.

Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling

#68

Post by Meekro »

thefalcon wrote: post #62
Meekro wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The saddest part of this whole thing to me is how it has destroyed the bitcoin community. Just a few years ago, we were close-knit and friendly. We loved "to the mooon!" memes every time the price rose. Every new business accepting bitcoin was an excuse to throw a party. We organized meetups and talked tech and wrote wild essays about what it would take to replace government-backed currencies across the world. We wer…

I find the various communities to be sharply divided, yes, but only some of them are heavily moderated. On the other side, you just get downvoted into oblivion if you disagree - but at least your comment isn't hidden from those who seek it out. I agree that it takes the fun out of things.

You're very right, and it still sucks. I wish we had a bitcoin community that was less like reddit and more like HN: well-reasoned submissions and replies and moon jokes (we are bitcoiners after all) from everyone are welcome, trolling and flamewars heavily moderated.

Re: Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling

#70

Post by 6nf »

xorcist wrote: post #47
r1ch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Segwit is an complicated and large code change that fundamentally alters the bitcoin protocol to solve a problem that can instead be fixed by adding: if (blocknumber > 500000) maxblocksize = 8000000;

That suggestion has been put forward a number of times since the limit was put in place. One problem with that is that it is a backwards incompatible change so there need to be some signalling mechanism in place to ensure the rule change takes place at the same block height for every node. The logic would need to have been put in years before it activates. A more longer term problem is the governance problems it enta…

> The logic would need to have been put in years before it activates.

But we HAD years to do this. Why didn't we do it?

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