5 ms·

Doesn't taking an hour or more to confirm a transaction basically make bitcoin useless for any real-time transactions ( buying something at a shopping mall, buy

by fmax30 9y ago

Doesn't taking an hour or more to confirm a transaction basically make bitcoin useless for any real-time transactions ( buying something at a shopping mall, buying fast food/coffee etc) This makes bitcoin much less useful in my personal opinion.

cyphar 9y ago
That's not the worst of it. The transaction fee is enormous, something like ~$5 and is even larger if you consider the amount of wasted mining power trying to mint a new block (that number peaked at ~$100 per transaction a year ago). IMO we really should be pushing for GNU Taler, which is a system that doesn't have proof of work, is confirmed effectively immediately, and has many more privacy properties similar to cash. It works by having a mint sell customers coins (using whatever standard method of payment you like), the customer spends coins on merchants and then the merchants can redeem the coins for "real" money. In particular, customers cannot be identified (nor can their transaction history) but merchants' income can be identified (for tax reasons). As the system doesn't require proof-of-work the speed problem is massively reduced as well as the transaction cost.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  Taler isn't a decentralized currency though, so what's the point? It doesn't seem much better than using a credit card, but at least my credit card is already accepted everywhere.
  - cyphar 9y ago
    Your credit card has a history of all of your transactions (and we know that data is used to profile you). Taler makes it so that your transaction history is private. In addition, Taler is _federated_ not fully decentralised. It works basically how cash works, except you don't need to be a new country to set up a new currency. In order for a particular mint's cash to be spent you only need that mint to be around. I don't get why "decentralised or bust" is the end goal. Federation with individual privacy is still an improvement over centralised credit card companies. Also, like it or not, but Taler has much better privacy guarantees than BitCoin.
dmix 9y ago
In practice this is not really a problem. This is assuming retail stores will wait for 6 confirmations to get 100% assurance in the blockchain. Many retail stores take a certain level of risk with all plastic/digital transactions currently with credit/debit cards. I doubt many would see much utility in waiting for more than 1 confirmation, considering the difficulty involved in faking one and the lack of real stories of this 'scam' actually happening. Especially for low-margin sales like coffee, food, or other sub-$100 transactions. As with any scam of this nature it will likely involve side-step the crypto system somehow (ie, target the mobile apps used for PoS) rather than breaking the blockchain confirmation scheme directly.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  It is really a problem. Because of the stochastic nature of block finding, assuming that the transaction is slated to go into the next block (which likely isn't true anymore unless it has high fees), it can still sometimes take an hour or more for the next block to be found. The average is 10 minutes, but it's a Poisson distribution, with a long tail to the right. We really need Lightning Network, which segwit enables. That allows near-instantaneous (with only network propagation delays) transactions.
cjlars 9y ago
In it's current state, I'd argue bitcoin competes more with large bank wires than credit card or paypal transactions. Bank wires usually carry a $25 fee and take a few hours. Bitcoin, disregarding the relative technical difficulty of it all, is similar. The key thing is that bitcoin transactions are not reported to the government -- very helpful if you're desperate to move a large amount of cash out from a country with heavy currency controls like China or Venezuela.
dk8996 9y ago
I agree, this one of the bigger problems, in the short-term, that Bitcoin is facing. Moreover, faster and cheaper transactions is some of the benefits that Bitcoin is proposing.

by fmax30 9y ago

cyphar 9y ago

That's not the worst of it. The transaction fee is enormous, something like ~$5 and is even larger if you consider the amount of wasted mining power trying to mint a new block (that number peaked at ~$100 per transaction a year ago). IMO we really should be pushing for GNU Taler, which is a system that doesn't have proof of work, is confirmed effectively immediately, and has many more privacy properties similar to cash. It works by having a mint sell customers coins (using whatever standard method of payment you like), the customer spends coins on merchants and then the merchants can redeem the coins for "real" money. In particular, customers cannot be identified (nor can their transaction history) but merchants' income can be identified (for tax reasons). As the system doesn't require proof-of-work the speed problem is massively reduced as well as the transaction cost.

CydeWeys 9y ago
Taler isn't a decentralized currency though, so what's the point? It doesn't seem much better than using a credit card, but at least my credit card is already accepted everywhere.
- cyphar 9y ago
  Your credit card has a history of all of your transactions (and we know that data is used to profile you). Taler makes it so that your transaction history is private. In addition, Taler is _federated_ not fully decentralised. It works basically how cash works, except you don't need to be a new country to set up a new currency. In order for a particular mint's cash to be spent you only need that mint to be around. I don't get why "decentralised or bust" is the end goal. Federation with individual privacy is still an improvement over centralised credit card companies. Also, like it or not, but Taler has much better privacy guarantees than BitCoin.

dmix 9y ago

In practice this is not really a problem. This is assuming retail stores will wait for 6 confirmations to get 100% assurance in the blockchain. Many retail stores take a certain level of risk with all plastic/digital transactions currently with credit/debit cards. I doubt many would see much utility in waiting for more than 1 confirmation, considering the difficulty involved in faking one and the lack of real stories of this 'scam' actually happening. Especially for low-margin sales like coffee, food, or other sub-$100 transactions. As with any scam of this nature it will likely involve side-step the crypto system somehow (ie, target the mobile apps used for PoS) rather than breaking the blockchain confirmation scheme directly.

CydeWeys 9y ago
It is really a problem. Because of the stochastic nature of block finding, assuming that the transaction is slated to go into the next block (which likely isn't true anymore unless it has high fees), it can still sometimes take an hour or more for the next block to be found. The average is 10 minutes, but it's a Poisson distribution, with a long tail to the right. We really need Lightning Network, which segwit enables. That allows near-instantaneous (with only network propagation delays) transactions.

cjlars 9y ago

In it's current state, I'd argue bitcoin competes more with large bank wires than credit card or paypal transactions. Bank wires usually carry a $25 fee and take a few hours. Bitcoin, disregarding the relative technical difficulty of it all, is similar. The key thing is that bitcoin transactions are not reported to the government -- very helpful if you're desperate to move a large amount of cash out from a country with heavy currency controls like China or Venezuela.

dk8996 9y ago

I agree, this one of the bigger problems, in the short-term, that Bitcoin is facing. Moreover, faster and cheaper transactions is some of the benefits that Bitcoin is proposing.