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The problem both sides are trying to solve is that the system as a whole cannot handle the volume of transactions. Before the split, bitcoin handled 7 transacti

The problem both sides are trying to solve is that the system as a whole cannot handle the volume of transactions. Before the split, bitcoin handled 7 transactions per second, while Visa handles 50,000 transactions per second (I'm worrying these numbers from memory, so they might be wildly inaccurate). Bitcoin Cash solves this with a larger block size. This is admittedly a short-term solution. Bitcoin main, on the other hand, is moving toward SegWit, which introduces third-party middlemen. Service providers like Coinbase want this, because they get to be the middlemen. But critically, SegWit breaks the only long-term advantage Bitcoin currently has over Visa. SegWit isn't decentralized. Bitcoin with SegWit still isn't as fast as Visa, so if you don't need decentralization then you should just use Visa. The only people who benefit from bitcoin with SegWit are the middlemen. Decentralization is bitcoin's core value proposition. If you give that up to solve the scaling problem, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I don't know the long term solution to bitcoin's scaling problem, but I do know that I'm not interested in a centralized cryptocurrency.

3pt14159 9y ago
The important distinction with SegWit is that you can always go "on blockchain" to keep a transaction really private if it needs to be. Liquidity + optional complete anonymity + scalability. Plus I think there will be ways of getting SegWit to be more anon over time. Bitcoin cash's solution will not scale. It's probably going to fail. [90% confidence.]
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  Sure, if you're willing to pay on-blockchain fees, which are only going up given a constant block size. Neither option provides anonymity, so that's fairly irrelevant to this conversation. SegWit claims of future anonymity may come true, but given it's antithetical to a centralized business model, I wouldn't hold my breath.
3pt14159 9y ago
The important distinction with SegWit is that you can always go "on blockchain" to keep a transaction really private if it needs to be. Liquidity + optional complete anonymity + scalability. Plus I think there will be ways of getting SegWit to be more anon over time. Bitcoin cash's solution will not scale. It's probably going to fail. [90% confidence.]
kerkeslager 9y ago
I'll add to this that Coinbase freezing everyone's Bitcoin Cash is a great example of the problems with giving up decentralization.
- onewaystreet 9y ago
  Coinbase warned people for a month that they wouldn't support Bitcoin Cash.
  - Noted 9y ago
    I thought they made the announcement 10 days before the fork, not a month.
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    I'm not sure why you are saying this as if you're defending Coinbase. Warning someone you're going to seize their assets a month in advance doesn't make it any better for them when their assets get seized. I'm not saying Coinbase is somehow ethically wrong for doing this, I'm saying that one benefit of decentralization is that no one can seize your assets.
MichaelGG 9y ago
And then muddying the waters is the argument that larger blocks are going to centralize it because poorer people won't be able to run a full node in their homes. (Versus paying $10 for a VPS to do so.) Conveniently ignoring that no one wants to run a full node for a settlement layer between big financial companies. But further screwing it up is ASICBoost, which isn't compatible with other proposals like Segwit. That allows the small block folks to accuse the miners of opposing changes only for financial gain. Sure, something needs to give. A transaction is about 225 bytes for the common case. So doing even 1000/sec means around 1.8Mbps (plus overhead) just to get the flow of transactions.
- kijin 9y ago
  > So doing even 1000/sec means around 1.8Mbps (plus overhead) just to get the flow of transactions. Huh, maybe we should come up with a cryptocurrency where you are awarded new blocks for the storage and bandwidth you contribute to the effort, rather than for how many hashes you can calculate per second. After all, if we're hoping to handling transactions on the scale of Visa, and we don't like centralization, we need to think about decentralized storage of all that information sooner or later. SegWit might not be the perfect answer, but you can't keep requiring everyone to store every transaction that ever happened. We need a solution that is both distributed and publicly verifiable. Something like IPFS comes to mind. And in order to incentivize people to contribute storage and bandwidth, there would have to be a way to reward those who do so. I think this would be much more useful than the current situation where we basically reward people for wasting a lot of energy.
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
    They don't need to store everything. All that's needed is the list of addresses and balances (UTXOs), and the last few blocks. A hash chain of 10 years of 10 minute blocks is only a few MB, so it should be something we can distribute reliably. UTXOs are a couple GB but will grow.
    - rmah 9y ago
      There are no balances in bitcoin. It's all deltas.
runeks 9y ago
> Bitcoin main, on the other hand, is moving toward SegWit, which introduces third-party middlemen. SegWit does not introduce third party middlemen. SegWit is just a different way to calculate the transaction hash that needs to be signed, such that it doesn’t include the signature script. This was arguably the way it should have been all along, since the signature script itself isn’t signed (it contains the signature). This means bypassers can modify it without invalidating the modified transaction (if they don’t touch the actual signature data but only add e.g. a NO_OP opcode).
hackinthebochs 9y ago
I don't see how segwit is giving up decentralization at all. Decentralization isn't binary. There will be many many providers that can offer more streamlined and user friendly access to bitcoin. That's decentralization. You will still have the option of interacting with the blockchain directly. That's decentralization.
lend000 9y ago
You are confusing Segwit with Lightning network. Segwit is just a version that optimizes transactions. It's an extension of an unused opcode from the previous version, allowing previous nodes to view Segwit blocks as compatible, therefore only requiring a "soft-fork." Pro-Segwit people tend to be pro-Lightning, since it is not feasible to validate Visa-scale transactions in such an inefficient, centralized manner. This camp views Bitcoin more as a user-controlled store of value/bank account, still requiring a hierarchy of processors to handle day-to-day transactions.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
niahmiah 9y ago
You confused Segwit with Lightning Network. Segwit only helps to enable Lightning Network. It is not required for LN.

3pt14159 9y ago

The important distinction with SegWit is that you can always go "on blockchain" to keep a transaction really private if it needs to be. Liquidity + optional complete anonymity + scalability. Plus I think there will be ways of getting SegWit to be more anon over time. Bitcoin cash's solution will not scale. It's probably going to fail. [90% confidence.]

kerkeslager 9y ago
Sure, if you're willing to pay on-blockchain fees, which are only going up given a constant block size. Neither option provides anonymity, so that's fairly irrelevant to this conversation. SegWit claims of future anonymity may come true, but given it's antithetical to a centralized business model, I wouldn't hold my breath.

3pt14159 9y ago

kerkeslager 9y ago

I'll add to this that Coinbase freezing everyone's Bitcoin Cash is a great example of the problems with giving up decentralization.

onewaystreet 9y ago
Coinbase warned people for a month that they wouldn't support Bitcoin Cash.
- Noted 9y ago
  I thought they made the announcement 10 days before the fork, not a month.
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  I'm not sure why you are saying this as if you're defending Coinbase. Warning someone you're going to seize their assets a month in advance doesn't make it any better for them when their assets get seized. I'm not saying Coinbase is somehow ethically wrong for doing this, I'm saying that one benefit of decentralization is that no one can seize your assets.

MichaelGG 9y ago

And then muddying the waters is the argument that larger blocks are going to centralize it because poorer people won't be able to run a full node in their homes. (Versus paying $10 for a VPS to do so.) Conveniently ignoring that no one wants to run a full node for a settlement layer between big financial companies. But further screwing it up is ASICBoost, which isn't compatible with other proposals like Segwit. That allows the small block folks to accuse the miners of opposing changes only for financial gain. Sure, something needs to give. A transaction is about 225 bytes for the common case. So doing even 1000/sec means around 1.8Mbps (plus overhead) just to get the flow of transactions.

kijin 9y ago
> So doing even 1000/sec means around 1.8Mbps (plus overhead) just to get the flow of transactions. Huh, maybe we should come up with a cryptocurrency where you are awarded new blocks for the storage and bandwidth you contribute to the effort, rather than for how many hashes you can calculate per second. After all, if we're hoping to handling transactions on the scale of Visa, and we don't like centralization, we need to think about decentralized storage of all that information sooner or later. SegWit might not be the perfect answer, but you can't keep requiring everyone to store every transaction that ever happened. We need a solution that is both distributed and publicly verifiable. Something like IPFS comes to mind. And in order to incentivize people to contribute storage and bandwidth, there would have to be a way to reward those who do so. I think this would be much more useful than the current situation where we basically reward people for wasting a lot of energy.
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  They don't need to store everything. All that's needed is the list of addresses and balances (UTXOs), and the last few blocks. A hash chain of 10 years of 10 minute blocks is only a few MB, so it should be something we can distribute reliably. UTXOs are a couple GB but will grow.
  - rmah 9y ago
    There are no balances in bitcoin. It's all deltas.

runeks 9y ago

> Bitcoin main, on the other hand, is moving toward SegWit, which introduces third-party middlemen. SegWit does not introduce third party middlemen. SegWit is just a different way to calculate the transaction hash that needs to be signed, such that it doesn’t include the signature script. This was arguably the way it should have been all along, since the signature script itself isn’t signed (it contains the signature). This means bypassers can modify it without invalidating the modified transaction (if they don’t touch the actual signature data but only add e.g. a NO_OP opcode).

hackinthebochs 9y ago

I don't see how segwit is giving up decentralization at all. Decentralization isn't binary. There will be many many providers that can offer more streamlined and user friendly access to bitcoin. That's decentralization. You will still have the option of interacting with the blockchain directly. That's decentralization.

lend000 9y ago

You are confusing Segwit with Lightning network. Segwit is just a version that optimizes transactions. It's an extension of an unused opcode from the previous version, allowing previous nodes to view Segwit blocks as compatible, therefore only requiring a "soft-fork." Pro-Segwit people tend to be pro-Lightning, since it is not feasible to validate Visa-scale transactions in such an inefficient, centralized manner. This camp views Bitcoin more as a user-controlled store of value/bank account, still requiring a hierarchy of processors to handle day-to-day transactions.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

niahmiah 9y ago

You confused Segwit with Lightning Network. Segwit only helps to enable Lightning Network. It is not required for LN.