7 ms·

Transaction time and energy inefficiency makes Bitcoin's future not so golden, imo.

python1234 9y ago
This I can agree with after selling some code from bitcoins it can take hours before I get my coins. I'm not sure they can do anything about it at this point.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  You'd probably see similar delays in banking if all banks had to record all their transactions in a central database. It's simply not a scalable system.
  - criddell 9y ago
    But Bitcoin only has a few hundred thousand transactions every day. What database can't handle that small number of transactions?
    - vasilipupkin 9y ago
      Bitcoin is not, in my opinion, a system for transactions. It's essentially a store of value - that's it. If you want quick transactions, you won't do it faster with decentralized than with centralized systems. Decentralized is slower by construction
    - lurker456 9y ago
      bitcoin is a byzantine fault tolerant distributed database, it's performance characteristics are different.
rugffgbv 9y ago
Not only it's slow, but transaction fees are ridiculously high. $4.3 currently. I go to shop and pay $0.5 for 2kg of potatoes (or a bottle of beer), and pay $4.3 fee, and wait 1 hour for confirmations?
- ISL 9y ago
  If you make a consumer trade with Fidelity, the trading fee is $5. For better or worse, Bitcoin has evolved into a financial-scale product, no longer something one would use to buy $0.50 of potatoes. (P.S. $0.50 for 2kg of potatoes or a bottle of beer? both of those are a great deal)
  - prostoalex 9y ago
    > Bitcoin has evolved into a financial-scale product, no longer something one would use to buy $0.50 of potatoes. Well, before "evolving" so elegantly it was pitched as a replacement to credit/debit card systems (which would charge a whole lot less for a basic $10 transaction), and prior to that as a final answer to micropayments on the Web (I am guessing charging $0.001 to read an article is off the books now). And somewhere along the evolvement it was supposed to be a payment mechanism for calling other people's APIs and various Web services. What's the next step in this evolution chain? Service for realtors where the transaction fee is 6% of the value of one's house?
  - rugffgbv 9y ago
    I think future cryptocurrency will need to be very scalable, zero fees and instantaneous. At least capable of handling VISA traffic. Ideally something good enough for microtransactions, sending $0.001. So far I've heard about IOTA and Lightning Network. In Europe bank transfers are free. I often send $1 or $2 to roommate bank account for something from refrigerator. Also in shop I pay $2 with VISA card.
- martindale 9y ago
  This is absurd and hyperbolically incorrect; fees in Bitcoin are calculated per-byte of the transaction's size (and in BTC, no less!), so even if the cost of a transaction was that high, the price in USD would be misleading — with the underlying asset at ~$4500, of course the dollar value of the fee would appear high in a weaker currency. Who wants to wait _any_ number of blocks for a payment to clear, anyways? Blockchains provide a trust anchor that serves well as a settlement system, but they aren't intrinsically payment networks in and of themselves — the ideal experience is of course an _instant_ payment, and waiting for confirmations just doesn't cut it. This is why so much effort is going into building payment rapid networks on _top_ of Bitcoin, using "rapidly-adjusted micropayment channels" [0] and routing protocols to build things like Lightning [1]. And you're pumping IOTA in this same post? Unbelievable, these days. Current fee experience of Bitcoin: https://twitter.com/alansilbert/status/905106387260370945 https://twitter.com/alansilbert/status/905106387260370945 Historical fees: https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ [0]: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contract#Example_7:_Rapidly-adjusted_.28micro.29payments_to_a_pre-determined_party https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contract#Example_7:_Rapidly-adjus... [1]: https://medium.com/lightning-resources https://medium.com/lightning-resources

This I can agree with after selling some code from bitcoins it can take hours before I get my coins. I'm not sure they can do anything about it at this point.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
You'd probably see similar delays in banking if all banks had to record all their transactions in a central database. It's simply not a scalable system.
- criddell 9y ago
  But Bitcoin only has a few hundred thousand transactions every day. What database can't handle that small number of transactions?
  - vasilipupkin 9y ago
    Bitcoin is not, in my opinion, a system for transactions. It's essentially a store of value - that's it. If you want quick transactions, you won't do it faster with decentralized than with centralized systems. Decentralized is slower by construction
  - lurker456 9y ago
    bitcoin is a byzantine fault tolerant distributed database, it's performance characteristics are different.

rugffgbv 9y ago

Not only it's slow, but transaction fees are ridiculously high. $4.3 currently. I go to shop and pay $0.5 for 2kg of potatoes (or a bottle of beer), and pay $4.3 fee, and wait 1 hour for confirmations?

ISL 9y ago
If you make a consumer trade with Fidelity, the trading fee is $5. For better or worse, Bitcoin has evolved into a financial-scale product, no longer something one would use to buy $0.50 of potatoes. (P.S. $0.50 for 2kg of potatoes or a bottle of beer? both of those are a great deal)
- prostoalex 9y ago
  > Bitcoin has evolved into a financial-scale product, no longer something one would use to buy $0.50 of potatoes. Well, before "evolving" so elegantly it was pitched as a replacement to credit/debit card systems (which would charge a whole lot less for a basic $10 transaction), and prior to that as a final answer to micropayments on the Web (I am guessing charging $0.001 to read an article is off the books now). And somewhere along the evolvement it was supposed to be a payment mechanism for calling other people's APIs and various Web services. What's the next step in this evolution chain? Service for realtors where the transaction fee is 6% of the value of one's house?
- rugffgbv 9y ago
  I think future cryptocurrency will need to be very scalable, zero fees and instantaneous. At least capable of handling VISA traffic. Ideally something good enough for microtransactions, sending $0.001. So far I've heard about IOTA and Lightning Network. In Europe bank transfers are free. I often send $1 or $2 to roommate bank account for something from refrigerator. Also in shop I pay $2 with VISA card.
martindale 9y ago
This is absurd and hyperbolically incorrect; fees in Bitcoin are calculated per-byte of the transaction's size (and in BTC, no less!), so even if the cost of a transaction was that high, the price in USD would be misleading — with the underlying asset at ~$4500, of course the dollar value of the fee would appear high in a weaker currency. Who wants to wait _any_ number of blocks for a payment to clear, anyways? Blockchains provide a trust anchor that serves well as a settlement system, but they aren't intrinsically payment networks in and of themselves — the ideal experience is of course an _instant_ payment, and waiting for confirmations just doesn't cut it. This is why so much effort is going into building payment rapid networks on _top_ of Bitcoin, using "rapidly-adjusted micropayment channels" [0] and routing protocols to build things like Lightning [1]. And you're pumping IOTA in this same post? Unbelievable, these days. Current fee experience of Bitcoin: https://twitter.com/alansilbert/status/905106387260370945 https://twitter.com/alansilbert/status/905106387260370945 Historical fees: https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ [0]: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contract#Example_7:_Rapidly-adjusted_.28micro.29payments_to_a_pre-determined_party https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contract#Example_7:_Rapidly-adjus... [1]: https://medium.com/lightning-resources https://medium.com/lightning-resources