5 ms·

Out of curiosity, how much that would cost and how long it would take for the transaction confirm? I know, you can't know that for sure beforehand (what a wonde

Out of curiosity, how much that would cost and how long it would take for the transaction confirm? I know, you can't know that for sure beforehand (what a wonderful property for a currency), but current best guess? (The last numbers I heard and may have misunderstood were more than 10 dollars and hours to confirm. That is negative utility to me, as in that case someone would need to literally pay me to use bitcoin for buying my coffee.)

Klathmon 9y ago
The dream of "buying a cup of coffee" with bitcoin is not realized right now. While it's not as bad as you point out, it's still not ideal. Fees for an average transaction regardless of the amount of bitcoin are $1-$2 USD unless you manually set fees lower, and time to confirm isn't normally an issue for most vendors, as they are fine with zero-confirmation transactions for small things (as long as it shows up in the mempool and the fee is high enough that it's probable it will eventually be confirmed, it's fine). And that's all assuming we don't hit a massive amount of congestion like happens every now and then. However in the future the lightning network will really solve this problem hopefully once and for all. Read the overview about how it works at [0] but the gist is that you can create a network of trustless "deferred" payments that you and another party can agree on new balances for each of you off the blockchain, and at any point either of you can "settle" the latest balance on the blockchain. And by building a network of these "deferred" payment channels, you can pay parties that you don't even have a direct channel with by routing it through others that you do have a channel with. It was a pretty mindblowing idea once I was able to grasp it. I really encourage anyone that is even a little curious about it to read the website at [0]. The abstract is very approachable, and the actual paper does a good job walking you through the details. [0] http://lightning.network/ http://lightning.network/
- beefield 9y ago
  In addition to assuming that Lightning will one day materialize, you also need to assume that people are willing to store non-trivial amount of their wealth in an inherently volatile asset whose only reason to appreciate in value (by definition) is there to be more people willing to buy and hold the asset with even higher prices (cough, ponzi, cough). (Because if the people are not willing to store their wealth in bitcoin, lightning will make the problme worse by needing more than one transaction in blockchain to achive one actual transaction)
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    Lightning was on hold for so long because of the segwit politics. With that out of the way it's just testing and validation at this point. It's not a question of if but when for me. If you think that Bitcoin is a Ponzi, that's fine, but many many people don't, and they see real value in what it provides, and allowing quick easy small payments will fix the last major issue I have with the currency. And many people currently keep nontrivial amounts of wealth in BTC, but I'm talking about keeping "PayPal" amounts of wealth in it if you want. Charge up your BTC address with $200 and then use it on little shit for the month. That's the kind of thing that lightning enables. Also, lightning is optional, if you don't want to open a channel, you can use it like it currently is without having to do 2+ transactions just to make one, you'd only open a channel if you wanted to. There's never a situation where you are forced to use lightning.
    - beefield 9y ago
      If many people don't think that the way how ponzi and bitcoin increase in price/value[1] are very similar, they are flat out wrong. Of course, there are also differences. With ponzi people typically are deceived to think there is some other value proposal, bitcoin is quite open that there is none. You may want to evaluate the difference in ponzi/bitcoin value creation against selected other asset classes: - Company stock. A company can increase profitability and pay out dividends. (Of course, a stock can turn out in a bubble). - A bond or other tradable debt instrument. This will appreciate in values as time passes and interest accrues to the creditor. - Real estate. You can rent the real estate out or enjoy the value a real estate generates yourself. You see, the ponzi/bitcoin really is distinct from the others in the value creation model? [1] only source for increasing value would be finding more and more people that are willing to pay more and more of the right to hold the asset.
      - Klathmon 9y ago
        But bitcoin does provide value to me. It is a quick and secure payment channel that isn't at the mercy of any one government or bank. That alone is extremely valuable. All too often i've found that I can't access my own money. Keeping it in cash is a recipe for disaster, banks often close accounts, have poor business hours, and have unfortunate amounts of fraud meaning I need to get a new credit card pretty often because some vendor I gave that number to decided to charge me more, or continue charging me after our business was done. I've been stuck while traveling multiple times because my bank decided to close my card due to what they thought looked like fraud, leaving me stranded. With bitcoin I can send $20 to a friend without him worrying about paypal freezing his account because of "shady activity", or I can receive donations on my website without needing to rely on a tipping service that could go under at any moment. I can spend my bitcoin anywhere that accepts it without worrying that they will double charge me, or continue charging me monthly, or lose my account info causing a hacker to be able to charge me. That has value, and the idea that it's entirely worthless because you can't make money with it via some 3rd party enforcement is silly. If you don't see the value in what bitcoin offers, then you'd be crazy to invest! I agree that if I ignore that part of bitocoin, it looks an awful lot like a crazy investment bubble that is going to explode down to nothing. But I do think it has value, and whether it's $10,000 a bitcoin or $1 a bitcoin, it will continue to have value for me because of the secure, decentralized, and fast nature of using it as a payment system.

Klathmon 9y ago

The dream of "buying a cup of coffee" with bitcoin is not realized right now. While it's not as bad as you point out, it's still not ideal. Fees for an average transaction regardless of the amount of bitcoin are $1-$2 USD unless you manually set fees lower, and time to confirm isn't normally an issue for most vendors, as they are fine with zero-confirmation transactions for small things (as long as it shows up in the mempool and the fee is high enough that it's probable it will eventually be confirmed, it's fine). And that's all assuming we don't hit a massive amount of congestion like happens every now and then. However in the future the lightning network will really solve this problem hopefully once and for all. Read the overview about how it works at [0] but the gist is that you can create a network of trustless "deferred" payments that you and another party can agree on new balances for each of you off the blockchain, and at any point either of you can "settle" the latest balance on the blockchain. And by building a network of these "deferred" payment channels, you can pay parties that you don't even have a direct channel with by routing it through others that you do have a channel with. It was a pretty mindblowing idea once I was able to grasp it. I really encourage anyone that is even a little curious about it to read the website at [0]. The abstract is very approachable, and the actual paper does a good job walking you through the details. [0] http://lightning.network/ http://lightning.network/

beefield 9y ago
In addition to assuming that Lightning will one day materialize, you also need to assume that people are willing to store non-trivial amount of their wealth in an inherently volatile asset whose only reason to appreciate in value (by definition) is there to be more people willing to buy and hold the asset with even higher prices (cough, ponzi, cough). (Because if the people are not willing to store their wealth in bitcoin, lightning will make the problme worse by needing more than one transaction in blockchain to achive one actual transaction)
- Klathmon 9y ago
  Lightning was on hold for so long because of the segwit politics. With that out of the way it's just testing and validation at this point. It's not a question of if but when for me. If you think that Bitcoin is a Ponzi, that's fine, but many many people don't, and they see real value in what it provides, and allowing quick easy small payments will fix the last major issue I have with the currency. And many people currently keep nontrivial amounts of wealth in BTC, but I'm talking about keeping "PayPal" amounts of wealth in it if you want. Charge up your BTC address with $200 and then use it on little shit for the month. That's the kind of thing that lightning enables. Also, lightning is optional, if you don't want to open a channel, you can use it like it currently is without having to do 2+ transactions just to make one, you'd only open a channel if you wanted to. There's never a situation where you are forced to use lightning.
  - beefield 9y ago
    If many people don't think that the way how ponzi and bitcoin increase in price/value[1] are very similar, they are flat out wrong. Of course, there are also differences. With ponzi people typically are deceived to think there is some other value proposal, bitcoin is quite open that there is none. You may want to evaluate the difference in ponzi/bitcoin value creation against selected other asset classes: - Company stock. A company can increase profitability and pay out dividends. (Of course, a stock can turn out in a bubble). - A bond or other tradable debt instrument. This will appreciate in values as time passes and interest accrues to the creditor. - Real estate. You can rent the real estate out or enjoy the value a real estate generates yourself. You see, the ponzi/bitcoin really is distinct from the others in the value creation model? [1] only source for increasing value would be finding more and more people that are willing to pay more and more of the right to hold the asset.
    - Klathmon 9y ago
      But bitcoin does provide value to me. It is a quick and secure payment channel that isn't at the mercy of any one government or bank. That alone is extremely valuable. All too often i've found that I can't access my own money. Keeping it in cash is a recipe for disaster, banks often close accounts, have poor business hours, and have unfortunate amounts of fraud meaning I need to get a new credit card pretty often because some vendor I gave that number to decided to charge me more, or continue charging me after our business was done. I've been stuck while traveling multiple times because my bank decided to close my card due to what they thought looked like fraud, leaving me stranded. With bitcoin I can send $20 to a friend without him worrying about paypal freezing his account because of "shady activity", or I can receive donations on my website without needing to rely on a tipping service that could go under at any moment. I can spend my bitcoin anywhere that accepts it without worrying that they will double charge me, or continue charging me monthly, or lose my account info causing a hacker to be able to charge me. That has value, and the idea that it's entirely worthless because you can't make money with it via some 3rd party enforcement is silly. If you don't see the value in what bitcoin offers, then you'd be crazy to invest! I agree that if I ignore that part of bitocoin, it looks an awful lot like a crazy investment bubble that is going to explode down to nothing. But I do think it has value, and whether it's $10,000 a bitcoin or $1 a bitcoin, it will continue to have value for me because of the secure, decentralized, and fast nature of using it as a payment system.