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Others here are touching on Bitcoin being like the "1.0" of cryptocurrency, but it's actually a lot more than that. In the public eye, it's a symbol of what cry

Others here are touching on Bitcoin being like the "1.0" of cryptocurrency, but it's actually a lot more than that. In the public eye, it's a symbol of what cryptocurrencies can be. You're suggesting Bitcoin just proved it can't scale, but it actually just proved it did--just not with transaction volume. The network continued to process transactions averaging one block every ten minutes exactly as it was built to do, despite the heavy load. To put it differently: A different online payment system could have stopped accepting transactions, or run out of resources, allow transactions it shouldn't have, disallow ones it should, or something else terrible. But Bitcoin didn't. If you wanted into the next block, you'd need to pay more, but that's (from a technical perspective) entirely by design. What Bitcoin is proving is that it has clear and well-understood limits and continues to work well within them, and that's incredibly important for public perception. IMO, if Bitcoin's transaction capacity never scales, it'll still be a huge technological success. Other cryptocurrencies can try their hand at scaling, but Bitcoin needs to be rock solid to the extent possible for all cryptocurrencies' sake.

mchristen 9y ago
The size of blocks is not core to the algorithm of Bitcoin though. What would you say to the person trying to send $30 only to have $20 of it eaten up in fees? Come back later when you can afford to use Bitcoin?
- thatcat 9y ago
  I'd say stop storing your spending money as btc, it's an asset not cash. Can you liquidate your 30$ peice of gold in < 4 hours for market value? Probably not.
  - Shaanie 9y ago
    Indeed, what part of the name "cryptocurrency" would lead someone to believe it to be like cash?
    - BrianGraggg 9y ago
      Currency A currency in the most specific use of the word refers to money in any form when in actual use or circulation as a medium of exchange, especially circulating banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money (monetary units) in common use, especially in a nation. Under this definition, British pounds, U.S. dollars, and European euros are examples of currency. Wikipedia
  - puranjay 9y ago
    Yes, a "currency" should be treated as an asset, not cash. The pro-BTC arguments are becoming absolutely inane
    - BrianGraggg 9y ago
      Currency A currency in the most specific use of the word refers to money in any form when in actual use or circulation as a medium of exchange, especially circulating banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money (monetary units) in common use, especially in a nation. Under this definition, British pounds, U.S. dollars, and European euros are examples of currency. Wikipedia
      - Beejeepa 9y ago
        Stores-of-value aren't "actually used" nor "medium of exchange". Bitcoin Cash fixes Bitcoin, restoring its utility and will cannibalize Bitcoin's market share.
    - lottin 9y ago
      To me it sounds like an admission that Bitcoin doesn't work too well as a currency.
    - tymmc 9y ago
      It's classic goalpost-moving.
      - thatcat 9y ago
        AKA pivoting.
  - eterm 9y ago
    "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" Peer to peer cash. Not "Gold", not "asset", but "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash".
    - etherael 9y ago
      Bitcoin cash is still that.
      - goialoq 9y ago
        For those who don't know, Bitcoin forked into 1 "new" Bitcoin (kept the name, changed the model from currency to speculative asset), and 2 Bitcoin Cash, that continued development along the original crypto-currency design. https://www.investopedia.com/tech/bitcoin-vs-bitcoin-cash-whats-difference/ https://www.investopedia.com/tech/bitcoin-vs-bitcoin-cash-wh...
        revmoo 9y ago
        This is not accurate at all
      - makomk 9y ago
        Bitcoin Cash does indeed have very low fees... and about a tenth the transaction volume of Bitcoin proper, with few places using it, mainly just a handful of people involved in creating it. It's certainly not as ridiculous an option as it was back before the difficulty adjustment fix when its supporters were promoting it as the fast option despite it usually taking days for transactions to confirm (supporters responding that block times were as low as a minute sometimes, and they were right... except it was a entirely bimodal distribution, with most of the time spent in the "hours per block" part). However, the increased transaction capacity people are promoting is still about 100x its current transaction rate, and it's entirely unclear how well it'd handle scaling up by that much in practice. Especially since I'm pretty sure it lacks some of the scaling work that the original Bitcoin has. Also, the rampant dishonesty and all the attempts by sites and services owned by a guy with a major investment in it to trick people into thinking it is Bitcoin don't inspire confidence.
  - 1ris 9y ago
    I can take my maple leave or krugerrand and change that in any crash for gold/western union/money exchange shed for almost market rate in minutes. There are plenty of them. Even I take a cap that is its faster and cheaper than bitcoin.
    - ethftw 9y ago
      I can take my seed words inside my brain through airport security. Let's not get started on verification of the asset!
- moduspol 9y ago
  Use a different cryptocurrency. Seriously. And I'm not trying to be cheeky. If Bitcoin ends up only being a settlement layer, it'll still be a colossal success just being a decentralized, supply-limited, uncensorable, world-accessible payment system and store of value. If someone else solves the scaling debacle better, I'll be the first to recommend that normal people switch to it. But it's not easy, and the world is watching Bitcoin. Governments are starting to accept its existence, big financial institutions are starting (just this month) to allow options trading, etc. That stuff is far more important even for other cryptocurrencies than low fees. After six months of no issues with Bitcoin options trading, it's only a matter of time before other cryptocurrencies get the same treatment. That's why we need Bitcoin to be rock steady and predictable, while others can try to solve these tough problems.
  - noobermin 9y ago
    This sounds a hell lot like changing the goal posts.
    - rescripting 9y ago
      Does that matter? If you're looking to develop a drug to treat hypertension but end up with Viagra by accident instead, do you throw it away because that wasn't the original goal?
      - TimJYoung 9y ago
        It certainly matters if you've still got a lot of people running around telling anyone that will listen that the drug is a sure-fire cure for hypertension.
        raugustinus 9y ago
        There's a lot of people in the world running around telling people all kinds of things.
      - rabidrat 9y ago
- douglaswlance 9y ago
  Trade smaller amounts with a different token. Bitcoin, as it stands now, is a value store, not an everyday currency. You wouldn't buy your lunch with a sliver of gold. You'd use paper. Bitcoin is gold. Other tokens are paper currency.
- Zarath 9y ago
  tbh, the smaller amount transacted, the less decentralization is necessary IMO. This is why people will tell you to use other, more centralized, less secure cryptos.
KirinDave 9y ago
Bitcoin is a lot of things, and many of them interesting, but suggesting that ~4 t/s is impressive or "scaling" is an insult to kids in high school writing rails apps that can do 100x the volume. We already know at least 2 obvious ways to improve the transaction flow rate of bitcoin in trustless ways, and many others are being proposed that do not also create energy arms races. Please don't redefine success.
- etr-strike 9y ago
  If proof of stake proves itself to actually work, Bitcoin will adopt it. Migrating a 200 billion dollar network to an untested PoW proposal would be irresponsible. Arbitrarily increasing blocksize without addressing propagation delay and centralization impacts is also irresponsible. Bitcoin has been tirelessly working on the scaling problem in a responsible way. SegWit will allow up to 12t/s. Mimble Wimble and Schnorr Signatures will further compress transaction size and increase t/s to roughly 20t/s. All this without increasing propagation delay (increasing blocksize). Lightning network further reduces the number of onchain transactions necessary. Rootstock adds ethereum compatible smart contracts to bitcoin as a side chain. All these technologies responsibly scale Bitcoin. Your comment implies Bitcoin is stagnant which to me implies you don't know what you're talking about.
  - spookthesunset 9y ago
    > If proof of stake proves itself to actually work, Bitcoin will adopt it. I wouldn't hold my breath for that. Bitcoin still is having a holy war about increasing the blocksize. One side effect of this whole deal is it shows that it is incredibly hard, if not possible, to change a decentralized system. By its very design, it will be all but impossible to make any breaking changes to bitcoin at this point. > Lightning network further reduces the number of onchain transactions necessary. Besides being complete vaporware, I do love how the solution to Bitcoin's scaling problems is to not use it...
    - etr-strike 9y ago
      Lightning isn’t vaporware. Follow the project on github, they are very active. Better yet, watch the first lightning transaction happen on mainnet which occurred just last week: https://youtu.be/a73Gz3Tvx3k https://youtu.be/a73Gz3Tvx3k With regards to blocksize, the only reason it’s not widely embraced is because it’s known to directly impact propagation delay. One side couldn’t care less about centralization, the other side cares dearly. SegWit was activated, which compresses transaction size and doubles transactions per second without impacting propagation delay. Mimble Wimble and Schnorr signatures are coming soon, which are also soft forks and compress transaction size even further. There’s plenty of change happening that are all very intelligent scaling solutions. Big blocks are not intelligent nor difficult to implement.
Bombthecat 9y ago
Dude, It literally stopped accepting transactions. After 72 hours your transaction is dropped. Without further notice. Until then you must guess if it was processed or not.
- natch 9y ago
  Citation needed.
  - Bombthecat 9y ago
    https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/43155/do-unconfirmed-transactions-expire-after-some-time/43165#43165 https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/43155/do-unconfi...
- scotty79 9y ago
  If you give a recommended fee it can go as fast as ever.
  - Bombthecat 9y ago
    True that, at times 10$
  - pmorici 9y ago
    This is such a silly comment. This is like saying that you have a Bus with 20 seats and 40 people that want to ride. Your advice isn't get a bigger bus it is get to the bus stop earlier. It doesn't matter how early everyone gets there in the end there are only 20 seats.
    - scotty79 9y ago
      You are right although I don't fully understand your analogy but bitcoin never guaranteed all transactions will go through because it couldn't because noone could make a system with infinite capacity. 20$ transaction fee is an incentive for the users to restrain themselves to smaller number of larger transfers. Is the limit too strict? Probably. Miners still get a lot from mining rewards and don't need to be incentivised with fees yet, but there must be some limit that will force people pay for transactions because when mining rewards end there will be nothing to keep miners mining.
jondubois 9y ago
Bitcoin could become a payment system for the rich but it will never be an all-purpose decentralized payment system. There are hard physical transaction limits which cannot be surpassed without seriously compromising decentralization... To the point that what would be left of the network would essentially no longer be 'Bitcoin'. Any attempt to abstract away from the blockchain through some kind of batching or delayed settlement would completely undermine the trustless nature of Bitcoin... What would be left would be no better than the current banking system. The whole point of a cryptocurrency is that you can have your own wallet from which you can spend without going through any intermediaries... All potential Bitcoin scalability solutions that I've heard of rely on exchanges being given more power/trust in order to abstract away from the Blockchain.
SaltyFetus 9y ago
Not sure what is going on in this thread, but every comment defending lightning or current bitcoin implementation or bitcoin-core is being massively downvoted... And they are substantive or at least informative comments.

mchristen 9y ago

The size of blocks is not core to the algorithm of Bitcoin though. What would you say to the person trying to send $30 only to have $20 of it eaten up in fees? Come back later when you can afford to use Bitcoin?

thatcat 9y ago
I'd say stop storing your spending money as btc, it's an asset not cash. Can you liquidate your 30$ peice of gold in < 4 hours for market value? Probably not.
- Shaanie 9y ago
  Indeed, what part of the name "cryptocurrency" would lead someone to believe it to be like cash?
  - BrianGraggg 9y ago
    Currency A currency in the most specific use of the word refers to money in any form when in actual use or circulation as a medium of exchange, especially circulating banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money (monetary units) in common use, especially in a nation. Under this definition, British pounds, U.S. dollars, and European euros are examples of currency. Wikipedia
- puranjay 9y ago
  Yes, a "currency" should be treated as an asset, not cash. The pro-BTC arguments are becoming absolutely inane
  - BrianGraggg 9y ago
    Currency A currency in the most specific use of the word refers to money in any form when in actual use or circulation as a medium of exchange, especially circulating banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money (monetary units) in common use, especially in a nation. Under this definition, British pounds, U.S. dollars, and European euros are examples of currency. Wikipedia
    - Beejeepa 9y ago
      Stores-of-value aren't "actually used" nor "medium of exchange". Bitcoin Cash fixes Bitcoin, restoring its utility and will cannibalize Bitcoin's market share.
  - lottin 9y ago
    To me it sounds like an admission that Bitcoin doesn't work too well as a currency.
  - tymmc 9y ago
    It's classic goalpost-moving.
    - thatcat 9y ago
      AKA pivoting.
- eterm 9y ago
  "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" Peer to peer cash. Not "Gold", not "asset", but "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash".
  - etherael 9y ago
    Bitcoin cash is still that.
    - goialoq 9y ago
      For those who don't know, Bitcoin forked into 1 "new" Bitcoin (kept the name, changed the model from currency to speculative asset), and 2 Bitcoin Cash, that continued development along the original crypto-currency design. https://www.investopedia.com/tech/bitcoin-vs-bitcoin-cash-whats-difference/ https://www.investopedia.com/tech/bitcoin-vs-bitcoin-cash-wh...
      - revmoo 9y ago
        This is not accurate at all
    - makomk 9y ago
      Bitcoin Cash does indeed have very low fees... and about a tenth the transaction volume of Bitcoin proper, with few places using it, mainly just a handful of people involved in creating it. It's certainly not as ridiculous an option as it was back before the difficulty adjustment fix when its supporters were promoting it as the fast option despite it usually taking days for transactions to confirm (supporters responding that block times were as low as a minute sometimes, and they were right... except it was a entirely bimodal distribution, with most of the time spent in the "hours per block" part). However, the increased transaction capacity people are promoting is still about 100x its current transaction rate, and it's entirely unclear how well it'd handle scaling up by that much in practice. Especially since I'm pretty sure it lacks some of the scaling work that the original Bitcoin has. Also, the rampant dishonesty and all the attempts by sites and services owned by a guy with a major investment in it to trick people into thinking it is Bitcoin don't inspire confidence.
- 1ris 9y ago
  I can take my maple leave or krugerrand and change that in any crash for gold/western union/money exchange shed for almost market rate in minutes. There are plenty of them. Even I take a cap that is its faster and cheaper than bitcoin.
  - ethftw 9y ago
    I can take my seed words inside my brain through airport security. Let's not get started on verification of the asset!
moduspol 9y ago
Use a different cryptocurrency. Seriously. And I'm not trying to be cheeky. If Bitcoin ends up only being a settlement layer, it'll still be a colossal success just being a decentralized, supply-limited, uncensorable, world-accessible payment system and store of value. If someone else solves the scaling debacle better, I'll be the first to recommend that normal people switch to it. But it's not easy, and the world is watching Bitcoin. Governments are starting to accept its existence, big financial institutions are starting (just this month) to allow options trading, etc. That stuff is far more important even for other cryptocurrencies than low fees. After six months of no issues with Bitcoin options trading, it's only a matter of time before other cryptocurrencies get the same treatment. That's why we need Bitcoin to be rock steady and predictable, while others can try to solve these tough problems.
- noobermin 9y ago
  This sounds a hell lot like changing the goal posts.
  - rescripting 9y ago
    Does that matter? If you're looking to develop a drug to treat hypertension but end up with Viagra by accident instead, do you throw it away because that wasn't the original goal?
    - TimJYoung 9y ago
      It certainly matters if you've still got a lot of people running around telling anyone that will listen that the drug is a sure-fire cure for hypertension.
      - raugustinus 9y ago
        There's a lot of people in the world running around telling people all kinds of things.
    - rabidrat 9y ago
douglaswlance 9y ago
Trade smaller amounts with a different token. Bitcoin, as it stands now, is a value store, not an everyday currency. You wouldn't buy your lunch with a sliver of gold. You'd use paper. Bitcoin is gold. Other tokens are paper currency.
Zarath 9y ago
tbh, the smaller amount transacted, the less decentralization is necessary IMO. This is why people will tell you to use other, more centralized, less secure cryptos.

KirinDave 9y ago

Bitcoin is a lot of things, and many of them interesting, but suggesting that ~4 t/s is impressive or "scaling" is an insult to kids in high school writing rails apps that can do 100x the volume. We already know at least 2 obvious ways to improve the transaction flow rate of bitcoin in trustless ways, and many others are being proposed that do not also create energy arms races. Please don't redefine success.

etr-strike 9y ago
If proof of stake proves itself to actually work, Bitcoin will adopt it. Migrating a 200 billion dollar network to an untested PoW proposal would be irresponsible. Arbitrarily increasing blocksize without addressing propagation delay and centralization impacts is also irresponsible. Bitcoin has been tirelessly working on the scaling problem in a responsible way. SegWit will allow up to 12t/s. Mimble Wimble and Schnorr Signatures will further compress transaction size and increase t/s to roughly 20t/s. All this without increasing propagation delay (increasing blocksize). Lightning network further reduces the number of onchain transactions necessary. Rootstock adds ethereum compatible smart contracts to bitcoin as a side chain. All these technologies responsibly scale Bitcoin. Your comment implies Bitcoin is stagnant which to me implies you don't know what you're talking about.
- spookthesunset 9y ago
  > If proof of stake proves itself to actually work, Bitcoin will adopt it. I wouldn't hold my breath for that. Bitcoin still is having a holy war about increasing the blocksize. One side effect of this whole deal is it shows that it is incredibly hard, if not possible, to change a decentralized system. By its very design, it will be all but impossible to make any breaking changes to bitcoin at this point. > Lightning network further reduces the number of onchain transactions necessary. Besides being complete vaporware, I do love how the solution to Bitcoin's scaling problems is to not use it...
  - etr-strike 9y ago
    Lightning isn’t vaporware. Follow the project on github, they are very active. Better yet, watch the first lightning transaction happen on mainnet which occurred just last week: https://youtu.be/a73Gz3Tvx3k https://youtu.be/a73Gz3Tvx3k With regards to blocksize, the only reason it’s not widely embraced is because it’s known to directly impact propagation delay. One side couldn’t care less about centralization, the other side cares dearly. SegWit was activated, which compresses transaction size and doubles transactions per second without impacting propagation delay. Mimble Wimble and Schnorr signatures are coming soon, which are also soft forks and compress transaction size even further. There’s plenty of change happening that are all very intelligent scaling solutions. Big blocks are not intelligent nor difficult to implement.

Bombthecat 9y ago

Dude, It literally stopped accepting transactions. After 72 hours your transaction is dropped. Without further notice. Until then you must guess if it was processed or not.

natch 9y ago
Citation needed.
- Bombthecat 9y ago
  https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/43155/do-unconfirmed-transactions-expire-after-some-time/43165#43165 https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/43155/do-unconfi...
scotty79 9y ago
If you give a recommended fee it can go as fast as ever.
- Bombthecat 9y ago
  True that, at times 10$
- pmorici 9y ago
  This is such a silly comment. This is like saying that you have a Bus with 20 seats and 40 people that want to ride. Your advice isn't get a bigger bus it is get to the bus stop earlier. It doesn't matter how early everyone gets there in the end there are only 20 seats.
  - scotty79 9y ago
    You are right although I don't fully understand your analogy but bitcoin never guaranteed all transactions will go through because it couldn't because noone could make a system with infinite capacity. 20$ transaction fee is an incentive for the users to restrain themselves to smaller number of larger transfers. Is the limit too strict? Probably. Miners still get a lot from mining rewards and don't need to be incentivised with fees yet, but there must be some limit that will force people pay for transactions because when mining rewards end there will be nothing to keep miners mining.

jondubois 9y ago

Bitcoin could become a payment system for the rich but it will never be an all-purpose decentralized payment system. There are hard physical transaction limits which cannot be surpassed without seriously compromising decentralization... To the point that what would be left of the network would essentially no longer be 'Bitcoin'. Any attempt to abstract away from the blockchain through some kind of batching or delayed settlement would completely undermine the trustless nature of Bitcoin... What would be left would be no better than the current banking system. The whole point of a cryptocurrency is that you can have your own wallet from which you can spend without going through any intermediaries... All potential Bitcoin scalability solutions that I've heard of rely on exchanges being given more power/trust in order to abstract away from the Blockchain.

SaltyFetus 9y ago

Not sure what is going on in this thread, but every comment defending lightning or current bitcoin implementation or bitcoin-core is being massively downvoted... And they are substantive or at least informative comments.