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50$ in fees per transaction, I never thought I'd see this day. For the last 3 years, there has been a bitcoin civil war about how to scale bitcoin, as people h

by stale2002 9y ago

50$ in fees per transaction, I never thought I'd see this day. For the last 3 years, there has been a bitcoin civil war about how to scale bitcoin, as people have warned that the problems we are seeing now would happen. And unfortunately for bitcoin, the side that wanted high transaction fees, and wanted to prevent all scaling won the war. And now we are seeing those problems come home to roost, as segwit (which was marketed as an immediate fix) adoption has been minimal, and the mythical lightning network and layer 2 or 3 solutions that the core development team promises will that will solve everything is perpetually 2 years away from completion. Things are going exactly as people had predicted. Those of us who are fed up with these problems have moved on to other coins, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash.

HenryBemis 9y ago
I don't know munch about investing (I do), but 50$ on a 50k transaction that makes a 5k profit, is peanuts and never stopped anyone from investing. Investing is not a sport/hobby for teenagers that rely on the daily allowance.
- smokeyj 9y ago
  But you can also pay $50 on a $5 transaction. LN existing on testnet has no bearing on the real world. Who wants to tie up $50 to open a channel and $50 to close it? Small blockers are kidding themselves.
  - HenryBemis 9y ago
    But why would someone pay $50 for a $5 transaction? A criminal perhaps to stay under the radar. A sensible person would go for the cash option and pay $5 for $5. If on the other hand someone was to launder money ;) then still the fee is tooo large to launder petty cash (pay 55 dirty to get 5 clean). An efficient money laundering rate is anything north of 50% (100 dirty --> 50-70 clean).
    - stale2002 9y ago
      Money laundering is not the glorious vision that Satoshi sold to me or the world. I really don't care about that use case. If THAT is all that bitcoin is good for, then I hope it dies. I got into bitcoin because I believed in a peer to peer electronic cash system.
    - Fnoord 9y ago
      > An efficient money laundering rate is anything north of 50% (100 dirty --> 50-70 clean). That's supported by what I read in "Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground" by Kevin Poulsen. Book's about Max Butler alias Iceman who ended up as in the higher echelon as vital gear of a carding gang. They'd have people who'd shop and resell the items instantly, as if new. The shoppers also need to get paid, obviously. Blockchain's entirely public, so Bitcoin is terrible for money laundering. Not any better than USD. Monero is apparently anonymous though. Though I take the term anonymous with a huge grain of salt since its always a relative term, not an absolute binary flag.
  - gizmo686 9y ago
    The idea of LN is to reduce the demand for on chain transactions. If this happens, transaction fees will go down and opening a channel will not cost $50. Fundamentally, Bitcoin needs some form of off-chain transaction. It is just not feasible to record every transaction in a permanent public ledger (let alone one that needs to be synced quickly enough to allow for ~10 minute block times)
    - smokeyj 9y ago
      > If this happens, transaction fees will go down and opening a channel will not cost $50 Bitcoin can process about ~3.5 tx's a second. The global population is about 7.6B. 1MB blocks are not sufficient.. Edit: For the record I think the obvious solution is both on and off chain scaling. Why it's even a debate I'm not really sure. I blame the illuminati.
- smacktoward 9y ago
  The point is that Bitcoin is supposed to be a currency, and nobody is ever going to use a currency that costs you $50 to process every transaction regardless of whether it’s for $50k or 50 cents.
  - sowbug 9y ago
    Well yes, but Android was supposed to be an OS for digital cameras, and YouTube was supposed to be a dating site.
  - Terretta 9y ago
    > nobody is ever going to use a currency that costs you $50 to process every transaction regardless of whether it’s for $50k or 50 cents That's pretty much how USD wires work. It's markedly worse if going outside the border. Even at these fees, on friction, fees, and settlement time, Bitcoin still compares favorably.
    - perl4ever 9y ago
      I haven't successfully used Bitcoin yet, but it was my impression that the $20 or $50 fee was for a reasonably fast transaction, and you could get slower performance for less. If I'm transferring a large amount of money between financial institutions then I expect to wait anywhere from 24 hours to 3 or more days for it to complete. So I'm wondering if a Bitcoin transaction would be significantly cheaper if you were perfectly happy to wait a day.
      - gizmo686 9y ago
        Space on the blockchain is essentially auctioned off. If you are willing to wait a day, the best you can do is wait until there is a block with little enough competition for you to run your transaction at your desired price. This is no cheaper then sending your transaction immidietly if you happen to do so when the price is cheep. Bitcoin used to have a concept of "priority" transactions that would allow transactions to process regardless of fees if there inputs are old enough; however this is effectivly disabled in modern Bitcoin.
- stale2002 9y ago
  Who is making these 50k transactions? And for what purpose? Speculation? Day trading? I really don't care about the wealthly wall street day traders who are throwing around hundreds of thousands of dollars. That "use case" is boring. "investment" is boring. What I care about is the average person. Bitcoin was originally supposed to be a peer to peer electronic cash system. As in, you buy things with it. It was not supposed to be a new wall steet.
pmlnr 9y ago
> Those of us who are fed up with these problems have moved on to other coins, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash. What do you use those for? In the article above the author mentions you were able to pay for dinner, for various bits and pieces in BTC - even for pizzas, as we all know. You can't do that with ETH, BCH, or any altcoin, and you can't use BTC for it any more either. So why move on to other coins?
- jonny_eh 9y ago
  This! Has any coin shown any value outside of speculation yet? Ethereum seemed to have a lot of promise with "smart contracts" but has it provided any value to anyone yet?
- stale2002 9y ago
  Merchant adoption for bitcoin cash is increasing very quickly. You can indeed pay for things with bitcoin cash, and as soon at bitpay adds it to their platform (Which they are working on and will do so very soon), the merchant adoption rate will actually be higher than the bitcoin adoption rate. And all of this was done in only a couple months.
  - pmlnr 9y ago
    Examples, citation, please. I do not see 'merchants' accepting BCH when I try to buy food.
    - stale2002 9y ago
      I'd love to! https://acceptbitcoin.cash https://acceptbitcoin.cash All within a couple months. And this isn't even including all the merchants to come when bitpays adds support in 2 months. It will be more than bitcoin once that happens.
- namelost 9y ago
  Stripe maintains a big list of prohibited businesses. Some of these are honest consumer protection. Others are there to try to instil Christian values into our money, for instance you may not use Stripe to sell sex toys. If you ask Stripe, they'll tell you that these restrictions are there because of the requirements of Stripe's partners. And that is exactly the problem. If we are heading towards a cashless society (and we are), then we need an electronic payment system that does not consult the Bible before deciding whether to allow your payment or not.
nikcub 9y ago
You don't have to explain the Bitcoin forks - most people who click the comments on Bitcoin threads here know what they are You also don't have to explain the altoins or pump them - most people here know what they are. These types of comments might work well on reddit but they don't really add anything for the audience here.

HenryBemis 9y ago

I don't know munch about investing (I do), but 50$ on a 50k transaction that makes a 5k profit, is peanuts and never stopped anyone from investing. Investing is not a sport/hobby for teenagers that rely on the daily allowance.

smokeyj 9y ago
But you can also pay $50 on a $5 transaction. LN existing on testnet has no bearing on the real world. Who wants to tie up $50 to open a channel and $50 to close it? Small blockers are kidding themselves.
- HenryBemis 9y ago
  But why would someone pay $50 for a $5 transaction? A criminal perhaps to stay under the radar. A sensible person would go for the cash option and pay $5 for $5. If on the other hand someone was to launder money ;) then still the fee is tooo large to launder petty cash (pay 55 dirty to get 5 clean). An efficient money laundering rate is anything north of 50% (100 dirty --> 50-70 clean).
  - stale2002 9y ago
    Money laundering is not the glorious vision that Satoshi sold to me or the world. I really don't care about that use case. If THAT is all that bitcoin is good for, then I hope it dies. I got into bitcoin because I believed in a peer to peer electronic cash system.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    > An efficient money laundering rate is anything north of 50% (100 dirty --> 50-70 clean). That's supported by what I read in "Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground" by Kevin Poulsen. Book's about Max Butler alias Iceman who ended up as in the higher echelon as vital gear of a carding gang. They'd have people who'd shop and resell the items instantly, as if new. The shoppers also need to get paid, obviously. Blockchain's entirely public, so Bitcoin is terrible for money laundering. Not any better than USD. Monero is apparently anonymous though. Though I take the term anonymous with a huge grain of salt since its always a relative term, not an absolute binary flag.
- gizmo686 9y ago
  The idea of LN is to reduce the demand for on chain transactions. If this happens, transaction fees will go down and opening a channel will not cost $50. Fundamentally, Bitcoin needs some form of off-chain transaction. It is just not feasible to record every transaction in a permanent public ledger (let alone one that needs to be synced quickly enough to allow for ~10 minute block times)
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    > If this happens, transaction fees will go down and opening a channel will not cost $50 Bitcoin can process about ~3.5 tx's a second. The global population is about 7.6B. 1MB blocks are not sufficient.. Edit: For the record I think the obvious solution is both on and off chain scaling. Why it's even a debate I'm not really sure. I blame the illuminati.
smacktoward 9y ago
The point is that Bitcoin is supposed to be a currency, and nobody is ever going to use a currency that costs you $50 to process every transaction regardless of whether it’s for $50k or 50 cents.
- sowbug 9y ago
  Well yes, but Android was supposed to be an OS for digital cameras, and YouTube was supposed to be a dating site.
- Terretta 9y ago
  > nobody is ever going to use a currency that costs you $50 to process every transaction regardless of whether it’s for $50k or 50 cents That's pretty much how USD wires work. It's markedly worse if going outside the border. Even at these fees, on friction, fees, and settlement time, Bitcoin still compares favorably.
  - perl4ever 9y ago
    I haven't successfully used Bitcoin yet, but it was my impression that the $20 or $50 fee was for a reasonably fast transaction, and you could get slower performance for less. If I'm transferring a large amount of money between financial institutions then I expect to wait anywhere from 24 hours to 3 or more days for it to complete. So I'm wondering if a Bitcoin transaction would be significantly cheaper if you were perfectly happy to wait a day.
    - gizmo686 9y ago
      Space on the blockchain is essentially auctioned off. If you are willing to wait a day, the best you can do is wait until there is a block with little enough competition for you to run your transaction at your desired price. This is no cheaper then sending your transaction immidietly if you happen to do so when the price is cheep. Bitcoin used to have a concept of "priority" transactions that would allow transactions to process regardless of fees if there inputs are old enough; however this is effectivly disabled in modern Bitcoin.
stale2002 9y ago
Who is making these 50k transactions? And for what purpose? Speculation? Day trading? I really don't care about the wealthly wall street day traders who are throwing around hundreds of thousands of dollars. That "use case" is boring. "investment" is boring. What I care about is the average person. Bitcoin was originally supposed to be a peer to peer electronic cash system. As in, you buy things with it. It was not supposed to be a new wall steet.

pmlnr 9y ago

> Those of us who are fed up with these problems have moved on to other coins, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash. What do you use those for? In the article above the author mentions you were able to pay for dinner, for various bits and pieces in BTC - even for pizzas, as we all know. You can't do that with ETH, BCH, or any altcoin, and you can't use BTC for it any more either. So why move on to other coins?

jonny_eh 9y ago
This! Has any coin shown any value outside of speculation yet? Ethereum seemed to have a lot of promise with "smart contracts" but has it provided any value to anyone yet?
stale2002 9y ago
Merchant adoption for bitcoin cash is increasing very quickly. You can indeed pay for things with bitcoin cash, and as soon at bitpay adds it to their platform (Which they are working on and will do so very soon), the merchant adoption rate will actually be higher than the bitcoin adoption rate. And all of this was done in only a couple months.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  Examples, citation, please. I do not see 'merchants' accepting BCH when I try to buy food.
  - stale2002 9y ago
    I'd love to! https://acceptbitcoin.cash https://acceptbitcoin.cash All within a couple months. And this isn't even including all the merchants to come when bitpays adds support in 2 months. It will be more than bitcoin once that happens.
namelost 9y ago
Stripe maintains a big list of prohibited businesses. Some of these are honest consumer protection. Others are there to try to instil Christian values into our money, for instance you may not use Stripe to sell sex toys. If you ask Stripe, they'll tell you that these restrictions are there because of the requirements of Stripe's partners. And that is exactly the problem. If we are heading towards a cashless society (and we are), then we need an electronic payment system that does not consult the Bible before deciding whether to allow your payment or not.

nikcub 9y ago

You don't have to explain the Bitcoin forks - most people who click the comments on Bitcoin threads here know what they are You also don't have to explain the altoins or pump them - most people here know what they are. These types of comments might work well on reddit but they don't really add anything for the audience here.