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The potential use really clicked with me recently when I was browsing someone's site and came across a linked bitcoin address. One tap/click on that link follow

The potential use really clicked with me recently when I was browsing someone's site and came across a linked bitcoin address. One tap/click on that link followed by an amount and another button press, and I could pay that person money, directly: that's a very low barrier to payments. And with the same wallet, I can also scan a QR code on someone's phone and pay them money. I think these benefits are tangible, but whilst the current block chain mechanism might demonstrate the utility, what we really need are the fee/transaction time problem to be resolved. I really want someone far more intelligent than me to explain whether or not a zero-sum instantaneous transaction is formally, logically impossible (via a successor to block chain?) because that really is the killer app, imo.

acdha 9y ago
Resolving the fee/latency issues seems like a hugely important problem since networks like that: that's closer to the convenience offered by credit cards with e.g. Square/Venmo/etc. or Apple Pay for the web but the main thing is that it presupposes people have accounts, which really means giving small businesses a reason to switch. If the fees could be lower than what Visa et al. are willing to offer, that could happen but otherwise it seems like a hard sell. > I really want someone far more intelligent than me to explain whether or not a zero-sum instantaneous transaction is formally, logically impossible (via a successor to block chain?) because that really is the killer app, imo. The hard part is trying to do it without central authorities and pseudo-anonymity. Using PKI makes that a much easier problem.