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This site lists 1450 different cryptocurrencies. I wonder how many of them can be used as actual currency. Bitcoin adoption has stalled and at least one big ven

This site lists 1450 different cryptocurrencies. I wonder how many of them can be used as actual currency. Bitcoin adoption has stalled and at least one big vendor (valve/steam) dropped it because of the price instability.

anonytrary 9y ago
Why businesses might not use Bitcoin: 1. Bitcoin remains speculative and volatile. This will cause it to be adopted by smaller businesses that can "do things that don't scale". We won't see big businesses support mainstream crypto payments until the demand is high enough to justify the risk. 2. Bitcoin itself is a clamped network, as such the fees are very high. You can't sell Lemonade at your stand with Bitcoin if the fees are much greater than the cost of a cup of lemonade. Other cryptocurrencies aim to solve these problems.
- flowctrl 9y ago
  The Lightning Network, coming soon to Bitcoin, will solve the performance & fee problems too. Stability will come with increased liquidity.
  - fgonzag 9y ago
    People keep saying that. I wonder if they have actually read the white paper. The lightning network will only work for exchanges who will keep channels open between them. Getting a graph of every wallet connected to every other wallet is a mathematical impossibility. The lightning network is essentially instituting central banking all over again, this time with bitcoin. "Oh so you want to transfer coins quickly? Better keep them at well connected exchange so it can be instantaneous, and you'll only be transferring between exchanges by the way."
    - ric2b 9y ago
      > The lightning network will only work for exchanges who will keep channels open between them. Getting a graph of every wallet connected to every other wallet is a mathematical impossibility. Transactions can be routed through multiple channels, you don't need to open a channel to every single wallet you want to transact with. That would not be a Lightning network, it would just be payment channels. > The lightning network is essentially instituting central banking all over again, this time with bitcoin. "Oh so you want to transfer coins quickly? Better keep them at well connected exchange so it can be instantaneous, and you'll only be transferring between exchanges by the way." Not even close to central banking, LN transacts real Bitcoins, not IOU's, so they can't print more base money or more debt-based money. There's also no trust needed (no counter-party risk and you can route around censorship attempts)
      - jacques_chester 9y ago
        As I understand it, bitcoin is a ledger scheme. There no "coins" per se. Which means it's very much like how banking works in practice: everyone keeps their own books and leaves the credits and debits on them. Real funds don't change hands all that often, it's easier just to keep the running tally if you trust your counterparty. Of course, trusting your counterparty requires you to know who they are, have stable addresses and so on.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        DennisP 9y ago
        You're basically right except with payment channels you mostly don't have to trust the counterparty. The simplest case is a unidirectional channel. To pay you a series of micropayments, I send a series of transactions with each one slightly larger, so each is the sum of all my payments. You can only submit one such transaction to the blockchain. I lock my funds so you don't have to worry they won't be available. Bidirectional channels and networking are elaborations on this idea. In bidirectional channels the main risk is that your counterparty will submit an obsolete state; there has to be a delay and you have to monitor the chain so you can submit a more recent state if that happens. You don't have to know who the counterparty is. (Your analogy to a ledger with account balances is precisely correct for Ethereum, but Bitcoin actually has a somewhat different model.)
        jacques_chester 9y ago
        If I'm reading you, the idea is to essentially to negotiate out-of-band? I remember reading something like this in Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies with a note saying nobody had tried it in practice. > (Your analogy to a ledger with account balances is precisely correct for Ethereum, but Bitcoin actually has a somewhat different model.) My understanding is that in bitcoin it's a log of transactions -- a ledger. Ethereum is instead addresses holding totals -- more like an account statement.
    - Klathmon 9y ago
      This is so wrong in so many ways... Not only is the "network" part of LN referring to the ability to chain multiple channels together to make payments several hops away if needed, but why would exchanges be the only one you could transfer to? Currently on mainnet a VPN vendor is really the only major player, and it's expected that most vendors will have a lighting node, as all it requires is an always online server... Not to mention that transacting over LN has no counterparty risk, and "keeping a graph of every connected wallet" is not an impossibility... It uses the TOR protocol which runs over IP, which are both the kinds of networks of channels you imply are impossible here... It sounds like you read the first 2 paragraphs of the paper and decided to stop. Read more, and these details will be explained in excruciating detail.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
      > Getting a graph of every wallet connected to every other wallet is a mathematical impossibility. Why is that remotely relevant? Why would I want my wallet 'connected' to any wallet I'm not going to transact with?
      - fgonzag 9y ago
        Because you might need to pay someone? How do you know beforehand all the wallets you are going to transact with? (Assuming we are talking about using it as a currency anyways)
  - dan1234 9y ago
    Is there an ETA for the Lightning Network? It seems to have been 'coming soon' for a while.
    - ric2b 9y ago
      There's no ETA, people can start using it right now if they want (some crazy people are already using it on main net) but the developers don't consider it safe and stable enough to use with real money (only recommended on test-net right now)
    - simik 9y ago
      https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7npeh6/lightning_network_megathread/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7npeh6/lightning_n... This post on reddit would be a good place to get understanding of the current LN status.
- tom_mellior 9y ago
  > We won't see big businesses support mainstream crypto payments until the demand is high enough to justify the risk. There is also a risk with accepting credit card payments, which is part of the reason why businesses don't actually process credit card payments themselves. They outsource that to a specialized third party that deals with the risks, like Stripe. The same thing is true for Bitcoin; almost every online store uses BitPay, who take care of the claimed volatility risk. (Also, there was a pretty stable three-year period for Bitcoin from early 2014 to late 2016 or so. Widespread adoption failed to materialize, so it's not like "once it's stable it will miraculously be adopted by everyone".) > the fees are very high Yep. Fees, delays, and unreliability are the actual problems of the moment.
  - anonytrary 9y ago
    > who take care of the claimed volatility risk. Under the hood how do they do that? Are are they converting your BTC to USDT on-deposit, then additionally from USDT to BTC on-withdrawal?
    - tom_mellior 9y ago
      They guarantee the vendor a certain rate for a time window of 15 minutes or so. If the buyer makes a payment within this time frame and gets at least one confirmation (which is the buyer's gamble), BitPay pays the vendor immediately in USD (or other fiat). I guess they have USD reserves to make these payments and restock them by converting part of their Bitcoin holdings from time to time. If Bitcoin collapses completely, they blow up. Though even their risk is controlled because they can stop processing payments at any moment.
- CPLX 9y ago
  3. Because US dollars work fine
  - consp 9y ago
    Only if you are in/from the US with a US credit/debit card. Otherwise the fees alone should make you stop using them.
    - collyw 9y ago
      Rubbish. I live in the EU and buy stuff from the States on a semi regular basis. Shipping costs are usually the deciding factor, card fees are insignificant.
  - anonytrary 9y ago
    Fine is fine. Secure is great.

anonytrary 9y ago

Why businesses might not use Bitcoin: 1. Bitcoin remains speculative and volatile. This will cause it to be adopted by smaller businesses that can "do things that don't scale". We won't see big businesses support mainstream crypto payments until the demand is high enough to justify the risk. 2. Bitcoin itself is a clamped network, as such the fees are very high. You can't sell Lemonade at your stand with Bitcoin if the fees are much greater than the cost of a cup of lemonade. Other cryptocurrencies aim to solve these problems.

flowctrl 9y ago
The Lightning Network, coming soon to Bitcoin, will solve the performance & fee problems too. Stability will come with increased liquidity.
- fgonzag 9y ago
  People keep saying that. I wonder if they have actually read the white paper. The lightning network will only work for exchanges who will keep channels open between them. Getting a graph of every wallet connected to every other wallet is a mathematical impossibility. The lightning network is essentially instituting central banking all over again, this time with bitcoin. "Oh so you want to transfer coins quickly? Better keep them at well connected exchange so it can be instantaneous, and you'll only be transferring between exchanges by the way."
  - ric2b 9y ago
    > The lightning network will only work for exchanges who will keep channels open between them. Getting a graph of every wallet connected to every other wallet is a mathematical impossibility. Transactions can be routed through multiple channels, you don't need to open a channel to every single wallet you want to transact with. That would not be a Lightning network, it would just be payment channels. > The lightning network is essentially instituting central banking all over again, this time with bitcoin. "Oh so you want to transfer coins quickly? Better keep them at well connected exchange so it can be instantaneous, and you'll only be transferring between exchanges by the way." Not even close to central banking, LN transacts real Bitcoins, not IOU's, so they can't print more base money or more debt-based money. There's also no trust needed (no counter-party risk and you can route around censorship attempts)
    - jacques_chester 9y ago
      As I understand it, bitcoin is a ledger scheme. There no "coins" per se. Which means it's very much like how banking works in practice: everyone keeps their own books and leaves the credits and debits on them. Real funds don't change hands all that often, it's easier just to keep the running tally if you trust your counterparty. Of course, trusting your counterparty requires you to know who they are, have stable addresses and so on.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - DennisP 9y ago
        You're basically right except with payment channels you mostly don't have to trust the counterparty. The simplest case is a unidirectional channel. To pay you a series of micropayments, I send a series of transactions with each one slightly larger, so each is the sum of all my payments. You can only submit one such transaction to the blockchain. I lock my funds so you don't have to worry they won't be available. Bidirectional channels and networking are elaborations on this idea. In bidirectional channels the main risk is that your counterparty will submit an obsolete state; there has to be a delay and you have to monitor the chain so you can submit a more recent state if that happens. You don't have to know who the counterparty is. (Your analogy to a ledger with account balances is precisely correct for Ethereum, but Bitcoin actually has a somewhat different model.)
        jacques_chester 9y ago
        If I'm reading you, the idea is to essentially to negotiate out-of-band? I remember reading something like this in Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies with a note saying nobody had tried it in practice. > (Your analogy to a ledger with account balances is precisely correct for Ethereum, but Bitcoin actually has a somewhat different model.) My understanding is that in bitcoin it's a log of transactions -- a ledger. Ethereum is instead addresses holding totals -- more like an account statement.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    This is so wrong in so many ways... Not only is the "network" part of LN referring to the ability to chain multiple channels together to make payments several hops away if needed, but why would exchanges be the only one you could transfer to? Currently on mainnet a VPN vendor is really the only major player, and it's expected that most vendors will have a lighting node, as all it requires is an always online server... Not to mention that transacting over LN has no counterparty risk, and "keeping a graph of every connected wallet" is not an impossibility... It uses the TOR protocol which runs over IP, which are both the kinds of networks of channels you imply are impossible here... It sounds like you read the first 2 paragraphs of the paper and decided to stop. Read more, and these details will be explained in excruciating detail.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
    > Getting a graph of every wallet connected to every other wallet is a mathematical impossibility. Why is that remotely relevant? Why would I want my wallet 'connected' to any wallet I'm not going to transact with?
    - fgonzag 9y ago
      Because you might need to pay someone? How do you know beforehand all the wallets you are going to transact with? (Assuming we are talking about using it as a currency anyways)
- dan1234 9y ago
  Is there an ETA for the Lightning Network? It seems to have been 'coming soon' for a while.
  - ric2b 9y ago
    There's no ETA, people can start using it right now if they want (some crazy people are already using it on main net) but the developers don't consider it safe and stable enough to use with real money (only recommended on test-net right now)
  - simik 9y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7npeh6/lightning_network_megathread/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7npeh6/lightning_n... This post on reddit would be a good place to get understanding of the current LN status.
tom_mellior 9y ago
> We won't see big businesses support mainstream crypto payments until the demand is high enough to justify the risk. There is also a risk with accepting credit card payments, which is part of the reason why businesses don't actually process credit card payments themselves. They outsource that to a specialized third party that deals with the risks, like Stripe. The same thing is true for Bitcoin; almost every online store uses BitPay, who take care of the claimed volatility risk. (Also, there was a pretty stable three-year period for Bitcoin from early 2014 to late 2016 or so. Widespread adoption failed to materialize, so it's not like "once it's stable it will miraculously be adopted by everyone".) > the fees are very high Yep. Fees, delays, and unreliability are the actual problems of the moment.
- anonytrary 9y ago
  > who take care of the claimed volatility risk. Under the hood how do they do that? Are are they converting your BTC to USDT on-deposit, then additionally from USDT to BTC on-withdrawal?
  - tom_mellior 9y ago
    They guarantee the vendor a certain rate for a time window of 15 minutes or so. If the buyer makes a payment within this time frame and gets at least one confirmation (which is the buyer's gamble), BitPay pays the vendor immediately in USD (or other fiat). I guess they have USD reserves to make these payments and restock them by converting part of their Bitcoin holdings from time to time. If Bitcoin collapses completely, they blow up. Though even their risk is controlled because they can stop processing payments at any moment.
CPLX 9y ago
3. Because US dollars work fine
- consp 9y ago
  Only if you are in/from the US with a US credit/debit card. Otherwise the fees alone should make you stop using them.
  - collyw 9y ago
    Rubbish. I live in the EU and buy stuff from the States on a semi regular basis. Shipping costs are usually the deciding factor, card fees are insignificant.
- anonytrary 9y ago
  Fine is fine. Secure is great.