5 ms·

Bitcoin is currently the world's reserve cryptocurrency - All cryptocurrencies can be exchanged for Bitcoin. But unfortunately in technical terms, it's not fit

Bitcoin is currently the world's reserve cryptocurrency - All cryptocurrencies can be exchanged for Bitcoin. But unfortunately in technical terms, it's not fit for this purpose. The reserve cryptocurrency of the internet needs to be fast and offer cheap transactions so that it can easily and cheaply be moved between exchanges. I think it will take some time before another cryptocurrency takes the place of Bitcoin. Part of the problem is that very few people currently have the skills to evaluate a cryptocurrency based on its technical merits. So exchanges are not currently in a position to agree about what the next reserve cryptocurrency should be. I think that replacing Bitcoin with Ethereum right now would be a mistake. Ethereum has a lot of big scalability hurdles - I think that technically Ethereum actually has more hurdles to overcome than Bitcoin - Their community does seem a lot more motivated though; but I'm not sure that will be enough. Ethereum still needs to switch to Proof-of-Stake and THEN it needs to implement sharding. Also, I don't think that pruning will be feasible for Ethereum. It wouldn't make sense to prune the Ethereum blockchain because that would entail pruning out smart contracts. Most no-smart-contract cryptocurrencies are not limited in this way.

zerostar07 9y ago
ETH is up 17% this week over BTC. it might already be becoming the new reserve currency: https://coinzaa.com/tools?limit=200&base=BTC https://coinzaa.com/tools?limit=200&base=BTC Also , i m not sure how often people use BTC to transfer stuff between exchanges, it's just too slow and expensive. i think ppl use LTC or ETH more often for transfers.
- wmeredith 9y ago
  Absolutely. The day traders switched to Eth as a reserve back in December when Bitcoin shit the bed under the load of main stream media attention. It's not perfect, but it's an order of magnitude faster and cheaper than Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin will be seen like Geocities some day. A hell of an idea that many people have done much better.
  - xiphias 9y ago
    I was thinking of putting some of my crypto money to ETH, but after the huge parity multisig bug (and the fact that I'm using multisig to secure my BTC) and finding out that the ,,most secure Ethereum wallet'' has no testing for the multisig wallet that it has (and all the hard forks that I don't agree with), I decided that I never want to touch ETH. Meanwhile Schnorr signatures and Lightning network are amazing scaling solutions for BTC (of course right now you have to dig into the details to understand why)
Zaskoda 9y ago
> But unfortunately in technical terms, it's not fit for this purpose. Can you explain why, in technical terms? I don't believe any other cryptocurrency has faced anywhere near the same volume of transactions.It looks to me like Etherium maxed out at around 230k transactions per day while Bitcoin has faced nearly 500k transactions.
- charlesdm 9y ago
  I think you have that backwards. Ethereum does significantly more transactions per day than Bitcoin, at cheaper cost.
  - Zaskoda 9y ago
    You are correct. I was looking at the wrong data. Etherium is currently doing more transactions. Thanks crypto kitties.
charlesdm 9y ago
At least Ethereum has a roadmap, some consensus on what needs to happen to achieve scale, and a decent track record of getting things done. Yes, I am aware some things are experimental and might not fully work out. But personally I haven't been particularly impressed with the development of Bitcoin in the last 2+ years.
- garmaine 9y ago
  The last 2 years have seen some of the most monumental work in the bitcoin space. Bitcoin developers just choose not to overhype it.
rawrmaan 9y ago
I think Nano (https://nano.org https://nano.org -- just rebranded from RaiBlocks) will become one of the biggest arbitrage currencies due to zero fees and its highly scalable architecture (7k+ TPS tested). I've been working my butt off to make sure as many people as possible will be able to build with it as the documentation and ecosystem are currently lacking. See https://www.nanode.co/node-api https://www.nanode.co/node-api Prunability included.
- Alex3917 9y ago
  > zero fees and its highly scalable architecture But there are a dozen similar projects now, so why this one?
  - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
    I'm assuming because he financially benefits from this one.
  - koonsolo 9y ago
    Such as? The only one I can think of is IOTA, but it mainly focuses on IOT or act as underlying technology, not really user friendly.
- dannyw 9y ago
  I looked into the whitepaper of Nano. It is definitely intriguing, however there is relatively little attention paid to how it is attack proof. A network partitioning attack, combined with a double spend that is embedded and sent to the chain of a major economic actor (like an exchange), will result in the blockchain irreversibly forking in perhaps an hour without any way of reconciliation.
- 0wing 9y ago
  Raiblocks aka Nano is a scam. "Distribution is complete" - how was the supply created and distributed? https://raiblocks.net/page/frontiers.php?limit=100 https://raiblocks.net/page/frontiers.php?limit=100 Basically someone created Raiblocks by forking another DAG 'blockchain' database, and allocated themselves millions of coins spread across many addresses. A few thousand coins were given to the public if they clicked captchas. These people who generated raiblocks / nano are now essentially multi-level marketeers trying to convince you to buy their beanie babies. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=raiblock+captcha+ https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=raiblock+captch... Remember, anytime you buy a cryptocurrency means someone else is trying to cash out.
clarkmoody 9y ago
> The reserve cryptocurrency of the internet needs to be fast and offer cheap transactions The most important things about any cryptocurrency are decentralization and censorship-resistance. Without those two, you might as well be running a PayPal clone in a datacenter. That way, you get the fastest and cheapest transactions possible. > so that it can easily and cheaply be moved between exchanges. Exchanges can set up big payment channels between one another and do instant Bitcoin transfers. However, since they operate in a regulatory environment, this may never happen. If you don't subscribe to the bitcoin-dev mailing list, then you're missing out on the latest developments toward scalability and privacy, which are really exciting.
- clarkmoody 9y ago
  Note: Right now the Bitcoin mempool is nearly empty. It looks like 5 sat/b will make it to the next block.
- koonsolo 9y ago
  > That way, you get the fastest and cheapest transactions possible. Not currently. Have a look at the Nano cryptocurrency (renamed from RaiBlocks): it has instant and free transactions, and should be scalable (but this last part is not proven in practice yet). The instant and free is definitely true in practice already. Recently a redditor calculated a single wind turbine could power 7000 transactions per second (https://www.reddit.com/r/nanocurrency/comments/7ucw1a/the_entire_nano_network_is_so_efficient_that/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nanocurrency/comments/7ucw1a/the_en...) The new generation of cryptocurrencies is here to compete with the previous ones, and with the established financial services. Exciting times. Disclosure: I own a few of those coins
  - clarkmoody 9y ago
    No cryptocurrency can beat a centralized database for speed and cost.
    - koonsolo 9y ago
      You mean a single point of failure central database? How much uptime do you expect for such a database? 99.9%? Where is this database located? In US while I do payments in Australia? I think you are seriously underestimating the complexity of a decent payment system.
tlrobinson 9y ago
> But unfortunately in technical terms, it's not fit for this purpose. Is there a cryptocurrency that is? A linear scaling factor like larger block sizes or faster block times doesn't count.
- koonsolo 9y ago
  This would be a good use case for Nano (previously RaiBlocks), as described on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RaiBlocks/comments/7lans3/great_rai_use_case_instant_transfers_between/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RaiBlocks/comments/7lans3/great_rai... Nothing beats instant (=few seconds), free transactions. Current problem is that Nano is not yet available on a wide range of exchanges. Disclosure: I own a few of the mentioned coins
  - jondubois 9y ago
    Nano/RaiBlocks sounds good in theory and they seem to have fewer hurdles to achieve scalability than a lot of other cryptos but in practice at the moment every transaction still needs to propagate through every full node so it's not actually scalable in its present state.
sdrothrock 9y ago
> The reserve cryptocurrency of the internet needs to be fast and offer cheap transactions so that it can easily and cheaply be moved between exchanges. Segwit addresses the "fast and cheap" transactions bit and has been seeing more widespread use. Do you have an opinion on it?
drexlspivey 9y ago
Again, bitcoin fees are currently 0.5$

zerostar07 9y ago

ETH is up 17% this week over BTC. it might already be becoming the new reserve currency: https://coinzaa.com/tools?limit=200&base=BTC https://coinzaa.com/tools?limit=200&base=BTC Also , i m not sure how often people use BTC to transfer stuff between exchanges, it's just too slow and expensive. i think ppl use LTC or ETH more often for transfers.

wmeredith 9y ago
Absolutely. The day traders switched to Eth as a reserve back in December when Bitcoin shit the bed under the load of main stream media attention. It's not perfect, but it's an order of magnitude faster and cheaper than Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin will be seen like Geocities some day. A hell of an idea that many people have done much better.
- xiphias 9y ago
  I was thinking of putting some of my crypto money to ETH, but after the huge parity multisig bug (and the fact that I'm using multisig to secure my BTC) and finding out that the ,,most secure Ethereum wallet'' has no testing for the multisig wallet that it has (and all the hard forks that I don't agree with), I decided that I never want to touch ETH. Meanwhile Schnorr signatures and Lightning network are amazing scaling solutions for BTC (of course right now you have to dig into the details to understand why)

Zaskoda 9y ago

> But unfortunately in technical terms, it's not fit for this purpose. Can you explain why, in technical terms? I don't believe any other cryptocurrency has faced anywhere near the same volume of transactions.It looks to me like Etherium maxed out at around 230k transactions per day while Bitcoin has faced nearly 500k transactions.

charlesdm 9y ago
I think you have that backwards. Ethereum does significantly more transactions per day than Bitcoin, at cheaper cost.
- Zaskoda 9y ago
  You are correct. I was looking at the wrong data. Etherium is currently doing more transactions. Thanks crypto kitties.

charlesdm 9y ago

At least Ethereum has a roadmap, some consensus on what needs to happen to achieve scale, and a decent track record of getting things done. Yes, I am aware some things are experimental and might not fully work out. But personally I haven't been particularly impressed with the development of Bitcoin in the last 2+ years.

garmaine 9y ago
The last 2 years have seen some of the most monumental work in the bitcoin space. Bitcoin developers just choose not to overhype it.

rawrmaan 9y ago

I think Nano (https://nano.org https://nano.org -- just rebranded from RaiBlocks) will become one of the biggest arbitrage currencies due to zero fees and its highly scalable architecture (7k+ TPS tested). I've been working my butt off to make sure as many people as possible will be able to build with it as the documentation and ecosystem are currently lacking. See https://www.nanode.co/node-api https://www.nanode.co/node-api Prunability included.

Alex3917 9y ago
> zero fees and its highly scalable architecture But there are a dozen similar projects now, so why this one?
- BoiledCabbage 9y ago
  I'm assuming because he financially benefits from this one.
- koonsolo 9y ago
  Such as? The only one I can think of is IOTA, but it mainly focuses on IOT or act as underlying technology, not really user friendly.
dannyw 9y ago
I looked into the whitepaper of Nano. It is definitely intriguing, however there is relatively little attention paid to how it is attack proof. A network partitioning attack, combined with a double spend that is embedded and sent to the chain of a major economic actor (like an exchange), will result in the blockchain irreversibly forking in perhaps an hour without any way of reconciliation.
0wing 9y ago
Raiblocks aka Nano is a scam. "Distribution is complete" - how was the supply created and distributed? https://raiblocks.net/page/frontiers.php?limit=100 https://raiblocks.net/page/frontiers.php?limit=100 Basically someone created Raiblocks by forking another DAG 'blockchain' database, and allocated themselves millions of coins spread across many addresses. A few thousand coins were given to the public if they clicked captchas. These people who generated raiblocks / nano are now essentially multi-level marketeers trying to convince you to buy their beanie babies. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=raiblock+captcha+ https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=raiblock+captch... Remember, anytime you buy a cryptocurrency means someone else is trying to cash out.

clarkmoody 9y ago

> The reserve cryptocurrency of the internet needs to be fast and offer cheap transactions The most important things about any cryptocurrency are decentralization and censorship-resistance. Without those two, you might as well be running a PayPal clone in a datacenter. That way, you get the fastest and cheapest transactions possible. > so that it can easily and cheaply be moved between exchanges. Exchanges can set up big payment channels between one another and do instant Bitcoin transfers. However, since they operate in a regulatory environment, this may never happen. If you don't subscribe to the bitcoin-dev mailing list, then you're missing out on the latest developments toward scalability and privacy, which are really exciting.

clarkmoody 9y ago
Note: Right now the Bitcoin mempool is nearly empty. It looks like 5 sat/b will make it to the next block.
koonsolo 9y ago
> That way, you get the fastest and cheapest transactions possible. Not currently. Have a look at the Nano cryptocurrency (renamed from RaiBlocks): it has instant and free transactions, and should be scalable (but this last part is not proven in practice yet). The instant and free is definitely true in practice already. Recently a redditor calculated a single wind turbine could power 7000 transactions per second (https://www.reddit.com/r/nanocurrency/comments/7ucw1a/the_entire_nano_network_is_so_efficient_that/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nanocurrency/comments/7ucw1a/the_en...) The new generation of cryptocurrencies is here to compete with the previous ones, and with the established financial services. Exciting times. Disclosure: I own a few of those coins
- clarkmoody 9y ago
  No cryptocurrency can beat a centralized database for speed and cost.
  - koonsolo 9y ago
    You mean a single point of failure central database? How much uptime do you expect for such a database? 99.9%? Where is this database located? In US while I do payments in Australia? I think you are seriously underestimating the complexity of a decent payment system.

tlrobinson 9y ago

> But unfortunately in technical terms, it's not fit for this purpose. Is there a cryptocurrency that is? A linear scaling factor like larger block sizes or faster block times doesn't count.

koonsolo 9y ago
This would be a good use case for Nano (previously RaiBlocks), as described on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RaiBlocks/comments/7lans3/great_rai_use_case_instant_transfers_between/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RaiBlocks/comments/7lans3/great_rai... Nothing beats instant (=few seconds), free transactions. Current problem is that Nano is not yet available on a wide range of exchanges. Disclosure: I own a few of the mentioned coins
- jondubois 9y ago
  Nano/RaiBlocks sounds good in theory and they seem to have fewer hurdles to achieve scalability than a lot of other cryptos but in practice at the moment every transaction still needs to propagate through every full node so it's not actually scalable in its present state.

sdrothrock 9y ago

> The reserve cryptocurrency of the internet needs to be fast and offer cheap transactions so that it can easily and cheaply be moved between exchanges. Segwit addresses the "fast and cheap" transactions bit and has been seeing more widespread use. Do you have an opinion on it?

drexlspivey 9y ago

Again, bitcoin fees are currently 0.5$