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Faster and Cheaper for Bitcoin? If you use offchain, its actually incredible. (Shift Debit cards and Coinbase email are free and instant) Onchain is a disaster

Faster and Cheaper for Bitcoin? If you use offchain, its actually incredible. (Shift Debit cards and Coinbase email are free and instant) Onchain is a disaster for literally every blockchain that exists. Nothing is scaling. (maybe DAG, but that is not blockchain) You need to understand the mindset of bitcoiners. There are 21,000,000 Bitcoin ever ever ever. The government only prints more money. Bitcoin is already accepted around the world. Its supposed to free us from government currency.

Retric 8y ago
I don't really understand that mindset. That's the current rules, but as with all human endeavors it's up in the air how long they last. EX: Miners could decide that every wallet must have one transaction per month or the cost of 1 transaction is deducted from that account. Thus avoiding a free rider problem.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- nicky0 8y ago
  Miners attemptig to change anything against the broad consensus would find themselves using their expensive mining hardware to mine worthless blocks accepted by no-one.
  - dnomad 8y ago
    No they wouldn't. People would follow the mining power if they actually want to have a secure chain.
    - sparkie 8y ago
      People would only follow mining power that represents their interests. They don't care about individual miners. If a majority of miners were not representing the interests of the users, the users would find a way to push those miners out and will carry on as before. Miners can only generate revenue by mining a coin that people want to use. They want to use it because it is secured by a distribution of miners, such that no collaboration of miners can attack it. If the premise is that a group of miners can attack it, because that group of miners want to push their rules, then the concept is broken. Total hash power is not the deciding factor. What matters is that honest participants have more hash power than dishonest ones. The honest ones can adapt far more easily than large miners, who have too much invested to handle something like a proof-of-work adjustment.
      - dnomad 8y ago
        > If a majority of miners were not representing the interests of the users, the users would find a way to push those miners out and will carry on as before. And how would the users do that? Do you imagine all the users getting together and taking a vote? The vast majority of people will follow the mining power because the vast majority of people are not miners. This idea of a "popular revolt" against miners is fantasy. > Miners can only generate revenue by mining a coin that people want to use. They want to use it because it is secured by a distribution of miners, such that no collaboration of miners can attack it. Do you really think the miners would "attack" the chain? Isn't this just playing with words? The realistic scenario is that the miners will enforce their own rules. Whether this is an "attack" or not is pure sophistry. > Total hash power is not the deciding factor. What matters is that honest participants have more hash power than dishonest ones. This is a meaningless distinction in a world where it's very easy for malicious actors to quickly accumulate hashing power. BTC's success is a function of its hashing power, not the other way around.
        sparkie 8y ago
        > And how would the users do that? Do you imagine all the users getting together and taking a vote? Yes. It's more likely people will follow the rules in the software client they prefer. Therefore, the developers of those clients have a significant voice in determining where people will chose to transact. If mining power decreases, this means it's easier for every person to mine on their own hardware, and incentivizes the redistribution of mining. This may happen in cycles. There will always be a culture of users who will only transact on a currency which cannot be inflated and does not incur demurrage fees. Given gresham's law, this chain will always retain value better (good money) verses whatever bad rules the dishonest miners are attempting. People will flock to the good money. > Do you really think the miners would "attack" the chain? Isn't this just playing with words? The realistic scenario is that the miners will enforce their own rules. Whether this is an "attack" or not is pure sophistry. They already are doing. Every fork of Bitcoin is an attempt to attack the network, because it is driven by the miner's ego in that he knows what is best. Miners can do what they want with their own client, but if they want to mine a valuable coin which has highly liquid markets to sell into, then they would be naive to go off and try to change the rules alone. The egomaniacs all left Bitcoin and are now competing for who gets to decide the rules of BCash. This mentality is not compatible with Bitcoin. To understand Bitcoin, you need to drop the ego. Your opinion means nothing in Bitcoin. The opinion of the majority of participants means everything. Nobody gets to decide. The market decides organically. > BTC's success is a function of its hashing power, not the other way around. I think you have it backwards. The mining economy emerged out of Bitcoin having value. The incentive to profit is what drives miners and nothing else. Meanwhile, what drives users is the fundamental principles that nobody can decide the rules. If a small group of miners can decide the rules, the users would not be interested, the coin would lose value, and the miners would no longer profit. BTC would be successful if it were still running on the CPUs of hackers. It was already successful the moment it went from $0.00 to $0.01. It meant that it had value, which provided the mining incentive. Everything else is inevitable.
    - xorcist 8y ago
      Mining power follows profitability, not the other way around.
      - dnomad 8y ago
        I guess this is what crypto people tell themselves to resolve the cognitive dissonance. I don't think this assumption applies to reality. We've observed in the historical record several instances of mining majorities unilaterally forking chains and/or even reversing transactions. The result of this has not been any revolt. Given that this is fundamentally the way the system is designed and that it has happened in the past, it seems logical to say it will happen again.
- kickopotomus 8y ago
  I know you just offered it as an example, but if that were to happen, it would kill bitcoin in the western world. People would use it almost purely as a speculative investment (as if most don't already).
  - notriddle 8y ago
    The variability in value already killed it for everyone else. The only other people who would even consider a cryptocurrency are the drug dealers, and XMR took over that market.
    - gomox 8y ago
      What's your source on the Monero claim?
etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
Nah, it would take the coordinated effort of just a few big mining pools to change the rules of Bitcoin completely. Or another fork happens and the "primary" fork decides to have different rules. Not quite "ever ever ever". Totally up to human whims.
- sparkie 8y ago
  Mining pools can't change the rules of Bitcoin. They can only change the rules in their own clients, which would have them producing blocks which are not accepted by the larger Bitcoin network. Changes to Bitcoin rules require consensus by all the participants (people running and using nodes). The only things a majority of miners can do are attempt double-spends of their own transactions, or temporary denial-of-service by excluding transactions from the chain of blocks they mine. Any other changes will fork them off the network, and then they'd be minting coins with no economy to sell them into.
  - damon_c 8y ago
    Well isn't the problem at hand that the 51% of the "larger" bitcoin network can actually, at this moment be controlled by only 4 pools? https://www.blockchain.com/en/pools https://www.blockchain.com/en/pools
    - sparkie 8y ago
      Ideally we would be better with increased decentralization. It could be a problem if they colluded and attempted to censor or double spend. Chances are they won't, because it will probably negatively affect their own bottom lines (reduced confidence in Bitcoin leading to reduced value of their own assets). Secondly, any blatant attack on the network could be countered by the participants forking in a change in the algorithm used to do the proof-of-work. This would bankrupt the attacker because they would be sat on enormous amounts of now useless mining hardware.
  - etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
    I'm not sure about my statement but I'm not sure about yours either. Before Bitcoin was created I would have said such a system was probably impossible... I guess my point is that the world is a complicated place to try to understand.
pjc50 8y ago
"Offchain" == "not bitcoin". If you're keeping it at coinbase, not in a wallet, that is called a "bank".
- rlpb 8y ago
  The cash in my bank account is still "cash".
  - CryptoPunk 8y ago
    But it's not cash you control. You control the credit the bank issues to you when you make a deposit. And you rely on the bank not freezing that credit, and faithfully redeeming it for cash when you make a withdrawal. The entire reason cryptocurrency was invented was to get around having to rely on trusted third parties to transact.
nradov 8y ago
How exactly will Bitcoin free us from government currency if we can't pay taxes in it?
- mmatear 8y ago
  Its like someone's selling artwork, but its just an unique string of numbers. That people are calling the second coming of money...
erfgh 8y ago
The government prints more money but still its value is more-or-less stable.
- sparkie 8y ago
  Stable in the short term, that's because inflation takes its time to work its way through the system. It doesn't all hit at once. The inequality is that the money printers get to spend their newly printed money at face value at the time of print. By the time it works its way through the system, it is worth less for everyone else, who has to then pay it back, with interest, to people who printed it.

Retric 8y ago

I don't really understand that mindset. That's the current rules, but as with all human endeavors it's up in the air how long they last. EX: Miners could decide that every wallet must have one transaction per month or the cost of 1 transaction is deducted from that account. Thus avoiding a free rider problem.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
nicky0 8y ago
Miners attemptig to change anything against the broad consensus would find themselves using their expensive mining hardware to mine worthless blocks accepted by no-one.
- dnomad 8y ago
  No they wouldn't. People would follow the mining power if they actually want to have a secure chain.
  - sparkie 8y ago
    People would only follow mining power that represents their interests. They don't care about individual miners. If a majority of miners were not representing the interests of the users, the users would find a way to push those miners out and will carry on as before. Miners can only generate revenue by mining a coin that people want to use. They want to use it because it is secured by a distribution of miners, such that no collaboration of miners can attack it. If the premise is that a group of miners can attack it, because that group of miners want to push their rules, then the concept is broken. Total hash power is not the deciding factor. What matters is that honest participants have more hash power than dishonest ones. The honest ones can adapt far more easily than large miners, who have too much invested to handle something like a proof-of-work adjustment.
    - dnomad 8y ago
      > If a majority of miners were not representing the interests of the users, the users would find a way to push those miners out and will carry on as before. And how would the users do that? Do you imagine all the users getting together and taking a vote? The vast majority of people will follow the mining power because the vast majority of people are not miners. This idea of a "popular revolt" against miners is fantasy. > Miners can only generate revenue by mining a coin that people want to use. They want to use it because it is secured by a distribution of miners, such that no collaboration of miners can attack it. Do you really think the miners would "attack" the chain? Isn't this just playing with words? The realistic scenario is that the miners will enforce their own rules. Whether this is an "attack" or not is pure sophistry. > Total hash power is not the deciding factor. What matters is that honest participants have more hash power than dishonest ones. This is a meaningless distinction in a world where it's very easy for malicious actors to quickly accumulate hashing power. BTC's success is a function of its hashing power, not the other way around.
      - sparkie 8y ago
        > And how would the users do that? Do you imagine all the users getting together and taking a vote? Yes. It's more likely people will follow the rules in the software client they prefer. Therefore, the developers of those clients have a significant voice in determining where people will chose to transact. If mining power decreases, this means it's easier for every person to mine on their own hardware, and incentivizes the redistribution of mining. This may happen in cycles. There will always be a culture of users who will only transact on a currency which cannot be inflated and does not incur demurrage fees. Given gresham's law, this chain will always retain value better (good money) verses whatever bad rules the dishonest miners are attempting. People will flock to the good money. > Do you really think the miners would "attack" the chain? Isn't this just playing with words? The realistic scenario is that the miners will enforce their own rules. Whether this is an "attack" or not is pure sophistry. They already are doing. Every fork of Bitcoin is an attempt to attack the network, because it is driven by the miner's ego in that he knows what is best. Miners can do what they want with their own client, but if they want to mine a valuable coin which has highly liquid markets to sell into, then they would be naive to go off and try to change the rules alone. The egomaniacs all left Bitcoin and are now competing for who gets to decide the rules of BCash. This mentality is not compatible with Bitcoin. To understand Bitcoin, you need to drop the ego. Your opinion means nothing in Bitcoin. The opinion of the majority of participants means everything. Nobody gets to decide. The market decides organically. > BTC's success is a function of its hashing power, not the other way around. I think you have it backwards. The mining economy emerged out of Bitcoin having value. The incentive to profit is what drives miners and nothing else. Meanwhile, what drives users is the fundamental principles that nobody can decide the rules. If a small group of miners can decide the rules, the users would not be interested, the coin would lose value, and the miners would no longer profit. BTC would be successful if it were still running on the CPUs of hackers. It was already successful the moment it went from $0.00 to $0.01. It meant that it had value, which provided the mining incentive. Everything else is inevitable.
  - xorcist 8y ago
    Mining power follows profitability, not the other way around.
    - dnomad 8y ago
      I guess this is what crypto people tell themselves to resolve the cognitive dissonance. I don't think this assumption applies to reality. We've observed in the historical record several instances of mining majorities unilaterally forking chains and/or even reversing transactions. The result of this has not been any revolt. Given that this is fundamentally the way the system is designed and that it has happened in the past, it seems logical to say it will happen again.
kickopotomus 8y ago
I know you just offered it as an example, but if that were to happen, it would kill bitcoin in the western world. People would use it almost purely as a speculative investment (as if most don't already).
- notriddle 8y ago
  The variability in value already killed it for everyone else. The only other people who would even consider a cryptocurrency are the drug dealers, and XMR took over that market.
  - gomox 8y ago
    What's your source on the Monero claim?

etaioinshrdlu 8y ago

Nah, it would take the coordinated effort of just a few big mining pools to change the rules of Bitcoin completely. Or another fork happens and the "primary" fork decides to have different rules. Not quite "ever ever ever". Totally up to human whims.

sparkie 8y ago
Mining pools can't change the rules of Bitcoin. They can only change the rules in their own clients, which would have them producing blocks which are not accepted by the larger Bitcoin network. Changes to Bitcoin rules require consensus by all the participants (people running and using nodes). The only things a majority of miners can do are attempt double-spends of their own transactions, or temporary denial-of-service by excluding transactions from the chain of blocks they mine. Any other changes will fork them off the network, and then they'd be minting coins with no economy to sell them into.
- damon_c 8y ago
  Well isn't the problem at hand that the 51% of the "larger" bitcoin network can actually, at this moment be controlled by only 4 pools? https://www.blockchain.com/en/pools https://www.blockchain.com/en/pools
  - sparkie 8y ago
    Ideally we would be better with increased decentralization. It could be a problem if they colluded and attempted to censor or double spend. Chances are they won't, because it will probably negatively affect their own bottom lines (reduced confidence in Bitcoin leading to reduced value of their own assets). Secondly, any blatant attack on the network could be countered by the participants forking in a change in the algorithm used to do the proof-of-work. This would bankrupt the attacker because they would be sat on enormous amounts of now useless mining hardware.
- etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
  I'm not sure about my statement but I'm not sure about yours either. Before Bitcoin was created I would have said such a system was probably impossible... I guess my point is that the world is a complicated place to try to understand.

pjc50 8y ago

"Offchain" == "not bitcoin". If you're keeping it at coinbase, not in a wallet, that is called a "bank".

rlpb 8y ago
The cash in my bank account is still "cash".
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  But it's not cash you control. You control the credit the bank issues to you when you make a deposit. And you rely on the bank not freezing that credit, and faithfully redeeming it for cash when you make a withdrawal. The entire reason cryptocurrency was invented was to get around having to rely on trusted third parties to transact.

nradov 8y ago

How exactly will Bitcoin free us from government currency if we can't pay taxes in it?

mmatear 8y ago
Its like someone's selling artwork, but its just an unique string of numbers. That people are calling the second coming of money...

erfgh 8y ago

The government prints more money but still its value is more-or-less stable.

sparkie 8y ago
Stable in the short term, that's because inflation takes its time to work its way through the system. It doesn't all hit at once. The inequality is that the money printers get to spend their newly printed money at face value at the time of print. By the time it works its way through the system, it is worth less for everyone else, who has to then pay it back, with interest, to people who printed it.