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Bitcoin on-chain transactions are almost on its historical peak again: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all https://www.blockchain.com

by argo_ 8y ago

Bitcoin on-chain transactions are almost on its historical peak again: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all https://www.blockchain.com/charts/n-transactions?timespan=al... This forum has been denying bitcoin since the first time someone posted about it: first time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463793 second time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852

wcoenen 8y ago
I'm not sure on-chain transaction rate approaching new highs is cause for celebration. Last time the rate of new transactions exceeded bitcoin's capacity, confirmation times became erratic and fees unpredictable. Why do you think this won't happen again?
- argo_ 8y ago
  The bitcoin software is not the same as before, updates have happened in the meantime. Now, 40% of all transactions happening are SegWit transactions, a lighter format which enables the network to handle a higher volume of transactions simultaneously. SegWit transactions are also cheaper in terms of fees. So, the number of transactions can exceed the previous high without colapsing the confirmation time or fees.
dmitriid 8y ago
Less than 10 transactions per second while spending more electricity than several medium-sized countries. Yup. Technology of the future that we are fools to dismiss.
- andirk 8y ago
  Is there hard evidence that shows the energy consumption of bitcoin? How is that calculated? I do believe it's "a lot" when I see those giant farms churning. And how do we compare it to fiat where the security is via vaults and sharks with lasers and other types of security?
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    > And how do we compare it to fiat where the security is via vaults and sharks with lasers and other types of security? You can easily compare. Fiat provides orders of orders of magnitude more value added services on top of just money. Bitcoin is consuming all that energy while struggling to send money between to people at a (often an order of magnitude) higher cost. Oh. There’s not just bitcoin, of course. There’s the joke called ethereum which was crippled by a game which in real world can be run on a mid-2000-era netbook. Yup. Incomparable. —- Edit: On Singles Day Alipay handled over a billion (yes, a billion) transactions in a day, with a peak of 120 000 transactions per second. Bitcoin would deplete the Sun attempting the same thing.
    - nybble41 8y ago
      The amount of energy used for Bitcoin mining has very little to do with the rate of transactions. The limiting factor is mining profitability, which depends on capital and energy costs on on hand and current and expected Bitcoin prices, the block reward (which decreases over time), and transaction fees on the other. Only the transaction fees increase with more transactions, and for now they're insignificant compared to the block reward. A billion Bitcoin transactions would be about 250-500 GiB, depending on the transaction size. If we were willing to accept block sizes of 1.5 to 3.5 GiB then we could handle that many transactions per day using no more energy than the current system. Of course, you'd need a 50+ Mbit dedicated downlink and some fairly capable hardware just to keep up with all the traffic, which is why we don't permit such large blocks.
- argo_ 8y ago
  The technology still evolving. 10 transactions is not and will not be the limit. The Lightning Network already proved that a much higher volume of bitcoin transactions can be made without slowing down the bitcoin network. I like to think the energy consumption of the bitcoin network is an "idle energy": 10 transations/s = mid-size country 100 transations/s = mid-size country 10.000 transations/s = mid-size country An increase in transations do not directly increase energy consumption.
  - dmitriid 8y ago
    > An increase in transations do not directly increase energy consumption. So far this has always been the case > The Lightning Network already proved that a much higher volume of bitcoin transactions It hasn’t proven anything yet, and as already pointed somewhere in this discussion there’s already a new version trying to fix shortcomings and limitations.
tim333 8y ago
It's interesting that that is the case while interest in Bitcoin as evidenced by twitter activity seems to have dropped back to levels seen in 2014 and 2016 https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-tweets.html https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-tweets.html I'm not quite sure why. More algo trading perhaps?

by argo_ 8y ago

wcoenen 8y ago

I'm not sure on-chain transaction rate approaching new highs is cause for celebration. Last time the rate of new transactions exceeded bitcoin's capacity, confirmation times became erratic and fees unpredictable. Why do you think this won't happen again?

argo_ 8y ago
The bitcoin software is not the same as before, updates have happened in the meantime. Now, 40% of all transactions happening are SegWit transactions, a lighter format which enables the network to handle a higher volume of transactions simultaneously. SegWit transactions are also cheaper in terms of fees. So, the number of transactions can exceed the previous high without colapsing the confirmation time or fees.

dmitriid 8y ago

Less than 10 transactions per second while spending more electricity than several medium-sized countries. Yup. Technology of the future that we are fools to dismiss.

andirk 8y ago
Is there hard evidence that shows the energy consumption of bitcoin? How is that calculated? I do believe it's "a lot" when I see those giant farms churning. And how do we compare it to fiat where the security is via vaults and sharks with lasers and other types of security?
- dmitriid 8y ago
  > And how do we compare it to fiat where the security is via vaults and sharks with lasers and other types of security? You can easily compare. Fiat provides orders of orders of magnitude more value added services on top of just money. Bitcoin is consuming all that energy while struggling to send money between to people at a (often an order of magnitude) higher cost. Oh. There’s not just bitcoin, of course. There’s the joke called ethereum which was crippled by a game which in real world can be run on a mid-2000-era netbook. Yup. Incomparable. —- Edit: On Singles Day Alipay handled over a billion (yes, a billion) transactions in a day, with a peak of 120 000 transactions per second. Bitcoin would deplete the Sun attempting the same thing.
  - nybble41 8y ago
    The amount of energy used for Bitcoin mining has very little to do with the rate of transactions. The limiting factor is mining profitability, which depends on capital and energy costs on on hand and current and expected Bitcoin prices, the block reward (which decreases over time), and transaction fees on the other. Only the transaction fees increase with more transactions, and for now they're insignificant compared to the block reward. A billion Bitcoin transactions would be about 250-500 GiB, depending on the transaction size. If we were willing to accept block sizes of 1.5 to 3.5 GiB then we could handle that many transactions per day using no more energy than the current system. Of course, you'd need a 50+ Mbit dedicated downlink and some fairly capable hardware just to keep up with all the traffic, which is why we don't permit such large blocks.
argo_ 8y ago
The technology still evolving. 10 transactions is not and will not be the limit. The Lightning Network already proved that a much higher volume of bitcoin transactions can be made without slowing down the bitcoin network. I like to think the energy consumption of the bitcoin network is an "idle energy": 10 transations/s = mid-size country 100 transations/s = mid-size country 10.000 transations/s = mid-size country An increase in transations do not directly increase energy consumption.
- dmitriid 8y ago
  > An increase in transations do not directly increase energy consumption. So far this has always been the case > The Lightning Network already proved that a much higher volume of bitcoin transactions It hasn’t proven anything yet, and as already pointed somewhere in this discussion there’s already a new version trying to fix shortcomings and limitations.

tim333 8y ago

It's interesting that that is the case while interest in Bitcoin as evidenced by twitter activity seems to have dropped back to levels seen in 2014 and 2016 https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-tweets.html https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-tweets.html I'm not quite sure why. More algo trading perhaps?