3 ms·

Maybe. Remember it takes "something like 20 minutes" for _any_ bitcoin transaction to get two confirmations. That's kinda "the speed of light limit" for any tr

Maybe. Remember it takes "something like 20 minutes" for _any_ bitcoin transaction to get two confirmations. That's kinda "the speed of light limit" for any transaction in bitcoin, whether it's 1 satoshi, or $40mil... (I don't know if this $40Mil "dump" was one transaction or a significant portion of the ~4000 you can fit into one block, if it was in a series of transactions averaging less than $10k, if couldn't have been done in one block, and there's no way it could have been confirmed in 20 mins...)

bubblewrap 7y ago
The author of the original article also cites that as some kind of reason for something. It's pretty irrelevant, though. If you have your Bitcoins stored on a market, your "transactions" don't go through the blockchain. It's just a field in a database then, indicating how many Bitcoins a user has stored on an exchange. The argument would be the same as as claiming "to transfer stocks, you have to deliver them by mail to the recipient, so it takes at least two days". Or indeed the same with money. If you wire somebody some money, no actual money is moved. It is just fields in a database of banks changing, that indicate how much money the banks owe you. We are so used to it by now that we think of it as actual money changing hands, but it is not. So I am sorry, I can only take the article half serious. The author seems to be driven too much by his disdain for Bitcoin than by actual facts.
antonvs 7y ago
Someone else mentioned it, but just to reiterate - these aren't transactions on the blockchain, they're trades on an exchange. They happen essentially instantly, because all that's happening is the exchange is updating its internal customer account balances. The only time this hits the blockchain is when someone withdraws Bitcoin from the exchange.

3 ms·

Maybe. Remember it takes "something like 20 minutes" for _any_ bitcoin transaction to get two confirmations. That's kinda "the speed of light limit" for any tr

by bigiain 7y ago

bubblewrap 7y ago
The author of the original article also cites that as some kind of reason for something. It's pretty irrelevant, though. If you have your Bitcoins stored on a market, your "transactions" don't go through the blockchain. It's just a field in a database then, indicating how many Bitcoins a user has stored on an exchange. The argument would be the same as as claiming "to transfer stocks, you have to deliver them by mail to the recipient, so it takes at least two days". Or indeed the same with money. If you wire somebody some money, no actual money is moved. It is just fields in a database of banks changing, that indicate how much money the banks owe you. We are so used to it by now that we think of it as actual money changing hands, but it is not. So I am sorry, I can only take the article half serious. The author seems to be driven too much by his disdain for Bitcoin than by actual facts.
antonvs 7y ago
Someone else mentioned it, but just to reiterate - these aren't transactions on the blockchain, they're trades on an exchange. They happen essentially instantly, because all that's happening is the exchange is updating its internal customer account balances. The only time this hits the blockchain is when someone withdraws Bitcoin from the exchange.