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US central bank payment system down for 'hours'
- ipnon 6y agoIf only there was a way to handle transactions on a decentralized ledger using distributed computation.
- Denvercoder9 6y agoUsing as much energy in a day as the US central bank system uses in a year. A decentralized payment system might be a good idea, but Bitcoin isn't a viable implementation.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago> Using as much energy in a day as the US central bank system uses in a year. Source? I know you are wrong, but I just want to see you talk your way out this... > A decentralized payment system might be a good idea, but Bitcoin isn't a viable implementation. Try maybe realizing Bitcoiners, and other alt users have been in trying to circumvent the many issues these legacy systems created in Colorado [0] alone for some time, I know and met a few in the meetups we had in Boulder and some from the early days in Denver that spearheaded lots of these initiatives that would have proven that the election results in Biden's favour were valid. Instead we got this system and people died when idiots stormed the capital. I think before you even try to make that claim you should consider coming and meeting some of us Bitcoiners in person that have already actually changed legislation and Industry before you say such blatantly wrong things like that behind a keyboard. Just look at the malaise and the suffering the unemployment debacle has cost our economy and added to the homelessness especially in Denver where it's horrific and has only made a mental health crisis that much worse; and all of this could have been solved with DLT and token system in less than a week if they spent even a fraction in proper work to get all those records in order. Not including the countless amount of money that was lost in fraud... You want to talk? My fee is $250/hour with 3 hour minimum paid up front, discount available if paid in Bitcoin. 0: https://coingeek.com/denver-to-apply-blockchain-technology-in-upcoming-elections/ https://coingeek.com/denver-to-apply-blockchain-technology-i...
- edoceo 6y agoI'll bullshit for $249/hr, no minimum and will say you're good looking. USD Only.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago> I'll bullshit for $249/hr, no minimum and will say you're good looking. USD Only. Take him up on this offer, I don't price match. ;)
- beambot 6y agoBitcoin isn't the only decentralized ledger system, just the one with the largest current market cap.
- PretzelPirate 6y agoThe person you responded to didn’t say Bitcoin and may have been referring to one of many other decentralized payment systems that don’t use proof of work.
- blake8086 6y agoHow much energy does the US central bank system use in a year?
- latchkey 6y agoDan Held has a pretty good thread on twitter that goes over the Bitcoin energy argument pretty well (imho)... https://twitter.com/danheld/status/1351235080103096331 https://twitter.com/danheld/status/1351235080103096331 Disclosure: very large eth miner, using hydro electricity that would have otherwise gone to waste. Generated power is very expensive to transmit. I prefer gpus to asics because at least ethash is constrained to a more widely available piece of re-useable hardware and doesn't require the latest release in order to have the best roi.
- decebalus1 6y agoScaling Bitcoin to handle the Feds volume of transactions will probably require us to harvest energy from a black hole.
- Melting_Harps 6y agoTwo words: Lightening Network.
- RinTohsaka 6y agoOne word: Monero
- ipnon 6y agoThere are other ways to validate transactions besides proof of work, which is what Bitcoin uses, that can prove that a transaction is valid without using extreme amounts of compute power. Proof of stake is a good example.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago> Proof of stake is a good example. Except when the creators want to rerverse all txs and exit scam people that is, hence Ethereum/Classic/DAO BS saga... Proof of stake is like saying 'a square tire works, sometimes...' As an environmentalist and a Bitcoiner: I agree Bitcoins energy use is significant, but it's carbon footprint is the detail that is being ignored as most of its energy sources are renewable and Jack Dorsey, the guy whose company just bought another 150 million, has also put a bounty on making it even more clean. Whereas nothing in the alt space comes close doing what Bitcoin did back in 2013 when China started to move its miners to mainly hydro and to Iceland that use geo-thermal, despite these alts absurd overly valued market cap and valuations that make no sense to anyone given it's lack of utility. We may be on 'Team crypto,' but PoS is so absurd for security that it should be made clear to the non-initiated the many pitflls of centralized system, eg the Foundation and founders like Vitalik, that we all fought so hard to solve with this tech only to see so many projects revert to the same legacy model.
- 6y ago
- dang 6y agoPlease don't post unsubstantive comments here, and certainly not on classic flamewar topics. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ipnon 6y agoSorry dang. I am getting lazy. I appreciate your moderation and will refrain from making bad comments in the future, if it means making your job easier.
- deft 6y agoNo matter how slow bitcoin gets it never goes down. Absolute worst case scenario is a steep difficulty curve that takes awhile to fall back down, only slowing block production. Edit: in order for it to get "so slow its stopped" more than half of the miners would need to go offline and not rejoin for hours.
- p1necone 6y agoAfter a certain threshold "slow" and "down" are effectively the same thing though.
- capableweb 6y agoACH takes "business" days. Bitcoin takes hours, 24/7.
- Robotbeat 6y agoIt takes days to a week to clear a Bitcoin transaction unless you want to pay a much higher fee than you would for a small or medium sized ACH. And that’s with still very few Bitcoin transactions (single digit transactions per second). If everyone started trying to use base Bitcoin, transaction fees would skyrocket but transaction rate would remain just 7/second.
- dralley 6y agoACH is in the process of being replaced with a system that handles transactions within a couple of seconds.
- grey-area 6y agoFaster payments takes seconds, 24/7.
- quesera 6y agoACH costs $0.20 for next-BD settlement, or a little more for same-BD settlement. Bitcoin costs 50-100x that: $10-15-20 for "small number hours" settlement. A Bitcoin transaction with a fee of $0.20, might settle after several days, but would more likely expire from the mempool before confirmation. And the really fun part is the unpredictability! ACH isn't perfect. But Bitcoin is completely inappropriate for the common ACH use case.
- orf 6y agoObligatory “I can transfer money instantly and for free within the EU/UK and have been able to for years” comment. Also what the hell is up with cheques and using your signature for card payments? I can only remember these from my early childhood. It’s so... backward. Why hasn’t it been improved? What’s been blocking progress for all these years?
- noizejoy 6y agoIn the US: More banks, less regulation
- CameronNemo 6y agoI use a chip with no signature. Checks because venmo is gross, but most people I know use venmo.
- fl0wenol 6y agoAmerican finance and regulators really like paper with ink signatures. I think it's perceived as a lower fraud risk, or easier to nail someone criminally because of the paper trail. You can get free settlement on a check under certain thresholds in about a day if you deposit it via an ATM at your bank. You endorse it, stick in the machine, it images the check, does some OCR, and turns it into an electronic transfer. Banks often let you take a picture of it with your phone via an app. It's pretty common now. So that's a lot of infrastructure to support something that seems pretty backwards, but anecdotally works well enough. Ink signatures are just really "sticky" in American commerce, I guess it gives regulators warm fuzzies. As far CC, it's gone largely chip-pin, but signature is a backup if comms goes down. Keep in mind that in the states there's a prevalence of credit vs. debit, and it's pretty lenient to dispute charges as a credit card user, merchants get the short end of the stick there. Cloned CC being used to make phony charges was never something that you were liable for. A bit of a pain to deal with, but not a financial risk. So there's little to drive adoption except merchants and the CCs who want to reduce fraud to increase overall profits.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoIt is fascinating to watch and so shortly after Yellen's tone-deaf speech about how btc is inefficient compared to traditional banking system. I almost spat out my coffee. Has she tried sending a wire outside of US lately? edit: Almost makes you wonder if it was a targeted attack.
- partiallypro 6y agoYour comment would make sense if the global banking system went down, instead it was just a tool the Fed uses with Banks.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoYou are right. I will keep the edit as is.
- Jimmc414 6y agoReddit also went down. GME is also going parabolic this PM along with AMC coincidence?
- sjg007 6y agoPeople must really like the stock.. is this a merry-go-round?
- notyourday 6y ago> Has she tried sending a wire outside of US lately? Costs at most about $35 for any size wire, shows up in a corresponding bank within a day. If the corresponding bank is not the ultimate destination, takes whatever the amount of time it takes for the end transaction to complete. In event of a bank mess up on a transfer, the wire gets rejected/credited back. For banks that do "online" FedWire rather than batched, wires show up and are credited within seconds. What, exactly, is the problem? P.S. Non-immediate transfer is a feature and not a bug.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
- mullingitover 6y agoBitcoin holders are of course having a field day with this, especially after Yellen's comments. However, this is a false equivalency. For regular retail banking customers your deposits have FDIC protection, not a thing you can get with BTC. You can use Coinbase, which does offer insurance, but then you're back under a centralized system with the same single point of failure issues.
- capableweb 6y agoIndeed, FDIC is not something that you need in the case of BTC as it's fluid and is not locked to one "bank" / "exchange" / new future entities. It's interoperable between many systems today too.
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y agoThat is good news for the users of Mt.Gox, Bitcoin7, Bitcoinica, Bitfloor, Vircurex, Inputs.io, Picostocks, Flexcoin, Poloniex, MintPal, Cryptsy, Bitstamp, BTER, KipCoin, Bitfinex, Gatecoin, Bitcurex, Yapizon, LocalBitcoins, Coincheck, BitGrail, Coinrail, Bithumb, Bancor, Zaif, MapleChange, Cryptopia, Coinbene, Bitrue, BITPoint, Upbit, Eterbase, KuCoin, Livecoin, and the DAO. Their money can never be lost because it is secured by logic itself. EDIT: It appears I forgot to list a few dozen exchange hacks.
- Robotbeat 6y agoIt is if you use an online wallet.
- capableweb 6y agoIf you use an exchange/"bank" like Coinbase, then yeah. What do you mean with online wallet? It's either only you have the keys, or you don't/someone else also does.
- Robotbeat 6y agoIf I have a soft wallet and I have automatic updates enabled on my OS, do only I have the keys or do Microsoft/Apple/Google/Samsung/Canonical have them as well? EDIT: For clarity, I was referring to an actual online wallet, a wallet on a website, but it’s not too different to ask the same question about a software wallet on a computer-connected device that does automatic OS or wallet software updates.
- Klwohu 6y agoMy suspicion is the "SolarWinds" hack, which is of course more than just that piece of software now, has infected practically every noteworthy computer system in the nation.
- bigodbiel 6y agoWith more and more central banks pushing their digital currencies, this occurrence really seems inopportune. To feel schadenfreude is inevitable.
- mudlus 6y agoBitcoin is never down
- fabianhjr 6y agoWhat is the current median transaction fee? Also, Bitcoin could drop a transaction if a fork occurs and you were tracking the one that fizzled out; that is why people wait for roughly 5 confirmation blocks before proceeding and that takes roughly 1 hour.
- rfd4sgmk8u 6y agoThe bitcoin-qt client will require 6 blocks before a transaction is considered confirmed, typically 60 minutes. At currently network congestion, a high priority tx (next block) is 102 sat/vB ($6.95). A low priority tx is: 53 sat/vB ($3.61) Fees depends on network congestion, check mempool.space for current estimated fees and survey of recent block fees.
- toomim 6y agoIf by Bitcoin you mean the BCH fork, then it's currently $0.003 USD. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin%20cash-transactionfees.html https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin%20cash-transact...
- tyingq 6y agoDown for hours isn't super interesting for a system that has SLAs measured in days :)
- danesparza 6y agoWow. GTFO. Where are these SLA's you speak of?
- tyingq 6y agohttps://www.frbservices.org/resources/financial-services/wires/operating-hours.html https://www.frbservices.org/resources/financial-services/wir...
- pgwhalen 6y agoThese aren't SLAs, they're operating hours. Transfers are essentially instantaneous.
- tyingq 6y agoThat's a little pedantic, there's enough text there to see that "next day" and "same day" are there typical promises. While it may be often instantaneous, that's not promised.
- pgwhalen 6y agoI'm not sure I agree that that's pedantic, or understand what you're referring to. The only reference to "next" or "same" on that page is for offline instructions (i.e. talking to a human), which cannot be instantaneous for obvious reasons. I'm not personally aware of the exact details of Fedwire SLAs, but I understand it to be near instantaneous, and that page doesn't suggest otherwise.
- tyingq 6y agoYou're right in that it doesn't specifically state an SLA, but there's plenty of context there, like a cutoff time for originating transfers that's several hours before the end of "operating hours". So, same day if before cutoff, next day if not.
- balozi 6y agoIt's starting to feel like everything in America is held together with duct tape and chewing gum.
- wilsocr88 6y ago"Central" is the opposite of good practice in the IT world. So, in context, I guess this doesn't really surprise me.
- ilaksh 6y agoI was suggesting using cryptocurrency (such as Ethereum or PolkaDOT) to implement the centrally-controlled functions of the Federal Reserve currently being handled by simplistic queues or whatever it is. But more fundamentally, currency and money IS a technology. It's use is to distribute power and express trust. But fundamentally it is a technology used for that purpose. Cryptocurrency is ultimately about putting power in the hands of the people and trust in mathematics rather than central authorities. Eventually the central banks and banking institutions as they exist now will be phased out and replaced with different paradigms that have some similar functions but more sophisticated technology.