4 ms·
So... if I want to settle a $40b transaction, like a big merger, in <24h with bitcoins, assuming the level of fragmentation you could expect if bitcoins became
by RockyMcNuts 15y ago
So... if I want to settle a $40b transaction, like a big merger, in <24h with bitcoins, assuming the level of fragmentation you could expect if bitcoins became ubiquitous in everyday transactions, what kind of server farm are we talking about?
- DavidSJ 15y agoIt could take years before the block chain is long enough to dissuade a double-spend attempt for a transaction that large, where you have a single party single-handedly accounting for a significant fraction of spending on the network. So for a single $40b transaction, perhaps bitcoin is infeasible (or at least must be combined with traditional mechanisms like reputation, courts, etc.), but for a million independent $40k transactions, they can all be confirmed in a matter of hours for only a few hundred thousand dollars worth of computation, total.
- nhaehnle 15y agoThe amount exchanged in a transaction doesn't directly affect the time required to settle it in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not so much electronic currency as it is a distributed accounting system. As such, the monetary value of the transactions is irrelevant. The thing that matters is the size of the transaction in bytes. This size is essentially proportional to how many cryptographic key pairs are involved in the transaction. If your $40b are associated to a single key pair, then it doesn't matter whether you send $40b or $1. If they're distributed over many different key pairs, then it does matter - but then again, you could have $1 distributed over just as many different key pairs.