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This is very misleading. Cryptocurrencies developed on 10+ year old tech, that have stayed in that state throughout may indeed have very poor tps as you state.

This is very misleading. Cryptocurrencies developed on 10+ year old tech, that have stayed in that state throughout may indeed have very poor tps as you state. However, this is absolutely not the majority, as that base tech has iterated both at the base level, and in the application of layers. Typical these days are tps-handling in the 1k's - 10k's, and beyond. This will only keep improving as the technology progresses. Many systems capable of such throughout are heavily under-utilised, showing that crypto technology is generally ahead of those needs. That there have been hiccups have been more due to "brand loyalty", not tech deficiency, but even those technologies (Ethereum, mainly), are in the process of being upgraded. Given tps in the fiat world is somewhat of an inapplicable metric, as fiat transactions typically take in the order of days to complete - it's even more of a misleading comparison. Credit cards achieve 30k tps throughput only with the considerable caveats of reversibility and 30 day (or longer) finality. Crypto suffers from no such limitations. The majority of worth in the space is absolutely not of "criminal origin", demographics of crypto holders have been studied extensively and are readily available.

dash2 6y ago
Brand loyalty is probably less important than network effects. NewTechCoin may be way better than Bitcoin but nobody's going to buy it until everyone else is buying it.
- megameter 6y ago
  Well, that's what makes cryptocurrency a worthwhile market for speculation. Many folks look to the "market cap ranking" to see what's hot in the space, and going down the list and positioning yourself in a rank 400 coin - a good one that shows promise as a tech platform, a more efficient coin, a useful financial instrument or whatever - is one of the most straightforward ways to see 1000% returns, because even if it doesn't make it all the way up to the top 10, its valuation can grow faster than the market as a whole. (It can also get hit with huge drawdowns when the bear market hits. It's not all roses...) While it is the case that most things get priced relative to BTC, and this does have a network effect since you end up exiting to BTC and thus reenforce its price, it's increasingly common to see trading pairs for ETH, LTC, USDC/USDT. There is interest in getting more liquidity into the market and that's a large part of "DeFi". It's not that BTC is self-perpetuating lock-in, it's that they're all growing but everything else is running several years behind, so on a day to day basis BTC still holds relatively more of the market.
- koonsolo 6y ago
  Bitcoin is leading with a 50% market share. So big but not really a monopoly.
  - Max_aaa 6y ago
    The question what will happen when Bitcoin flops. Will people trust other crypto? It looks like for the crypto train to keep on chugging, bitcoin needs to be sustained.
    - koonsolo 6y ago
      Right now it seems to be the main driver indeed. If the 'store of value' Bitcoin fails, I guess in the short term, all crypto's will crash. And then the question will be if one has a decent enough value proposition to rise up again. Although a lot of people are opinionated on this last part, the fact remains that none of us really knows. Another option is of course that one crypto would just overtake Bitcoin. If I remember correctly this almost happend with Ethereum and was called the flippening. This scenario would be better for crypto of course than a real Bitcoin crash.
ChrisLomont 6y ago
I routinely buy things with fiat that complete in seconds. There's on order of trillions of completed fiat transactions per day. They don't generally take days. Only a tiny, tiny amount of them of a very limited class take days. It's disingenuous to imply all fiat transactions take that long.
- Geee 6y ago
  Your transaction isn't settled instantly. The actual money that flows between institutions behind the scenes is way slower than bitcoin. You can use credit/debit card on Bitcoin too, and your payments seem to go through instantly with whatever tps the network supports.
  - NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
    Your transaction isn't settled instantly. The actual money that flows between institutions behind the scenes is way slower than bitcoin. ... and yet the world turns; and credit cards amount to $3tn of payments in the U.S annually. As it turns out, businesses do not actually care about instant settlement of payment transactions that much, what's important is instant authorization.
    - Geee 6y ago
      You just repeated my point. Are you trying to disagree with me or what?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - dogman144 6y ago
      Yeah and btc is instantly authd by the user. You sort of proved the other person’s point haha.
    - argvargc 6y ago
      Bitcoin alone has done more than that per year since since 2018. And there are literally thousands of other projects. Credit cards are small by comparison. https://mobile.twitter.com/yassineARK/status/1346139278636670976 https://mobile.twitter.com/yassineARK/status/134613927863667...
fidelramos 6y ago
There are no technical reasons keeping Bitcoin from achieving universal usage (50 daily transactions for each of 10 billion humans) while keeping fees low. This article has a great analysis of not just the technology but the economics and decentralization of the network: http://blog.vermorel.com/journal/2017/12/17/terabyte-blocks-for-bitcoin-cash.html http://blog.vermorel.com/journal/2017/12/17/terabyte-blocks-...
KptMarchewa 6y ago
Reversibility is the feature of credit cards, not drawback or limitation.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ryebit 6y ago
  Reversibility could probably be added on top via smart contract if someone wanted to provide the service, and people trusted the third party. But you can't make a trustless exchange on top of a custodial framework. Base layer has to be trustless / permissionless; all manner of third parties can build all kind of things on top of that. But reverse isn't true - if base layer controlled by small number of third parties; nothing built on top can claw back that control.
- dmos62 6y ago
  Well, if there is such a thing as _the_ feature of credit cards, it's credit, as in deffered payment. Reversibility has its pros and cons. Similar to censorship and centralization. Until crypto, you didn't really have a technological means to prevent it, so it being popular in the fiat financial systems doesn't say anything.
  - ziml77 6y ago
    Depends on who you are. For me the features of a credit card all revolve around convenience and risk minimization. Convenience in that I don't have to fumble around with bills and coins. Risk minimization in that US laws give me far more protection from fraudulent uses of my credit card than fraudulent uses of a debit card (and stolen cash is just gone for good). Only once have I ever use the deferred payment aspect of a card, and that was a 0% APR offer.
- argvargc 6y ago
  While true on some level, this is broadly incorrect. The necessity for reversibility, and the inflexibility of being limited either to it, or some form of it, is indicative of an inherent, unfixable flaw in the system itself. This flaw limits the systems growth, adaptability, and usefulness.

dash2 6y ago

Brand loyalty is probably less important than network effects. NewTechCoin may be way better than Bitcoin but nobody's going to buy it until everyone else is buying it.

megameter 6y ago
Well, that's what makes cryptocurrency a worthwhile market for speculation. Many folks look to the "market cap ranking" to see what's hot in the space, and going down the list and positioning yourself in a rank 400 coin - a good one that shows promise as a tech platform, a more efficient coin, a useful financial instrument or whatever - is one of the most straightforward ways to see 1000% returns, because even if it doesn't make it all the way up to the top 10, its valuation can grow faster than the market as a whole. (It can also get hit with huge drawdowns when the bear market hits. It's not all roses...) While it is the case that most things get priced relative to BTC, and this does have a network effect since you end up exiting to BTC and thus reenforce its price, it's increasingly common to see trading pairs for ETH, LTC, USDC/USDT. There is interest in getting more liquidity into the market and that's a large part of "DeFi". It's not that BTC is self-perpetuating lock-in, it's that they're all growing but everything else is running several years behind, so on a day to day basis BTC still holds relatively more of the market.
koonsolo 6y ago
Bitcoin is leading with a 50% market share. So big but not really a monopoly.
- Max_aaa 6y ago
  The question what will happen when Bitcoin flops. Will people trust other crypto? It looks like for the crypto train to keep on chugging, bitcoin needs to be sustained.
  - koonsolo 6y ago
    Right now it seems to be the main driver indeed. If the 'store of value' Bitcoin fails, I guess in the short term, all crypto's will crash. And then the question will be if one has a decent enough value proposition to rise up again. Although a lot of people are opinionated on this last part, the fact remains that none of us really knows. Another option is of course that one crypto would just overtake Bitcoin. If I remember correctly this almost happend with Ethereum and was called the flippening. This scenario would be better for crypto of course than a real Bitcoin crash.

ChrisLomont 6y ago

I routinely buy things with fiat that complete in seconds. There's on order of trillions of completed fiat transactions per day. They don't generally take days. Only a tiny, tiny amount of them of a very limited class take days. It's disingenuous to imply all fiat transactions take that long.

Geee 6y ago
Your transaction isn't settled instantly. The actual money that flows between institutions behind the scenes is way slower than bitcoin. You can use credit/debit card on Bitcoin too, and your payments seem to go through instantly with whatever tps the network supports.
- NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
  Your transaction isn't settled instantly. The actual money that flows between institutions behind the scenes is way slower than bitcoin. ... and yet the world turns; and credit cards amount to $3tn of payments in the U.S annually. As it turns out, businesses do not actually care about instant settlement of payment transactions that much, what's important is instant authorization.
  - Geee 6y ago
    You just repeated my point. Are you trying to disagree with me or what?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - dogman144 6y ago
    Yeah and btc is instantly authd by the user. You sort of proved the other person’s point haha.
  - argvargc 6y ago
    Bitcoin alone has done more than that per year since since 2018. And there are literally thousands of other projects. Credit cards are small by comparison. https://mobile.twitter.com/yassineARK/status/1346139278636670976 https://mobile.twitter.com/yassineARK/status/134613927863667...

fidelramos 6y ago

There are no technical reasons keeping Bitcoin from achieving universal usage (50 daily transactions for each of 10 billion humans) while keeping fees low. This article has a great analysis of not just the technology but the economics and decentralization of the network: http://blog.vermorel.com/journal/2017/12/17/terabyte-blocks-for-bitcoin-cash.html http://blog.vermorel.com/journal/2017/12/17/terabyte-blocks-...

KptMarchewa 6y ago

Reversibility is the feature of credit cards, not drawback or limitation.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ryebit 6y ago
Reversibility could probably be added on top via smart contract if someone wanted to provide the service, and people trusted the third party. But you can't make a trustless exchange on top of a custodial framework. Base layer has to be trustless / permissionless; all manner of third parties can build all kind of things on top of that. But reverse isn't true - if base layer controlled by small number of third parties; nothing built on top can claw back that control.
dmos62 6y ago
Well, if there is such a thing as _the_ feature of credit cards, it's credit, as in deffered payment. Reversibility has its pros and cons. Similar to censorship and centralization. Until crypto, you didn't really have a technological means to prevent it, so it being popular in the fiat financial systems doesn't say anything.
- ziml77 6y ago
  Depends on who you are. For me the features of a credit card all revolve around convenience and risk minimization. Convenience in that I don't have to fumble around with bills and coins. Risk minimization in that US laws give me far more protection from fraudulent uses of my credit card than fraudulent uses of a debit card (and stolen cash is just gone for good). Only once have I ever use the deferred payment aspect of a card, and that was a 0% APR offer.
argvargc 6y ago
While true on some level, this is broadly incorrect. The necessity for reversibility, and the inflexibility of being limited either to it, or some form of it, is indicative of an inherent, unfixable flaw in the system itself. This flaw limits the systems growth, adaptability, and usefulness.