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> I will also show that while Bitcoin currently may not be in a safe state, future software optimizations could allow Bitcoin safely process likely more than 1
by RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
> I will also show that while Bitcoin currently may not be in a safe state, future software optimizations could allow Bitcoin safely process likely more than 100 transactions/second on today's hardware.
100 transactions/second still doesn’t sound like a lot, especially if you want Bitcoin to be an actual currency used for exchange of goods.
- MereInterest 5y agoIf Bitcoin were used by everybody on the planet, the current max of 10 transactions/second means that each person could be part of a transaction once every 13 years (4 billion pairs of people / 10 Hz). Boosting the rate up to 100 transactions per second reduces that down to 15 months. Just think, receive you paycheck this week, and over a year later you can use it to buy groceries. Bitcoin's throughout is absolutely pathetic, by several orders of magnitude. I think the only reason that aspect hasn't gotten more attention is because the energy efficiency is even worse.
- ezekg 5y agoAre there any cryptocurrencies that are attempting to solve this issue?
- sambroner 5y agoBasically all (hardly even an exaggeration!) other cryptocurrencies are attempting to improve upon the throughput issue. Solana is a particularly prominent one with 50k/s https://solana.com/ https://solana.com/
- uncoder0 5y agoI'm interested in how all these other chains deal with people writing tons of junk transactions per second to bloat up the chain.
- cgb223 5y agoHaving a transaction fee de-incentivizes most people who want to do this Every junk transaction costs them money
- WanderPanda 5y agoFrom what I’ve seen they don’t
- ezekg 5y agoNANO actually just went through a pretty big spam attack and it crippled the network for awhile, but they supposedly came up with a pretty novel solution in the latest version. I haven't dug into it yet though. But NANO is fee-less, so it is (was?) more prone to these types of attacks. Having a fee increases the cost of a spam attack.
- smabie 5y agoI don't know about other chains, but for ethereum you get money for destroying/freeing up block space. This is how the Chi gas tokens work: they write 0s to the chain when gas is cheap and destroy the blocks when gas is expensive.
- chromaton 5y agoI looked into it and Solana requires "Validator" nodes to be specially blessed by them to get rewards for running their software, so this isn't particularly de-centralized.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- amackera 5y agoAlgorand looks like a promising proof of stake altcoin in my opinion. https://www.algorand.com/ https://www.algorand.com/
- CyberDildonics 5y agoIt is only an issue in the first place because of bitcoin's purposely meniscule throughput. Monero's throughput adapts while bitcoin cash has 32x the max blocksize.
- djanogo 5y agoI don't know how Bitcoin transactions work, but can a company (like Paypal) buy bunch of bitcoins (10000), and then proceed to do all transaction internally with their own ledger mechanism without depending on other networks?, wouldn't this allow anybody within paypal network to send/receive super fast?
- unwoundmouse 5y agoYeah that's how all centralized crypto exchanges do it
- CSSer 5y agoWhat if there's a run on the exchange?
- ChainOfFools 5y agothey suddenly have a 'technical issue' and suspend trading until it is 'fixed.' sometimes its never fixed and the exchange founder mysteriously disappears to Thailand or dies, or claims to start an orphanage in india. sometimes all three.
- wmf 5y agoIf the blockchain gets backed up it would take a few days to get money in/out of exchanges.
- beiller 5y agoI don't think there can theoretically be a run on the exchange because in theory all the deposits are there, in the exchange, in theory, unlike a bank which only had a fraction of the deposited money in reserve. A run on a crypto exchange would be great for them considering they usually charge a withdrawal fee.
- CyberDildonics 5y agoThose aren't withdrawal fees, those are transaction fees for the network. Most cryptocurrencies cost next to nothing for each transaction, while bitcoin and ethereum cost from $20 - $60 USD for the average transaction.
- wskinner 5y agoThis is not really true, for several reasons. One simple reason is that a bitcoin transaction can have multiple outputs, while your analysis assumes each transaction is between two people.
- rebelos 5y agoIt hasn't gotten attention because they just re-centralized using exchanges and off-chain transactions. Just the latest episode of the fugazicoin clown show.
- Ekaros 5y agoIf the transactions are off the chain and to centralized and networked banks I wonder if the 21M coins will hold true for very long... And what happens when bank-run is attempted... As I don't see people staying away from all the fun things they can do with fiat currencies... As at that point the currency on exchanges and between them is fiat.
- billytetrud 5y agoThis is what the lightning network is for. It would be somewhat reasonable to withdraw or deposit to/from your lightning channel a couple times a year. Some other solutions would be needed to get the rest of the way, but improvement is improvement right? Why be so negative about it?
- Taek 5y agoIn some senses it's not a lot, in other senses it is a lot. Large systems (like the US banking system) only do a few intra-bank settlements per day, 100 tps is well beyond what you need for nation states to do business with eachother. And then down at the consumer level it's nothing at all. During peak hours of the peak season (Christmas), Visa does something like 50,000 tps. What makes Bitcoin interesting is the trustlessness of the transfers, and that tends to be more interesting higher up the stack (at the inter-bank and inter-national levels) than at the consumer level. But you can also combine this with layer two technologies like payment channels, ILP (interledger protocol), and the lightning network to get rapid transfers where most of the transactions never hit the chain. The Sia network for example does something like 30 million transactions per day (that's about 300 tps), but only about 500 of those are actually on-chain at the settlement layer. The rest are ultra efficient off-chain payments that only require a packet or two to be sent between two machines (as opposed to broadcast). --------- From the perspective of "everyone can own and use bitcoin", 100 tps is not quite enough. To support 1 billion people on Bitcoin even with the best layer 2 systems we have in theory, you need about 400 tps. So 7 billion would need like 3,000 tps.
- jsf01 5y agoThis is a great way to put it. If you look at settlement times 3tps is great. If you’re actively transacting as a consumer then that won’t cut it.
- mullingitover 5y ago> What makes Bitcoin interesting is the trustlessness of the transfers, and that tends to be more interesting higher up the stack (at the inter-bank and inter-national levels) than at the consumer level What's interesting about that? Higher up the stack, trustlessness is not compelling at all - if I'm transacting with you on the scale of six-plus figures, I absolutely won't transact with someone I don't trust, and anonymity is a defect - I want to know who you are so I can sue you if our deal goes sideways.
- Taek 5y agoThe whole point of a trustless transaction is that you don't need to worry about who the counterparty is. You don't need the leverage to sue somebody because fraud is not possible. For digital transactions, the lack of trust can be two-way - two mutually distrusting people can confidently exchange Bitcoin for Ethereum in a transaction, because the software and math behind the blockchain prevents fraud from happening at all. For meatspace the best you can do is one-way. If I'm buying a car with Bitcoin, I still need to trust the car manufacturer to deliver, but the car manufacturer does not need to trust me. They don't need to know who I am or how deep my credit line is, as soon as the bitcoin hits their wallets they have extreme confidence that the transaction won't be reverted. No bounced checks, no chargebacks, etc. It's a zero fraud system, and there's also no intermediate party (like PayPal or a bank) that can decide the transaction shouldn't happen. Whether or not the payment is accepted is at the sole discretion of the recipient.
- billytetrud 5y agoIt can be enough when combined with layer 2 solutions as well. But you can't get around the nature of reality.