18 ms·

"...Bitcoin is a living, breathing, developing code base that is moving forward with new features to continue to scale..." There is exactly zero progress to ma

by noxer 5y ago

"...Bitcoin is a living, breathing, developing code base that is moving forward with new features to continue to scale..." There is exactly zero progress to make it scale in the last 10+ years.

wyager 5y ago
> There is exactly zero progress to make it scale in the last 10+ years. Lol, literally this week: https://taproot.watch/ https://taproot.watch/
- noxer 5y ago
  Taproot doesn't make bitcoin scale its mainly to increase privacy.
  - wyager 5y ago
    Taproot decreases the size of multisig and other complex transactions significantly, in the happy path of a cooperative signature. It also enables Schnorr, which produces smaller signatures than ECDSA. It also contains features to further improve the efficiency of Lightning, which is a shockingly effective scaling mechanism.
    - simias 5y ago
      Lightning doesn't work because it either leads to a chaos of routing that doesn't scale or it ends up centralized and you lose the point of bitcoin in the first step. And don't bother coming up with hand wavy explanations of how it could work, some day. People have been talking about Lightning for years, literally billions of dollars have been poured into the "tech", the fact that even bitcoin enthusiasts barely ever use it is all the proof I need. I wonder how many more years of empty promises we'll have to suffer through before people accept that cryptocurrencies are a very good pyramid scheme with a thick layer of technobabble around it.
      - nednar 5y ago
        Well, the "pyramid scheme" + "technobabble" is not totally worthless, if it enables the investment of "literally billions of dollars" in otherwise totally unproven technology paths, doesn't it? Finally there is one area where people are really investing money into computer science! A cause to celebrate in my book.
        prox 5y ago
        cough dotcom bubble. Seriously, investing money in a bubble is nothing to celebrate. That’s why it is called a bubble. It pops and many people loose their money.
        codebolt 5y ago
        Except this bubble is a bit more insidious because you have actors like Tether that are most likely creating a lot of artificial liquidity/demand. If there is a sudden loss of faith and enough actors start rushing for the exits, it will look something more like a musical game of chairs of who is left holding the bag of worthless Mickey Mouse dollars, by my estimation.
        prox 5y ago
        Absolutely, that is my biggest worry. And it has no true backing, apart from these pump and dumps. The single question people in favor of crypto can’t answer is the value creation. Now crypto is a natural evolution of certain monetary services and techniques, but at the core it literally does nothing of value. In fact, one might argue that that is its prime feature in its current state.
      - plebianRube 5y ago
        Weird Lightning works perfect for me, every time I use it. Low fees instant transactions. Maybe the trouble is in your trolling?
      - noxer 5y ago
        Daily reminder that cryptocurrencies are not == bitcoin All the problems with bitcoin are long long solved just not with bitcoin because its not possible to fix something when the majority (of hashpower) thinks its not broken or rather profit form its brokenness. FBA coins exists since 2013 or so.
    - noxer 5y ago
      Who cares, the size could be 10 times smaller and it would not make a dent in the scalability problem. Its a few transaction per second at max and it would need to be be several hundred just so people could move their "owned" bitcoins away from exchange wallets without loosing several % in fees. LN is not part of bitcoin and a total joke anyway.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lawn 5y ago
  Segwit was also supposed to scale Bitcoin, and it turns out it was a massively inefficient solution, which took years to even reach it's lackluster potential. Taproot will in practice have an even smaller impact, as it only affects special transactions that normal people won't use. So yeah, it's not zero progress, but it's certainly not much.
  - doomroot 5y ago
    Segwit itself provided an effective 2x increase in onchain transaction capacity and it fixed transaction malleability which was necessary for lightning network. Lightning network has 50,000+ open channels where payments can be routed without going onchain. Given the lightning network’s strict requirements to keep a node online & responsive, less you lose all your funds, I think that’s extremely impressive and shows a real demand for fast cheap payments. Now, in November taproot/schnor activates which gives us ptlc’s on the lightning network as well as makes a lightning channel opening transaction look like a normal single signature transaction, yay privacy. All of this lays the groundwork for the next major base layer change, in probably ~2023, anyprevout. This will give us “eltoo” on lightning which is nirvana. Eltoo removes the penalty mechanism which makes running a lightning node on a mobile phone or home node much more reasonable. Protocols take a long time to develop, especially ones where a miss-step could mean the loss of billions of dollars. Do not believe anyone telling you that their coin solved bitcoin’s scaling problems years ago.
    - noxer 5y ago
      Bitcoins scaling problem was solved by removing PoW/PoS and by removing the incentive structure (block rewards). As soon as this is gone there was no reason anymore why it would not scale like similar systems. Its basically limited only by how fast data can propagate trough the network. PoW/PoS was replaced by FBA (Federated Byzantine Agreement) Its not a coin its technology used by several systems and based on BFT (which is way older than bitcoin and bitcoin actually is based on BFT as well although maybe unintentional). FBA just adds the federated part so a decentral system can be build. While bitcoin instead used a work-reward lottery system (PoW) to decide who can write the next block rather than finding a block everyone agrees on. Its really not that hard to figure out which of these solutions probably works better and scales somewhat like a distributes system is expected to scale.
- coding123 5y ago
  Bitcoin doesn't scale. https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption Just watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDKntG4F0hg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDKntG4F0hg So in about 5 years pretend everyone in the United States melts a wrench like that... Then a month later they do that twice, a month later they do it three times. Hey, at least it will be fun.
  - Shosty123 5y ago
    Why does every discussion about Bitcoin's environmental impact reduce to "it uses a lot of electricity therefore it should be stopped". We're not going to shut down entire sectors of the economy because of their environmental impact. People are going to innovate and invest in alternative sources of energy because it is becoming profitable to do so. The solution is hardly ever "just stop doing it", it's "how can we do this better".
    - noxer 5y ago
      It has been "done better" in 2013 or so when the first FBA system where created as an direct answer to bitcoins expected future environmental impact and scalability problems. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27596590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27596590
    - codebolt 5y ago
      Crypto is hardly a "sector of the economy". It's main utility right now is lining the pockets of a few speculators. Traditional centralized ledgering systems do everything crypto does better and with a fraction of the energy use. It also gives governments tools to combat inflation/deflation and manage counterparty risks within the system. Crypto is a neat idea, but in the end it doesn't really solve anything, and instead only introduces a lot of unnecessary problems.
      - Shosty123 5y ago
        It pains me to see how someone could see no value in having a medium of exchange outside of any government currency control. One of my ex-coworkers had his family's fortune wiped out twice in Argentina due to government seizure and hyperinflation before they fled to Canada.
- uncletammy 5y ago
  Oh good, BTC can finally support Schnorr signatures, a feature that been available on BCH for years now. A feature that is useless until wallet developers add Schnorr signing functionality. Taproot is the update we get after ten years of the BTC devs doing nothing except gaslighting users about the protocol's scalability? All that momentum wasted.
  - ric2b 5y ago
    > Schnorr signatures, a feature that been available on BCH for years now. Not in a useful way: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/l8v8sa/heres_a_6of9_schnorr_multisig_transaction_created/glf925h/ https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/l8v8sa/heres_a_6of9_sc...
andai 5y ago
What happened to the lightning network? (Serious question, I am out of the loop.)
- thesausageking 5y ago
  It launched, is usable in most wallets, and is starting to get adoption. It's going to be a key piece of the recently passed legislation in El Salvador which makes Bitcoin legal tender.
  - hypnotist 5y ago
    El Salvador not Colombia
    - thesausageking 5y ago
      Yes. Not sure why I wrote Colombia. Thx.
  - simias 5y ago
    Using a closed, centralized implementation that doesn't accept third party nodes. The use of bitcoin is pure marketing, it's just MySQL with extra steps.
    - delaaxe 5y ago
      Source?
      - lawn 5y ago
        They will be using Strike, which is a custodial wallet.
    - WanderPanda 5y ago
      Wait, it does not allow third party nodes? What is my Raspberry Pi right next to me doing? Just pretending to be a Lightning Node?
exit 5y ago
segwit facilitates the construction of lightning channels. taproot, which recently locked in, reduces the space needed to represent complex contracts. moreover, bitcoin aims at being a concise and focused base layer on top of which secondary layers and sidechains can be built. your absolute statement "exactly zero" is absolutely wrong.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > moreover, bitcoin aims at being a concise and focused base layer on top of which secondary layers and sidechains can be built. Have you ever read the white paper that outlines what bitcoin aims to be?
  - noxer 5y ago
    It should be p2p cash then turn into store of value after some years and then it becomes the settlement layer for centralized second layer solutions that only exist because the first layer sucks. Just kidding, it should only be p2p cash and it failed at that. PoW/PoS will be replace by FBA in the next years and every system that can not switch away from PoW will become irrelevant.
  - uncletammy 5y ago
    > Have you ever read the white paper that outlines what bitcoin aims to be? ... or even the title
- uncletammy 5y ago
  > taproot, which recently locked in, reduces the space needed to represent complex contracts. Complex contracts? Are you joking? What kind of complex contracts do you think can be done on BTC? Their scripting language and capabilities has been neutered just like their blocksize. Good luck writing a useful contract on BTC.
iamastrangeloop 5y ago
There has been great progress in scaling the original protocol through the Bitcoin SV implementation: - Transaction fees are ~$0.0001 - The network has shown capacity for 50k tps - On March 14, 2021, the network processed a world record 638 MB block - As of June 4, 2021 the chain size exceeded that of the BTC implementation and is currently 418.17 GB - New business based on micropayments have emerged like twetch, streamanity, peergame, etc [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bsv-proves-that-bitcoin-scaling-works-surpasses-btc-blockchain-in-accumulated-data-size-301306050.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bsv-proves-that-bit...
- noxer 5y ago
  Everyone knows faketoshi is a fraud.
  - iamastrangeloop 5y ago
    Above is proof that the original bitcoin protocol can scale, and recently testnet can do 90k tps. What you think of certain people doesn't change the fact.
    - noxer 5y ago
      Its centralized and run by the people around this fraud. It doesn't matter if the tech is good since no one will use it for anything beside speculation or abuse it as storage which just wont be sustainable in the long run with no limits in place.
      - iamastrangeloop 5y ago
        The protocol remains the original and it scales significantly. I'd focus on protocol not people. If people changed the protocol then it's no longer bitcoin. Twetch.app has more than 50k users. It's also a genuine use case. So is etched.page or the other above-mentioned services. How can you abuse storage if there is a 0.5 satoshis/byte fee to write data on chain currently? Miners are for-profit entities and will always charge for storage.
SnowProblem 5y ago
So-called heretics have been scaling Bitcoin in spite of BTC's braindead decisions. Last week, 50K TPS were demonstrated publicly on Bitcoin SV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3As9-9uSXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3As9-9uSXs. More privately.
- wtsnz 5y ago
  This.
- ric2b 5y ago
  That's just a lab demo of a single system, not the network or even a common node configuration.
  - SnowProblem 5y ago
    Years ago, there was a presentation [1] by Peter Rizun of Bitcoin Unlimited at Stanford that demonstrated ~100TPS on Bitcoin, and the potential for 1000+ TPS if certain bottlenecks were removed. People said the same thing you're saying back then, but it served to motivate the big block community, and now today BSV routinely does 300+ MB blocks (1000+ tps). This Teranode software is the future of BSV and will become the common node configuration within a few years, so it's worth taking seriously. Also, I left a comment in this thread explaining why this test is more representative than you may think [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SJm2ep3X_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SJm2ep3X_M [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27597510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27597510
    - Geee 5y ago
      That's not the issue. Block size has to be limited to protect decentralization. Decentralization is the only thing that has value in blockchains, otherwise you're better off using centralized databases.
      - SnowProblem 5y ago
        I'm aware of that argument. The counter-argument goes that at scale, larger blocks would bring in more businesses, more miners, and more competition, and that competition is what actually protects the chain from bad actors who might try to change the rules or censor transactions, not decentralization, and that decentralization is mostly a meme to pacify the masses from realizing who actually has power over the network.
wtsnz 5y ago
There was a demo of node software that is capable of 50,000 transactions per second just a few weeks ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3As9-9uSXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3As9-9uSXs (Yes this is on the Bitcoin SV implementation of the Bitcoin protocol - where they're using the original protocol that Satoshi envisioned)
- uncletammy 5y ago
  From what I understand, that's 50,000 pre-generated transactions pumped directly to the mining node. Not 50,000 transactions spread across hundreds of non-mining nodes and relayed to the mining node. There's a huge difference. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Either way, bitcoin the protocol can handle waaaaaay more transactions than the BTC devs have constrained it to.
  - SnowProblem 5y ago
    Yes, more-or-less, but that how it is designed to work. The most reliable way to get a transaction into a block is to send it directly to a miner or set of miners. Apps on BSV do this today via MAPI REST endpoints, similar to how this test was configured. Non-mining nodes will see the transactions later, but they won't do the same verification that mining nodes require because they are not part of consensus. BSV generally sees the eventual network configuration as a small-world network for the mining core, and a mandala network for the apps and services surrounding it, rather than as a mesh network which most blockchain systems strive to be.
owens99 5y ago
Check out Stacks (https://stacks.co https://stacks.co), enables smart contracts on top of Bitcoin through Proof-of-Transfer consensus. Founded by YC alums and launched this January after many years of R&D. Disclaimer: I'm involved.
rebelos 5y ago
There was never any need to scale it at the protocol level. The overwhelming majority of Bitcoin transfers presently happen off-chain, within exchanges. Very few people seem to understand this.
- oblio 5y ago
  I don't understand. How do Bitcoin transfers happen off-chain? Are those Bitcoin transactions that don't actually use the blockchain?
  - rebelos 5y ago
    The exchange itself holds a fluctuating amount of Bitcoin and then updates entries in its own database when transfers occur between exchange participants to reflect a change in ownership. These constitute the vast majority of transactions that occur and none of them are recorded to the blockchain.
    - oblio 5y ago
      And the exchange is centralized?

by noxer 5y ago

"...Bitcoin is a living, breathing, developing code base that is moving forward with new features to continue to scale..." There is exactly zero progress to make it scale in the last 10+ years.

wyager 5y ago

> There is exactly zero progress to make it scale in the last 10+ years. Lol, literally this week: https://taproot.watch/ https://taproot.watch/

noxer 5y ago
Taproot doesn't make bitcoin scale its mainly to increase privacy.
- wyager 5y ago
  Taproot decreases the size of multisig and other complex transactions significantly, in the happy path of a cooperative signature. It also enables Schnorr, which produces smaller signatures than ECDSA. It also contains features to further improve the efficiency of Lightning, which is a shockingly effective scaling mechanism.
  - simias 5y ago
    Lightning doesn't work because it either leads to a chaos of routing that doesn't scale or it ends up centralized and you lose the point of bitcoin in the first step. And don't bother coming up with hand wavy explanations of how it could work, some day. People have been talking about Lightning for years, literally billions of dollars have been poured into the "tech", the fact that even bitcoin enthusiasts barely ever use it is all the proof I need. I wonder how many more years of empty promises we'll have to suffer through before people accept that cryptocurrencies are a very good pyramid scheme with a thick layer of technobabble around it.
    - nednar 5y ago
      Well, the "pyramid scheme" + "technobabble" is not totally worthless, if it enables the investment of "literally billions of dollars" in otherwise totally unproven technology paths, doesn't it? Finally there is one area where people are really investing money into computer science! A cause to celebrate in my book.
      - prox 5y ago
        cough dotcom bubble. Seriously, investing money in a bubble is nothing to celebrate. That’s why it is called a bubble. It pops and many people loose their money.
        codebolt 5y ago
        Except this bubble is a bit more insidious because you have actors like Tether that are most likely creating a lot of artificial liquidity/demand. If there is a sudden loss of faith and enough actors start rushing for the exits, it will look something more like a musical game of chairs of who is left holding the bag of worthless Mickey Mouse dollars, by my estimation.
        prox 5y ago
        Absolutely, that is my biggest worry. And it has no true backing, apart from these pump and dumps. The single question people in favor of crypto can’t answer is the value creation. Now crypto is a natural evolution of certain monetary services and techniques, but at the core it literally does nothing of value. In fact, one might argue that that is its prime feature in its current state.
    - plebianRube 5y ago
      Weird Lightning works perfect for me, every time I use it. Low fees instant transactions. Maybe the trouble is in your trolling?
    - noxer 5y ago
      Daily reminder that cryptocurrencies are not == bitcoin All the problems with bitcoin are long long solved just not with bitcoin because its not possible to fix something when the majority (of hashpower) thinks its not broken or rather profit form its brokenness. FBA coins exists since 2013 or so.
  - noxer 5y ago
    Who cares, the size could be 10 times smaller and it would not make a dent in the scalability problem. Its a few transaction per second at max and it would need to be be several hundred just so people could move their "owned" bitcoins away from exchange wallets without loosing several % in fees. LN is not part of bitcoin and a total joke anyway.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lawn 5y ago
Segwit was also supposed to scale Bitcoin, and it turns out it was a massively inefficient solution, which took years to even reach it's lackluster potential. Taproot will in practice have an even smaller impact, as it only affects special transactions that normal people won't use. So yeah, it's not zero progress, but it's certainly not much.
- doomroot 5y ago
  Segwit itself provided an effective 2x increase in onchain transaction capacity and it fixed transaction malleability which was necessary for lightning network. Lightning network has 50,000+ open channels where payments can be routed without going onchain. Given the lightning network’s strict requirements to keep a node online & responsive, less you lose all your funds, I think that’s extremely impressive and shows a real demand for fast cheap payments. Now, in November taproot/schnor activates which gives us ptlc’s on the lightning network as well as makes a lightning channel opening transaction look like a normal single signature transaction, yay privacy. All of this lays the groundwork for the next major base layer change, in probably ~2023, anyprevout. This will give us “eltoo” on lightning which is nirvana. Eltoo removes the penalty mechanism which makes running a lightning node on a mobile phone or home node much more reasonable. Protocols take a long time to develop, especially ones where a miss-step could mean the loss of billions of dollars. Do not believe anyone telling you that their coin solved bitcoin’s scaling problems years ago.
  - noxer 5y ago
    Bitcoins scaling problem was solved by removing PoW/PoS and by removing the incentive structure (block rewards). As soon as this is gone there was no reason anymore why it would not scale like similar systems. Its basically limited only by how fast data can propagate trough the network. PoW/PoS was replaced by FBA (Federated Byzantine Agreement) Its not a coin its technology used by several systems and based on BFT (which is way older than bitcoin and bitcoin actually is based on BFT as well although maybe unintentional). FBA just adds the federated part so a decentral system can be build. While bitcoin instead used a work-reward lottery system (PoW) to decide who can write the next block rather than finding a block everyone agrees on. Its really not that hard to figure out which of these solutions probably works better and scales somewhat like a distributes system is expected to scale.
coding123 5y ago
Bitcoin doesn't scale. https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption Just watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDKntG4F0hg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDKntG4F0hg So in about 5 years pretend everyone in the United States melts a wrench like that... Then a month later they do that twice, a month later they do it three times. Hey, at least it will be fun.
- Shosty123 5y ago
  Why does every discussion about Bitcoin's environmental impact reduce to "it uses a lot of electricity therefore it should be stopped". We're not going to shut down entire sectors of the economy because of their environmental impact. People are going to innovate and invest in alternative sources of energy because it is becoming profitable to do so. The solution is hardly ever "just stop doing it", it's "how can we do this better".
  - noxer 5y ago
    It has been "done better" in 2013 or so when the first FBA system where created as an direct answer to bitcoins expected future environmental impact and scalability problems. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27596590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27596590
  - codebolt 5y ago
    Crypto is hardly a "sector of the economy". It's main utility right now is lining the pockets of a few speculators. Traditional centralized ledgering systems do everything crypto does better and with a fraction of the energy use. It also gives governments tools to combat inflation/deflation and manage counterparty risks within the system. Crypto is a neat idea, but in the end it doesn't really solve anything, and instead only introduces a lot of unnecessary problems.
    - Shosty123 5y ago
      It pains me to see how someone could see no value in having a medium of exchange outside of any government currency control. One of my ex-coworkers had his family's fortune wiped out twice in Argentina due to government seizure and hyperinflation before they fled to Canada.
uncletammy 5y ago
Oh good, BTC can finally support Schnorr signatures, a feature that been available on BCH for years now. A feature that is useless until wallet developers add Schnorr signing functionality. Taproot is the update we get after ten years of the BTC devs doing nothing except gaslighting users about the protocol's scalability? All that momentum wasted.
- ric2b 5y ago
  > Schnorr signatures, a feature that been available on BCH for years now. Not in a useful way: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/l8v8sa/heres_a_6of9_schnorr_multisig_transaction_created/glf925h/ https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/l8v8sa/heres_a_6of9_sc...

andai 5y ago

What happened to the lightning network? (Serious question, I am out of the loop.)

thesausageking 5y ago
It launched, is usable in most wallets, and is starting to get adoption. It's going to be a key piece of the recently passed legislation in El Salvador which makes Bitcoin legal tender.
- hypnotist 5y ago
  El Salvador not Colombia
  - thesausageking 5y ago
    Yes. Not sure why I wrote Colombia. Thx.
- simias 5y ago
  Using a closed, centralized implementation that doesn't accept third party nodes. The use of bitcoin is pure marketing, it's just MySQL with extra steps.
  - delaaxe 5y ago
    Source?
    - lawn 5y ago
      They will be using Strike, which is a custodial wallet.
  - WanderPanda 5y ago
    Wait, it does not allow third party nodes? What is my Raspberry Pi right next to me doing? Just pretending to be a Lightning Node?

exit 5y ago

segwit facilitates the construction of lightning channels. taproot, which recently locked in, reduces the space needed to represent complex contracts. moreover, bitcoin aims at being a concise and focused base layer on top of which secondary layers and sidechains can be built. your absolute statement "exactly zero" is absolutely wrong.

tsimionescu 5y ago
> moreover, bitcoin aims at being a concise and focused base layer on top of which secondary layers and sidechains can be built. Have you ever read the white paper that outlines what bitcoin aims to be?
- noxer 5y ago
  It should be p2p cash then turn into store of value after some years and then it becomes the settlement layer for centralized second layer solutions that only exist because the first layer sucks. Just kidding, it should only be p2p cash and it failed at that. PoW/PoS will be replace by FBA in the next years and every system that can not switch away from PoW will become irrelevant.
- uncletammy 5y ago
  > Have you ever read the white paper that outlines what bitcoin aims to be? ... or even the title
uncletammy 5y ago
> taproot, which recently locked in, reduces the space needed to represent complex contracts. Complex contracts? Are you joking? What kind of complex contracts do you think can be done on BTC? Their scripting language and capabilities has been neutered just like their blocksize. Good luck writing a useful contract on BTC.

iamastrangeloop 5y ago

There has been great progress in scaling the original protocol through the Bitcoin SV implementation: - Transaction fees are ~$0.0001 - The network has shown capacity for 50k tps - On March 14, 2021, the network processed a world record 638 MB block - As of June 4, 2021 the chain size exceeded that of the BTC implementation and is currently 418.17 GB - New business based on micropayments have emerged like twetch, streamanity, peergame, etc [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bsv-proves-that-bitcoin-scaling-works-surpasses-btc-blockchain-in-accumulated-data-size-301306050.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bsv-proves-that-bit...

noxer 5y ago
Everyone knows faketoshi is a fraud.
- iamastrangeloop 5y ago
  Above is proof that the original bitcoin protocol can scale, and recently testnet can do 90k tps. What you think of certain people doesn't change the fact.
  - noxer 5y ago
    Its centralized and run by the people around this fraud. It doesn't matter if the tech is good since no one will use it for anything beside speculation or abuse it as storage which just wont be sustainable in the long run with no limits in place.
    - iamastrangeloop 5y ago
      The protocol remains the original and it scales significantly. I'd focus on protocol not people. If people changed the protocol then it's no longer bitcoin. Twetch.app has more than 50k users. It's also a genuine use case. So is etched.page or the other above-mentioned services. How can you abuse storage if there is a 0.5 satoshis/byte fee to write data on chain currently? Miners are for-profit entities and will always charge for storage.

SnowProblem 5y ago

So-called heretics have been scaling Bitcoin in spite of BTC's braindead decisions. Last week, 50K TPS were demonstrated publicly on Bitcoin SV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3As9-9uSXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3As9-9uSXs. More privately.

wtsnz 5y ago
This.
ric2b 5y ago
That's just a lab demo of a single system, not the network or even a common node configuration.
- SnowProblem 5y ago
  Years ago, there was a presentation [1] by Peter Rizun of Bitcoin Unlimited at Stanford that demonstrated ~100TPS on Bitcoin, and the potential for 1000+ TPS if certain bottlenecks were removed. People said the same thing you're saying back then, but it served to motivate the big block community, and now today BSV routinely does 300+ MB blocks (1000+ tps). This Teranode software is the future of BSV and will become the common node configuration within a few years, so it's worth taking seriously. Also, I left a comment in this thread explaining why this test is more representative than you may think [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SJm2ep3X_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SJm2ep3X_M [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27597510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27597510
  - Geee 5y ago
    That's not the issue. Block size has to be limited to protect decentralization. Decentralization is the only thing that has value in blockchains, otherwise you're better off using centralized databases.
    - SnowProblem 5y ago
      I'm aware of that argument. The counter-argument goes that at scale, larger blocks would bring in more businesses, more miners, and more competition, and that competition is what actually protects the chain from bad actors who might try to change the rules or censor transactions, not decentralization, and that decentralization is mostly a meme to pacify the masses from realizing who actually has power over the network.

wtsnz 5y ago

There was a demo of node software that is capable of 50,000 transactions per second just a few weeks ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3As9-9uSXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3As9-9uSXs (Yes this is on the Bitcoin SV implementation of the Bitcoin protocol - where they're using the original protocol that Satoshi envisioned)

uncletammy 5y ago
From what I understand, that's 50,000 pre-generated transactions pumped directly to the mining node. Not 50,000 transactions spread across hundreds of non-mining nodes and relayed to the mining node. There's a huge difference. Correct me if I'm wrong here. Either way, bitcoin the protocol can handle waaaaaay more transactions than the BTC devs have constrained it to.
- SnowProblem 5y ago
  Yes, more-or-less, but that how it is designed to work. The most reliable way to get a transaction into a block is to send it directly to a miner or set of miners. Apps on BSV do this today via MAPI REST endpoints, similar to how this test was configured. Non-mining nodes will see the transactions later, but they won't do the same verification that mining nodes require because they are not part of consensus. BSV generally sees the eventual network configuration as a small-world network for the mining core, and a mandala network for the apps and services surrounding it, rather than as a mesh network which most blockchain systems strive to be.

owens99 5y ago

Check out Stacks (https://stacks.co https://stacks.co), enables smart contracts on top of Bitcoin through Proof-of-Transfer consensus. Founded by YC alums and launched this January after many years of R&D. Disclaimer: I'm involved.

rebelos 5y ago

There was never any need to scale it at the protocol level. The overwhelming majority of Bitcoin transfers presently happen off-chain, within exchanges. Very few people seem to understand this.

oblio 5y ago
I don't understand. How do Bitcoin transfers happen off-chain? Are those Bitcoin transactions that don't actually use the blockchain?
- rebelos 5y ago
  The exchange itself holds a fluctuating amount of Bitcoin and then updates entries in its own database when transfers occur between exchange participants to reflect a change in ownership. These constitute the vast majority of transactions that occur and none of them are recorded to the blockchain.
  - oblio 5y ago
    And the exchange is centralized?