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https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commits/master https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commits/master I wouldn’t consider that stagnate.

kristofferR 5y ago
Sure, it's just moving very slowly after the block size civil war. I remember the early years when the talk was about interesting developments instead of just the value.
- javert 5y ago
  Bitcoin has chosen consistency with its original principles over "innovation." A good choice, in my book. What we should think of as constituting sound money has not changed since 2008. That is what bitcoin is supposed to be - sound money. Ethereum is supposed to be something else - and it makes sense for Ethereum to "innovate" much more than bitcoin does.
  - Tepix 5y ago
    > That is what bitcoin is supposed to be - sound money. Bitcoin can't be used as money in most cases as transactions are too expensive and slow. It has failed its primary function. Instead of doing something about it, the notion of using bitcoin like money has been abandonded and it's merely a "store of value". That's until people stop valuing it.
    - jkhdigital 5y ago
      Is cash money? What percentage of your transactions are settled in cash? Money and payment settlement systems are not the same thing, although you could be forgiven for believing that. I use a credit card for 99% of my transaction volume, and credit cards are not money. The fact that the notional value of the transaction is denominated in dollars doesn't mean I am actually using dollars as the medium of exchange--the exchange is facilitated by a clearinghouse and my individual transaction may not even result in a transfer of money (actual dollars) between parties, if there is an offsetting transaction (or chain of transactions) within the same settlement period.
      - Tepix 5y ago
        Yes, cash is money and a large percentage of my transactions are settled in cash (currently with covid the percentage is a bit lower).
  - everfree 5y ago
    > Bitcoin has chosen consistency with its original principles Bitcoin was originally invented as a "peer to peer electronic cash system". The fees have made it impossible to use it as such for quite some time.
    - javert 5y ago
      Despite the tagline from the whitepaper, it's always been clear to me that bitcoin was an Austrian-style sound money system and could not scale to be a network for small payments. I think bitcoin has remained consistent with the original vision and design.
      - everfree 5y ago
        I remember using Bitcoin to buy coffee in town back in the day (2014, 2015-ish). All the retailers stopped accepting it as payment due to the results of the scaling debate. Steam, WordPress, Microsoft and others. If its current design under the block size limit was clear to you, it very much wasn't clear to me back then.
        javert 5y ago
        Just making blocks bigger isn't enough to scale bitcoin to Visa levels, so making on-chain bitcoin payments work for small payments was never on the table. It would have required a radical redesign of bitcoin to even have a chance of success, and that has always been off the table and has been left for new, experimental digital currencies.
Tepix 5y ago
How many hardforks has the core bitcoin project seen in the last five years? Bitcoin has been incapable of doing a hardfork for whatever reason for a while. That's why it will disappear sooner or later. If you don't evolve, you die.
- jstx1 5y ago
  > How many hardforks has the core bitcoin project seen in the last five years? Can you elaborate on this - why would the core project care how many times it's forked? The forks shouldn't affect the core project at all, that's the whole point of having a fork in the first place. Or alternatively, if you like and use the fork, then you aren't on the core bitcoin chain anymore. Either way the main BTC chain doesn't care.
  - iSnow 5y ago
    >why would the core project care how many times it's forked? Some changes (eg. to the block reward schedule) are only possible on a hard fork as it makes the main chain incompatible with the pre-fork chain. That's the philosophical difference between the projects: ETH is not afraid of hard forks and to this date, they have been uncontested. BTC never considers a hard fork and has had at least two major contested ones.
    - jstx1 5y ago
      Do you have some technical definition for "contested" or are you using it as a generic term to describe how the forks were perceived by the rest of the community?
      - iSnow 5y ago
        Well, of course I forgot the ETC HF, that one was indeed contested. But yeah, generic for a HF out of differences that cannot be reconciled and which leads to a viable new project like BCash, BSV, ETC.

kristofferR 5y ago

Sure, it's just moving very slowly after the block size civil war. I remember the early years when the talk was about interesting developments instead of just the value.

javert 5y ago
Bitcoin has chosen consistency with its original principles over "innovation." A good choice, in my book. What we should think of as constituting sound money has not changed since 2008. That is what bitcoin is supposed to be - sound money. Ethereum is supposed to be something else - and it makes sense for Ethereum to "innovate" much more than bitcoin does.
- Tepix 5y ago
  > That is what bitcoin is supposed to be - sound money. Bitcoin can't be used as money in most cases as transactions are too expensive and slow. It has failed its primary function. Instead of doing something about it, the notion of using bitcoin like money has been abandonded and it's merely a "store of value". That's until people stop valuing it.
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    Is cash money? What percentage of your transactions are settled in cash? Money and payment settlement systems are not the same thing, although you could be forgiven for believing that. I use a credit card for 99% of my transaction volume, and credit cards are not money. The fact that the notional value of the transaction is denominated in dollars doesn't mean I am actually using dollars as the medium of exchange--the exchange is facilitated by a clearinghouse and my individual transaction may not even result in a transfer of money (actual dollars) between parties, if there is an offsetting transaction (or chain of transactions) within the same settlement period.
    - Tepix 5y ago
      Yes, cash is money and a large percentage of my transactions are settled in cash (currently with covid the percentage is a bit lower).
- everfree 5y ago
  > Bitcoin has chosen consistency with its original principles Bitcoin was originally invented as a "peer to peer electronic cash system". The fees have made it impossible to use it as such for quite some time.
  - javert 5y ago
    Despite the tagline from the whitepaper, it's always been clear to me that bitcoin was an Austrian-style sound money system and could not scale to be a network for small payments. I think bitcoin has remained consistent with the original vision and design.
    - everfree 5y ago
      I remember using Bitcoin to buy coffee in town back in the day (2014, 2015-ish). All the retailers stopped accepting it as payment due to the results of the scaling debate. Steam, WordPress, Microsoft and others. If its current design under the block size limit was clear to you, it very much wasn't clear to me back then.
      - javert 5y ago
        Just making blocks bigger isn't enough to scale bitcoin to Visa levels, so making on-chain bitcoin payments work for small payments was never on the table. It would have required a radical redesign of bitcoin to even have a chance of success, and that has always been off the table and has been left for new, experimental digital currencies.

Tepix 5y ago

How many hardforks has the core bitcoin project seen in the last five years? Bitcoin has been incapable of doing a hardfork for whatever reason for a while. That's why it will disappear sooner or later. If you don't evolve, you die.

jstx1 5y ago
> How many hardforks has the core bitcoin project seen in the last five years? Can you elaborate on this - why would the core project care how many times it's forked? The forks shouldn't affect the core project at all, that's the whole point of having a fork in the first place. Or alternatively, if you like and use the fork, then you aren't on the core bitcoin chain anymore. Either way the main BTC chain doesn't care.
- iSnow 5y ago
  >why would the core project care how many times it's forked? Some changes (eg. to the block reward schedule) are only possible on a hard fork as it makes the main chain incompatible with the pre-fork chain. That's the philosophical difference between the projects: ETH is not afraid of hard forks and to this date, they have been uncontested. BTC never considers a hard fork and has had at least two major contested ones.
  - jstx1 5y ago
    Do you have some technical definition for "contested" or are you using it as a generic term to describe how the forks were perceived by the rest of the community?
    - iSnow 5y ago
      Well, of course I forgot the ETC HF, that one was indeed contested. But yeah, generic for a HF out of differences that cannot be reconciled and which leads to a viable new project like BCash, BSV, ETC.