5 ms·

The biggest reason it is not ready for prime time: security. The regular user is very likely to get all their bitcoin stolen from them sooner or later. Heck, ev

The biggest reason it is not ready for prime time: security. The regular user is very likely to get all their bitcoin stolen from them sooner or later. Heck, even the people running the exchanges and other bitcoin services get hacked all the time. There simply is no good way to secure bitcoin for the regular joe at this point in time.

jedunnigan 13y ago
I would say the largest existential threat to Bitcoin is scale. All the problems cited by WU are fixable; same with user security. However, dumping even half of the Visa/MC daily tx volume would bring the network to a halt. The transaction fee scheme has issues as is, it needs to be reworked before it can handle even double the current daily volume. [need to find source, gavin mentioned it somewhere] We could raise the block size, but that's no free lunch (makes it more costly to run a node, etc...), things could go off chain, we could use Ripple, etc... etc. Point being, something will need to change before the big players come in, and it's more than just liquidity and user security.
- DennisP 13y ago
  Use offchain transactions for most things and onchain just to settle balances between service providers, and you could scale to major currency levels. Keep the number of transactions per block limited, and transaction fees could be maintained high enough to avoid the "bitcoin tragedy of the commons." That doesn't seem to be the direction they're going, though.
  - jedunnigan 13y ago
    Off chain is always a solution, but requires some form of trust in most situations. In all honesty I see Bitcoin becoming more of a commodity in the long term, and it is traded sparingly, or other coins/digital currencies are built that allow you to peg the value of Bitcoin to them, as to move it faster. This is just speculation, of course.
ye 13y ago
> There simply is no good way to secure bitcoin for the regular joe at this point in time. My coworker has a regular checking account. One day he noticed he had something like $20K missing. He called the bank, they have a long conversaton, put him on hold, long long hold, then they say "Your money is back, let's never talk of this incident again". If he hadn't noticed it, he would be out $20K.
- ceejayoz 13y ago
  If it'd been in Bitcoins, he'd still be out the $20k.
  - AsymetricCom 13y ago
    If it'd been in his own bitcoin wallet, he would have never lost the $20k
    - ceejayoz 13y ago
      Plenty of people have had their coins stolen, both from personal computers and hacked exchanges. For example: http://www.geekosystem.com/first-major-bitcoin-theft/ http://www.geekosystem.com/first-major-bitcoin-theft/ The ability to irretrievably lose massive sums of money with no recourse is a challenge for Bitcoin. Banks have insurance for just this sort of eventuality. Cash is relatively hard to steal in gigantic quantities.
      - smithzvk 13y ago
        > The ability to irretrievably lose massive sums of money with no recourse is a challenge for Bitcoin. Banks have insurance for just this sort of eventuality. I find it funny that you pose the problem and give the solution in such close proximity. (In case you miss my meaning, the solution is to trust large wallets with third party companies that insure their holdings and guarantee your money even if they are successfully attacked)
        13y ago
AsymetricCom 13y ago
Users can't control their hardware, so they can't control their bits, coin or otherwise. Institutions cannot stomach the idea of a populous with powerful computers that don't answer to them. Trusted Devices being the only electronic devices in existence is one solution.

jedunnigan 13y ago

I would say the largest existential threat to Bitcoin is scale. All the problems cited by WU are fixable; same with user security. However, dumping even half of the Visa/MC daily tx volume would bring the network to a halt. The transaction fee scheme has issues as is, it needs to be reworked before it can handle even double the current daily volume. [need to find source, gavin mentioned it somewhere] We could raise the block size, but that's no free lunch (makes it more costly to run a node, etc...), things could go off chain, we could use Ripple, etc... etc. Point being, something will need to change before the big players come in, and it's more than just liquidity and user security.

DennisP 13y ago
Use offchain transactions for most things and onchain just to settle balances between service providers, and you could scale to major currency levels. Keep the number of transactions per block limited, and transaction fees could be maintained high enough to avoid the "bitcoin tragedy of the commons." That doesn't seem to be the direction they're going, though.
- jedunnigan 13y ago
  Off chain is always a solution, but requires some form of trust in most situations. In all honesty I see Bitcoin becoming more of a commodity in the long term, and it is traded sparingly, or other coins/digital currencies are built that allow you to peg the value of Bitcoin to them, as to move it faster. This is just speculation, of course.

ye 13y ago

> There simply is no good way to secure bitcoin for the regular joe at this point in time. My coworker has a regular checking account. One day he noticed he had something like $20K missing. He called the bank, they have a long conversaton, put him on hold, long long hold, then they say "Your money is back, let's never talk of this incident again". If he hadn't noticed it, he would be out $20K.

ceejayoz 13y ago
If it'd been in Bitcoins, he'd still be out the $20k.
- AsymetricCom 13y ago
  If it'd been in his own bitcoin wallet, he would have never lost the $20k
  - ceejayoz 13y ago
    Plenty of people have had their coins stolen, both from personal computers and hacked exchanges. For example: http://www.geekosystem.com/first-major-bitcoin-theft/ http://www.geekosystem.com/first-major-bitcoin-theft/ The ability to irretrievably lose massive sums of money with no recourse is a challenge for Bitcoin. Banks have insurance for just this sort of eventuality. Cash is relatively hard to steal in gigantic quantities.
    - smithzvk 13y ago
      > The ability to irretrievably lose massive sums of money with no recourse is a challenge for Bitcoin. Banks have insurance for just this sort of eventuality. I find it funny that you pose the problem and give the solution in such close proximity. (In case you miss my meaning, the solution is to trust large wallets with third party companies that insure their holdings and guarantee your money even if they are successfully attacked)
      - 13y ago

AsymetricCom 13y ago

Users can't control their hardware, so they can't control their bits, coin or otherwise. Institutions cannot stomach the idea of a populous with powerful computers that don't answer to them. Trusted Devices being the only electronic devices in existence is one solution.