6 ms·

All jokes aside, LiteCoin & Dogecoin(a fork of litecoin) have usage advantage or Bitcoin because it's transaction confirmation is ~2-3 mins vs 15-20 min for Bit

All jokes aside, LiteCoin & Dogecoin(a fork of litecoin) have usage advantage or Bitcoin because it's transaction confirmation is ~2-3 mins vs 15-20 min for Bitcoin. 2-3 min is still not ideal, but it makes it better for the retail environment. The confirmation period checks if there is any fraud in the transaction. Bitpay for example takes on the risk of Bitcoin's double spend fraud (sending the same bitcoin to two merchants simultaneously). If there are some way to reduce the transaction confirmation time to seconds, then alternative crypocurrency could be widely adopted in brick and motor retail.

Sambdala 13y ago
For most purposes, the risk of a double spend is negligible, and it's perfectly safe to accept an unconfirmed transaction. However, there are still those purposes for which that's not a good idea...
- rebelidealist 13y ago
  How would it be negligible? Seem like it can easily be done.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    It's pretty easy to steal and use a credit card, doesn't mean a lot of customers do it. For low-value transactions, it's not worth spending much time on. You save that for low-volume high-value transactions.
- SwellJoe 13y ago
  With no confirmations a double spend is easy (would require a custom Bitcoin client designed for the purpose). Is it likely? No. So, if I ran a coffee shop, I'd hand over the goods without confirmation. If I were selling a house or a car, I'd wait for a whole lot of confirmations. Digital goods probably don't need to wait, either, particularly for returning customers. So, yeah, I agree...I just want to be clear about why the risk is low: Because most people aren't going to cheat you out of a cup of coffee.
- natrius 13y ago
  To elaborate, a merchant can easily monitor (or pay someone to monitor) transactions being sent to miners in real time. The probability of a successful double spend decreases drastically as the time since the first spend increases. If someone hasn't tried to double spend in ten seconds or so, they'll likely fail if they try.
  - lappa 13y ago
    This is simply false. Many mining pools allow you to push to transaction to them. If your first spend has a 0.0001btc fee and the second has a 0.001btc fee, they will choose the 0.0099btc fee. You cannot monitor transactions being sent to miners if they aren't propagated through the normal bitcoin network. Along with that, there have been cases where mining pools have doublespent unconfirmed transactions and stolen lots of bitcoins. GHash stole 3000btc from betcoin https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  For in-person, retail purchases, double spend is a big issue since waiting around for 10-20 minutes while the transaction is confirmed is unworkable.
  - Smegger 13y ago
    A karmic based waiting period my be needed then; It could be based on age of address, transactions successful, repeat business with your address, amount of bitcoins spent per purchase, etc. With a higher score you could waive the waiting period for conformations or use less confirmations based on whatever algorithm you have. If some one is going to try cheating they probably won't be doing with and address they conduct regular business with.
  - ksrm 13y ago
    Smegger, you are hellbanned.
higherpurpose 13y ago
Someone suggested a way to fix that in Bitcoin, but I don't know if they're going to use this solution or not: > tl;dr: We suggest a protocol modification to the block chain that securely allows blocks to be generated around once per second, can handle over 200 transactions per second at these rates, and consumes under 0.5 MBps in terms of bandwidth (less at lower rates than 200 TPS). All of this with no increased susceptability to 50% attacks. This essentially solves the problem that caused Satoshi to set the 10 minute target for the block creation rate. We also analyze the number of transactions per second Bitcoin can handle with and without our modification. We note that block propagation times are the primary obstacle for scalability. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=359582.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=359582.0
SwellJoe 13y ago
Note that that lower confirmation time results in lower security for the network and higher susceptibility to double spend from a well-equipped mining operator. A lucky miner could capture 50%+ for 2 minutes a lot more easily than for 10. Satoshi didn't set the block time to 10 minutes arbitrarily. Network speed increases and increasing network hashing power and distribution make it less of an issue...but, the issue remains. Litecoin and Doge are less secure than Bitcoin in this regard and more susceptible to 50% attacks. Edit: It's clear I don't actually understand all the implications of this. But, all of the replies below me don't seem to either. I need to re-read the Bitcoin paper.
- fragsworth 13y ago
  A miner has the same likelihood of beating the rest of the network at N blocks no matter what the block duration is. An attacker in a 1-minute block network will have the same likelihood of winning 10 blocks (in 10 minutes) as if they were running bitcoin and won 10 blocks (in 100 minutes). However, in the 1-minute network, there are ten times as many opportunities in the same amount of time to attempt to perform this kind of attack. If I wait for 2 confirmations in Bitcoin, is this more secure than, less secure than, or equally secure to waiting for 20 confirmations in Dogecoin? The analysis is a bit tricky.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    If an organization with 45% of the hashing power became malicious, it would be able to "double spend" 2 confirmations approximately 20.25% of the time. (the other 80% of the time, the 55% side of the network would "catch up"). For an organization with 45% hashing power to maliciously double-spend cross 20 confirmations, it'd have to win the coin flip 20 times, or 0.00001% of the time. Methinks the faster hash rate is strictly better from a security standpoint... especially when you consider players who can perform a near-50% double-spend on the network. (A large 30% player may go for a "double-spend" within 2 confirmations, and will be successful 9% of the time)
  - drcode 13y ago
    Wrong: All else being identical, a currency with 10 minute blocks will have a 10x mining difficulty than a currency with a 1 minute block. Lower mining difficulty = Easier to beat network. (Easier to beat PER BLOCK, no difference PER UNIT TIME)
acangiano 13y ago
Worldcoin (WDC) was created with retail in mind. Transactions are fully confirmed in 60 seconds or less.
Bootvis 13y ago
How many confirmations do you really need for micropayments? I just ordered a pizza and it went through almost instantly without paying mining fees. Bitpay saw the transaction on the network and knows I'm not going to try double spending 15 EUR. EDIT To expand on that: the longer block times can actually be an advantage because the probability of orphans is smaller. If my transaction ends up in some orphaned block and is not resend the merchant won't get any money.
tlrobinson 13y ago
It's well established that shorter block times result in less security per block, but it's also possible shorter block times result in less security per unit of time (given equal total network hashing power) This is due to the time it takes for newly mined blocks to propagate through the network. Miners work on old blocks a larger portion of time, leading to more forks and waste of mining resources. Of course Bitcoin has far more hashing power than Litecoin or Dogecoin anyway, since the hashing power will correlate with the value of the mining rewards. IMHO the real solution for both transaction speed and scalability is networks of "off-chain" transactions processors that occasionally "settle" on the blockchain. Of course such networks should retain the open and trustless properties of Bitcoin.
crazydoggers 13y ago
Bitcoin can already support retail confirmation within seconds without risk of fraud. See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Point_of_sale_with_bitcoins_isn.27t_possible_because_of_the_10_minute_wait_for_confirmation https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Point_of_sale_with_bitcoins...

Sambdala 13y ago

For most purposes, the risk of a double spend is negligible, and it's perfectly safe to accept an unconfirmed transaction. However, there are still those purposes for which that's not a good idea...

rebelidealist 13y ago
How would it be negligible? Seem like it can easily be done.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  It's pretty easy to steal and use a credit card, doesn't mean a lot of customers do it. For low-value transactions, it's not worth spending much time on. You save that for low-volume high-value transactions.
SwellJoe 13y ago
With no confirmations a double spend is easy (would require a custom Bitcoin client designed for the purpose). Is it likely? No. So, if I ran a coffee shop, I'd hand over the goods without confirmation. If I were selling a house or a car, I'd wait for a whole lot of confirmations. Digital goods probably don't need to wait, either, particularly for returning customers. So, yeah, I agree...I just want to be clear about why the risk is low: Because most people aren't going to cheat you out of a cup of coffee.
natrius 13y ago
To elaborate, a merchant can easily monitor (or pay someone to monitor) transactions being sent to miners in real time. The probability of a successful double spend decreases drastically as the time since the first spend increases. If someone hasn't tried to double spend in ten seconds or so, they'll likely fail if they try.
- lappa 13y ago
  This is simply false. Many mining pools allow you to push to transaction to them. If your first spend has a 0.0001btc fee and the second has a 0.001btc fee, they will choose the 0.0099btc fee. You cannot monitor transactions being sent to miners if they aren't propagated through the normal bitcoin network. Along with that, there have been cases where mining pools have doublespent unconfirmed transactions and stolen lots of bitcoins. GHash stole 3000btc from betcoin https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=327767.0
JohnTHaller 13y ago
For in-person, retail purchases, double spend is a big issue since waiting around for 10-20 minutes while the transaction is confirmed is unworkable.
- Smegger 13y ago
  A karmic based waiting period my be needed then; It could be based on age of address, transactions successful, repeat business with your address, amount of bitcoins spent per purchase, etc. With a higher score you could waive the waiting period for conformations or use less confirmations based on whatever algorithm you have. If some one is going to try cheating they probably won't be doing with and address they conduct regular business with.
- ksrm 13y ago
  Smegger, you are hellbanned.

higherpurpose 13y ago

Someone suggested a way to fix that in Bitcoin, but I don't know if they're going to use this solution or not: > tl;dr: We suggest a protocol modification to the block chain that securely allows blocks to be generated around once per second, can handle over 200 transactions per second at these rates, and consumes under 0.5 MBps in terms of bandwidth (less at lower rates than 200 TPS). All of this with no increased susceptability to 50% attacks. This essentially solves the problem that caused Satoshi to set the 10 minute target for the block creation rate. We also analyze the number of transactions per second Bitcoin can handle with and without our modification. We note that block propagation times are the primary obstacle for scalability. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=359582.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=359582.0

SwellJoe 13y ago

Note that that lower confirmation time results in lower security for the network and higher susceptibility to double spend from a well-equipped mining operator. A lucky miner could capture 50%+ for 2 minutes a lot more easily than for 10. Satoshi didn't set the block time to 10 minutes arbitrarily. Network speed increases and increasing network hashing power and distribution make it less of an issue...but, the issue remains. Litecoin and Doge are less secure than Bitcoin in this regard and more susceptible to 50% attacks. Edit: It's clear I don't actually understand all the implications of this. But, all of the replies below me don't seem to either. I need to re-read the Bitcoin paper.

fragsworth 13y ago
A miner has the same likelihood of beating the rest of the network at N blocks no matter what the block duration is. An attacker in a 1-minute block network will have the same likelihood of winning 10 blocks (in 10 minutes) as if they were running bitcoin and won 10 blocks (in 100 minutes). However, in the 1-minute network, there are ten times as many opportunities in the same amount of time to attempt to perform this kind of attack. If I wait for 2 confirmations in Bitcoin, is this more secure than, less secure than, or equally secure to waiting for 20 confirmations in Dogecoin? The analysis is a bit tricky.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  If an organization with 45% of the hashing power became malicious, it would be able to "double spend" 2 confirmations approximately 20.25% of the time. (the other 80% of the time, the 55% side of the network would "catch up"). For an organization with 45% hashing power to maliciously double-spend cross 20 confirmations, it'd have to win the coin flip 20 times, or 0.00001% of the time. Methinks the faster hash rate is strictly better from a security standpoint... especially when you consider players who can perform a near-50% double-spend on the network. (A large 30% player may go for a "double-spend" within 2 confirmations, and will be successful 9% of the time)
- drcode 13y ago
  Wrong: All else being identical, a currency with 10 minute blocks will have a 10x mining difficulty than a currency with a 1 minute block. Lower mining difficulty = Easier to beat network. (Easier to beat PER BLOCK, no difference PER UNIT TIME)

acangiano 13y ago

Worldcoin (WDC) was created with retail in mind. Transactions are fully confirmed in 60 seconds or less.

Bootvis 13y ago

How many confirmations do you really need for micropayments? I just ordered a pizza and it went through almost instantly without paying mining fees. Bitpay saw the transaction on the network and knows I'm not going to try double spending 15 EUR. EDIT To expand on that: the longer block times can actually be an advantage because the probability of orphans is smaller. If my transaction ends up in some orphaned block and is not resend the merchant won't get any money.

tlrobinson 13y ago

It's well established that shorter block times result in less security per block, but it's also possible shorter block times result in less security per unit of time (given equal total network hashing power) This is due to the time it takes for newly mined blocks to propagate through the network. Miners work on old blocks a larger portion of time, leading to more forks and waste of mining resources. Of course Bitcoin has far more hashing power than Litecoin or Dogecoin anyway, since the hashing power will correlate with the value of the mining rewards. IMHO the real solution for both transaction speed and scalability is networks of "off-chain" transactions processors that occasionally "settle" on the blockchain. Of course such networks should retain the open and trustless properties of Bitcoin.

crazydoggers 13y ago

Bitcoin can already support retail confirmation within seconds without risk of fraud. See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Point_of_sale_with_bitcoins_isn.27t_possible_because_of_the_10_minute_wait_for_confirmation https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Point_of_sale_with_bitcoins...