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Low Quality ArticleBitcoin’s Nightmare Scenario Has Come to Pass (recode.net)

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[–]Tom_Hanks13 1260ポイント1261ポイント  (168子コメント)

Except the nightmare is still unfolding. What was supposed to be a decentralized digital currency is now controlled by Core developers who are intentionally not allowing the block size limit to be raised. They are likely doing this because they have ties to the company Blockstream whose business model relies on people using their “sidechain” payment processor. By keeping the block size limited to 1MB they are effectively forcing bitcoin users to eventually use this payment processor. To date, blockstream has raised over $75M USD of venture capitalist funds.

What's worse is the moderators of /r/bitcoin are involved and are intentionally censoring content regarding the corruption. People have caught onto this censorship and are now flocking to /r/btc as an alternative. Users there are fighting to promote a fork in bitcoin called Bitcoin Classic which in the short term would raise the block size limit to 2MB.

[–]jefecaminador1 422ポイント423ポイント  (41子コメント)

Man, I'm so glad Bitcoin isn't held hostage by the central banks, but is instead held hostage by an even smaller group of people who aren't held responsible by anyone.

[–]DankestTimeline 169ポイント170ポイント  (16子コメント)

It's almost as if dickheads gravitated towards any position of power that can be abused.

[–]aaaacid 48ポイント49ポイント  (3子コメント)

And any position of power can be abused.

Comment brought to you by /r/Anarchy101

[–]okmkz 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

but muh human nature

[–]NickRick 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

The Biggest lie in American History is that power can be innocent.

-Lex Luthor.

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    [–]vlasvilneous 13ポイント14ポイント  (1子コメント)

    I agree, not everyone is a dickhead, but dickheads are everywhere.

    [–]FATS32 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Quote of the day right there

    [–]GoodShibe 10ポイント11ポイント  (7子コメント)

    One of the great things about Dogecoin, IMHO, is that it's got all of the great tech involved in Bitcoin, but it's faster, friendlier and, because it's so cheap to get into, is a perfect 'starter' coin for folks who want to learn about digital currency without losing their shirts in the process. Our developers are all well known and incredibly generous people (who even contribute regularly to Bitcoin's code).

    Please come on by and visit us on /r/Dogecoin - it's quite literally one of the friendliest places on the internet ;D)

    [–]LukeTheFisher 11ポイント12ポイント  (4子コメント)

    Promoting a crypto that's even more dead than btc. It never even took off to begin with. And the sub is terrible, it's just "motivational" posts, pandering and memes. I was with doge at the beginning but if it couldn't succeed with the active, and fairly large, community it had in the beginning, it never will succeed.

    [–]mikey_says 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

    Yeah except doge is the most obnoxious shit ever

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      [–]Philo_T_Farnsworth 79ポイント80ポイント  (10子コメント)

      Huh. Sounds like the "market is deciding", then. According to Libertarian / Anarchist philosophy the correct solution here is to design your own Bitcoin alternative. Presumably with blackjack and hookers.

      [–]Insanely_anonymous 10ポイント11ポイント  (7子コメント)

      I don't understand how it went from open source developed to this central core.

      [–]themadninjar 15ポイント16ポイント  (1子コメント)

      it's still open source, but good luck getting a majority of nodes to run your personal changes without some credibility...

      [–]Insanely_anonymous 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

      To start out for sure. Classic will be based on

      ....processing power.....will now be used to record a vote by the community.

      Course if only a few people have processing power.....

      [–]Prontest 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

      No one was in charge of keeping it open. No regulation, no oversight, etc.

      [–]Taek42 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

      It didn't. Bitcoin-core is one of the most, if not the most, decentralized software projects in existence. No single person has power, and while there are 4 people who have commit access (two of them, I will point out, are strong proponents of the hard fork) nobody can merge anything without sufficient consensus from the rest of the developers. If they do, their access will be revoked and the changes will be undone.

      Bitcoin-core has no leadership. The 'leader' (Wlad) doesn't make decisions, he follows a procedure. The next closest guy to a leader (Greg Maxwell) stepped down because people kept calling him a leader (well, among other stresses). The project ecosystem actively rejects leadership, as... that would be centralized.

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        [–]tobixen 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

        It's all open-source and permissionless, so we're not really hold hostage by anyone. It's quite sad that the attempts to fork away from the core developers have caused so much hostility, but I'm still a bit optimistic, hoping that those issues will get resolved soon.

        [–]thirdfounder 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Are you implying that law and law enforcement have an actual purpose? HERETIC!

        [–]DinoDonkeyDoodle 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

        This is why I criticized bitcoin from the day I learned about it. It is not the currency that can be spoofed/faked, it is always those controlling access that get corrupted. You can have the most secure bauble in the world. Wont mean jack shit if the only way to access it if that security system is held by the people you are trying to protect the bauble from.

        [–]DataKeeper -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

        Dogecoin! My $.072 will change the world!

        コメントをもっと表示する (1 返事)

          [–]HarikMCO 254ポイント255ポイント  (55子コメント)

          The best part about this is that it's demonstrating what everyone with a few braincells to rub together has been saying for years - it's not physically possible for the blockchain to handle any sort of widespread adoption. Going to 2mb blocks will buy you a few months, but it's going to take a radical restructuring of how transactions work to actually make it scalable.

          [–]OathOfFeanor 92ポイント93ポイント  (22子コメント)

          Not only that but it's important to keep in mind the fundamental requirements of currency in society. One of those being stability/consistency.

          It's not software; we can't just fork it every time two groups have different opinions.

          Imagine if tomorrow Obama announced that the old US currency was now all worthless, sorry guys we messed up, but trust us this new currency is the shiznit. The economy would explode, in a bad way.

          [–]Cforq 14ポイント15ポイント  (16子コメント)

          Imagine if tomorrow Obama announced that the old US currency was now all worthless, sorry guys we messed up, but trust us this new currency is the shiznit.

          Isn't that how Brazil restored its economy a few decades ago? I'm pretty sure that is almost exactly how the real came to be.

          [–]phathiker 20ポイント21ポイント  (2子コメント)

          It's is indeed how they did it and it's an insanely interesting story too. Look for NPR's Planet Money story "How Fake Money Saved Brazil", and give it a listen. So good.

          But I think the circumstances were very different, the American dollar is in better shape than the Brazilian peso was back then i.e. no rampant inflation.

          edit: sorry, cruzeiro, not peso

          [–]pato_molhado 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

          I think Mr. Cruzeiro lost a lot of pesos in that too

          [–]Gredorian 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

          Hahah I loved "Brazilian peso"!

          But anyway, like I commented to parent, it only worked because they pegged it to the dollar at 1:1 ratio, otherwise not a single soul in the country would have trusted its value.

          [–]Opheltes 8ポイント9ポイント  (8子コメント)

          That's exactly what Zimbabwe did in 2015

          [–]jotch 5ポイント6ポイント  (5子コメント)

          Thats how I got this $1 trillion dollar Zimbabwe bill.

          [–]wmil 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

          Is there any place to buy bulk old Zimbabwe currency? I've always wanted a Huell bed.

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              [–]cowtung 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

              To be honest, I'd be totally OK with that. People with large mortgages would throw a party.

              [–]Gredorian 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

              They also pegged it to the US dollar 1:1 in order to give it credibility. They tried going on faith alone a few times before that, but it didn't work and hyperinflation hit almost instantly every time.

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                [–]Keitaro_Urashima 29ポイント30ポイント  (0子コメント)

                Developer : "I don't understand?? Why aren't people accepting the new Bitcoin version we pushed out last week? "

                コメントをもっと表示する (4 返事)

                  [–]mongoosefist 17ポイント18ポイント  (27子コメント)

                  Yes and no, there are alt coins that address the issue and have solid plans in place for expansion and increased transactions. Some can handle tens of thousands of transactions per second, but the bitcoin block chain specifically was in trouble from the very beginning, just far too slow

                  [–]nairebis 8ポイント9ポイント  (5子コメント)

                  there are alt coins that address the issue and have solid plans in place for expansion and increased transactions

                  And Google Plus had solid plans for expansion as well.

                  Electronic money only works when you have a critical mass of users. And getting people to put real money into something is far more difficult than merely launching a new social network, which Google failed at, even with all their traffic.

                  [–]theothercoolfish 5ポイント6ポイント  (2子コメント)

                  Google's social network failed because it didn't really provide anything all that new or innovative. There wasn't sufficient reason to push off from FB to G+.

                  We're in the nascent phase of cryptocurrencies, and the innovations and freedoms that they bring will be enough to convince people eventually, especially once the bugs are ironed out.

                  [–]nairebis 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                  Except cryptocurrencies are a natural monopoly like social networks. Sure, there might be "innovations and freedoms" to many of them, but which one will make enough people move to it, and more, put real money into them? And it's not enough that tech people choose one. You have to convince some mainstream person to put their hard-earned money into a specific one when there's no comprehensible way to choose among them.

                  [–]stufff 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                  We're in the nascent phase of cryptocurrencies, and the innovations and freedoms that they bring will be enough to convince people eventually, especially once the bugs are ironed out.

                  I think you're overestimating people's need to buy drugs and CP

                  [–]WallyMetropolis 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                  I'm not sure what your argument is. Are you saying that because some things fail, everything will?

                  There are already existing alternate cryptocurrencies with hundreds of millions of dollars in market cap. People holding btc have clearly demonstrated an interest in cryptocurrency and those 6 billion dollars aren't just going to vanish.

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                    [–]Grumpy_Kong 7ポイント8ポイント  (4子コメント)

                    I've been out of the *coin scene for a few months, what altcoins have these options?

                    [–]ARCHA1C 10ポイント11ポイント  (1子コメント)

                    please say doge... ;-)

                    [–]Grumpy_Kong 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

                    lol Doge is the only coin I'm still holding.

                    But in all seriousness, Doge is just a litecoin clone, it'll run into the same transaction problems as it's parents.

                    Doesn't mean I plan on selling, of course.

                    [–]rightkindofhug 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

                    Gridcoin or any of the "less than heavy" coins...

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                      [–]Eradicator_1729 27ポイント28ポイント  (13子コメント)

                      Yeah, it's almost as if a research project originally coded by just some random dude wasn't that great of an idea afterall...

                      [–]madsci 48ポイント49ポイント  (8子コメント)

                      wasn't that great of an idea afterall...

                      For one random dude's research project to get the attention of the entire world, be used for billions of dollars in transactions, become a household word (at least among the tech savvy), and demonstrate the viability of a cryptocurrency system on a scale of several years in the face of concerted attacks against it, I'd say it's actually done fairly well.

                      Whether it succeeds in the long term or not, it's already accomplished quite a bit. It'll either adapt, or a better system will replace it.

                      [–]Jewnadian 10ポイント11ポイント  (1子コメント)

                      Beanie babies were a viable currency on the scale of a couple years.

                      コメントをもっと表示する (6 返事)

                        [–]okaystopbeingstupid 18ポイント19ポイント  (3子コメント)

                        naw, the massively deflationary internet funny money was always a great idea!

                        [–]BullsLawDan 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

                        Some can handle tens of thousands of transactions per second,

                        The person you're responding to said "widespread adoption." Do you have any idea how tiny "tens of thousands of transactions" is in terms of the economy?

                        [–]Raunien 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

                        Ah, but what about 4MB!

                        コメントをもっと表示する (2 返事)

                          [–]damontoo 49ポイント50ポイント  (1子コメント)

                          The mods of /r/bitcoin have been hella corrupt for years. I pointed out 100 accounts used only to submit the same blog with no other activity on them. Two of the top mods defended the spammer. One of them also works for changetip and they don't allow any to bots except changetip in the sub. I've pointed all this out to the admins before and they just said they'll investigate. Many, many, MANY people have similar stories of censorship/bias etc. with that sub. Don't know how they're allowed to continue running it.

                          [–]Zuggy 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          Don't know how they're allowed to continue running it.

                          Because it would require admin action to dethrone them as the mods and the admins very rarely get involved on that level. Usually if the top mod has been inactive on Reddit for over a year or a PR crisis.

                          [–]LongDistanceEjcltr 76ポイント77ポイント  (18子コメント)

                          What's worse is the moderators of /r/bitcoin are involved and are intentionally censoring content regarding the corruption.

                          Do you have proof? Because if you do, the admins can nuke the entire mod team as they did before in many subs...

                          EDIT: To be perfectly clear, I meant the corruption, not censorship. Of course the admins don't care about censorship, but they do care about corruption. It has been stated multiple times that if you want to advertise, you have to buy ad space from Reddit and paying/compensating the mods for favorable modding is bannable (this happened on r/StarWarsBattlefront, for example - admin, thread).

                          [–]Tom_Hanks13 149ポイント150ポイント  (11子コメント)

                          I really doubt they would nuke the mod team, but yeah there is lots of proof. These are just a few off the top my head

                          Lead moderator talking about censorship

                          72,000 character ~70 kb CSS rule to change the way voting appears

                          Mods censor the number 398364 (first bitcoin classic block mined)

                          Mod team removes post regarding a block mined with Bitcoin Classic software

                          two identical posts with wildly different votes

                          [–]Troggie42 65ポイント66ポイント  (5子コメント)

                          Isn't fucking with the voting against reddit rules, like SUPER hardcore? That's the kind of shit that gets admins to punch you in the dick AFAIK.

                          [–]PitchforkAssistant 52ポイント53ポイント  (3子コメント)

                          It is and to answer /u/Tom_Hanks13, this has happened before. The mod team of /r/StarWarsBattlefront was nuked three months ago because they were taking bribes from EA (in the form of perks and alpha access) to remove posts and block certain links.

                          [–]ARCHA1C 18ポイント19ポイント  (1子コメント)

                          The mod team of /r/StarWarsBattlefront was nuked three months ago because they were taking bribes from EA

                          Whoa... That makes so much sense. I play the game, and was unaware of the corruption of the mods, but in hindsight, I now understand why none of our critical posts got any traction...

                          [–]vspazv 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          According to the linked page it sets the comment sort to controversial, unhides comments by specific people, and hides comments over a certain threshold.

                          It does nothing if you have "Use subreddit style" turned off.

                          [–]iBleeedorange 14ポイント15ポイント  (4子コメント)

                          Lol they've nuked mod teams before for this kind of stuff. Iirc some skin care subreddit was taking free stuff and all got banned.

                          [–]Helenarth 10ポイント11ポイント  (3子コメント)

                          Oh yeah, that was /r/skincareaddiction. It was pretty wild.

                          [–]vierce 8ポイント9ポイント  (1子コメント)

                          It's interesting how many "little" subreddits have interesting stories that you'll never know about.

                          [–]stufff 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          I strongly suspect /u/ChemicalKid of the /r/chairsunderwater mod team is getting kickbacks from the chair industry based on how hostile he is to my underwater Cher posts.

                          [–]macarthur_park 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          Let this be a lesson that any sort of addiction can spiral out of control

                          [–]turdovski 13ポイント14ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          If you want to see the censorship for yourself, start talking about larger blocks and "bitcoin classic" you'll get banned in a jiffy. This shit is so blatant there it's not even funny. I really hope /u/theymos and his shill gang get nuked. Maybe this posts publicity can get the process going.

                          Not only does theymos control the bitcoin subreddit, he also controls the largest bitcoin forum.

                          [–]meinsla 11ポイント12ポイント  (2子コメント)

                          Nah, this is wide-spread knowledge for most people that follow bitcoin on Reddit. And Reddit admins have already publicly responded to the censorship on that subreddit. They merely suggested using a different subreddit.

                          [–]LongDistanceEjcltr 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

                          Reddit admins have already publicly responded to the censorship on that subreddit.

                          "Censorship" is a random complaint. It means nothing. Mods can change subreddit rules in whatever way they want. Hell, they don't even have to follow their own rules!

                          What makes the admins act (or at least I witnessed such an action multiple times) is if a mod accepts compensation from private entities as a direct result of being a moderator. Case in point: SW Battlefront mods accepted gifts from EA, while keeping the subreddit relatively free of negativity. There was proof and they got removed.

                          [–]meinsla 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          Proving a moderator privately received compensation as a result of being a moderator would be a near impossible thing to prove if the only parties that knew where the moderator himself and the organization paying him. Regardless, more than one /r/bitcoin moderator has ties to bitcoin companies (Blockchain and ChangeTip off the top of my head) and have definitely moderated the subreddit as a result of that. Reddit doesn't care though, so nothing will change.

                          [–]damontoo 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          I linked the admins to one of the mods publicly announcing he's now paid by changetip, and that changetip is the only allowed tip bot in the sub. No consequences. I know for a fact I'm not the only one to report those mods because when I posted about it lots of people PM'd me with their own evidence and stories of corruption.

                          [–]tobixen 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          Last thing, any comment including the words "ETH" or "ethereum" gets immediately hidden. (I haven't checked it out myself though)

                          [–]nankerjphelge 29ポイント30ポイント  (4子コメント)

                          Which once again goes to show there's nothing that good old fashioned human nature and greed can't drag down into the mud.

                          [–]h3lblad3 5ポイント6ポイント  (3子コメント)

                          We live in a society where acquisition of private property is the measure of success. It is no surprise then that the individuals within that system should attempt acquisition of property by any means necessary. To say that acting according to the rules society has set forth is human nature is a bit much.

                          Greed is the driving force in capitalism, thus people in capitalism are greedy. It'd be much harder to say the same about, for example, communal agricultural villages in feudal systems. Much more experimentation with many more variables and controls are needed.

                          [–]nankerjphelge 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

                          If we all lived in communal agricultural villages in feudal systems, there would be no need for bitcoin or any form of convertible currency to begin with. Not to mention I would argue that the assumption that communal villages are absent human greed or imbalances, even on a micro level, is a false one.

                          I would also argue that greed exists in other systems besides capitalism. It's one of the reasons large scale communism and socialism ultimately fail, absent a totalitarian style government.

                          [–]h3lblad3 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

                          It's not about whether greed exists so much as whether it is incentivized and thus whether it gets one anywhere to be greedy.

                          Has there ever been large scale socialized (as opposed to nationalized) production to test the theory of socialism (social ownership of productive means) failing due to its own greed and not, say, due to governmental/military influence of competing systems?

                          [–]nankerjphelge 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          Has there ever been large scale socialized (as opposed to nationalized) production to test the theory of socialism (social ownership of productive means) failing due to its own greed and not, say, due to governmental/military influence of competing systems?

                          Probably not, because how exactly would one be able to know the difference? Furthermore, it could be argued that governmental/military influence of competing systems is evidence of the greed itself, since governments and militaries are nothing more than collections of human beings.

                          [–]graffiti81[🍰] 19ポイント20ポイント  (12子コメント)

                          $75M USD

                          I wonder why they're not raising bitcoins?

                          [–]akatherder 31ポイント32ポイント  (3子コメント)

                          Well it's $75M so it is 40 bitcoins or 15 trillion bitcoins.

                          [–]graffiti81[🍰] 11ポイント12ポイント  (2子コメント)

                          so it is 40 bitcoins or 15 trillion bitcoins.

                          What about in an hour from now?

                          [–]akatherder 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

                          Well, let's start a transaction and see how much it's worth when the transaction completes.

                          [–]dungc647 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          It's way more convenient to buy things with real money.

                          [–]meinsla 2ポイント3ポイント  (6子コメント)

                          Because venture capitalists use real money. That and the value of bitcoin is pretty volatile and varies wildly.

                          [–]graffiti81[🍰] 4ポイント5ポイント  (5子コメント)

                          That and the value of bitcoin is pretty volatile and varies wildly.

                          Which is why it's more monopoly money than a legitimate currency.

                          [–]drackaer 4ポイント5ポイント  (2子コメント)

                          Monopoly money is pretty stable though, I can buy boardwalk for $400 still, even 20 years later!

                          [–]airforcefalco 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

                          Name a 1st world country whose currency isn't essentially (valuable) Monopoly money.

                          [–]graffiti81[🍰] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          Well, I would consider any currency that fluctuates more than a few percent per year play money. So very few. Maybe Zimbabwe. Bitcoin lost what? 75% of its value in six or eight months last year?

                          [–]Insanely_anonymous 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

                          Which group of core developers is next for Bitcoin Classic?

                          [–]Tom_Hanks13 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          The lead would be Gavin Andresen who was a core developer pretty much since Bitcoin inception. Gavin was one of the first person to start contributing to bitcoin once Satoshi Nakamoto released it

                          [–]crawlerz2468 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

                          Can anoyne ELI5? Bitcoin has always been a grey area to me.

                          [–]pack170 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          not to mention lightning network is vaporware...

                          [–]belunos 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          TIL I'm more entertained by subreddit drama than whatever is happening with bitcoin.

                          [–]available_username2 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

                          it's like how communist systems don't have governments

                          [–]h3lblad3 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          Communism is stateless by definition (a stateless, classless, moneyless society). If it has a state, it cannot be communist. Nor, for that matter, can it be if it has money or differing classes (eg politicians).

                          [–]JackSoNimble 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          Reddit mods are the fattest, shadiest people on the Internet

                          [–]b_lumenkraft 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          Except the nightmare is still unfolding

                          Mempool went from over 40 mb to now 20 mb in only 24 h. This is not a nightmare and it is not unfolding at all.

                          [–]SmallChildArsonist 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          Who would have thought that the desire for money, whether physical or digital, would cause people to act selfishly...

                          [–]homopit 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          About censoring at r/bitcoin: article above links to my post at r/bitcoin, about 43 minutes confirmation times, where my OP was silently removed by the mods! I still see it when logged, but not when private browsing. Now it makes no sense to any visitor coming there. (and a link to somewhat less censored r/btc: https://np.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/48m211/average_confirmation_time_is_43_minutes_not_10/)

                          [–]three18ti 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                          I thought that was the whole point odd button though, when they were invented there was a set number of btc and there never would be any more created. Thus no inflation, etc.

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                            [–]m0nkeybl1tz 66ポイント67ポイント  (16子コメント)

                            Sorry, can someone explain this for someone who doesn't know much about Bitcoin? As I understand it there's the blockchain that keeps track of all historical transactions... so they're limiting how fast transactions can get added to the chain?

                            [–]GrixM 46ポイント47ポイント  (12子コメント)

                            The blockchain is comprised of blocks, as the name implies. The blocks have a limited size, currently 1 MB. Each transaction has a size in bytes, and thus each block can only hold a certain amount of transactions. And by design, on average a new block are mined and appended to the chain in a set time interval that won't change. Therefore there is a max rate of transactions that can be added to the blockchain. So you pretty much got it.

                            Whether it's an actual problem at this point or not is debatable. I think the article is very exaggerated. If you just pay a big enough fee (still orders of magnitude lower than what for example paypal charges) there is still no real problem of getting your transaction included in a block in a timely manner.

                            [–]Nematrec 34ポイント35ポイント  (5子コメント)

                            If you just pay a big enough fee (still orders of magnitude lower than what for example paypal charges) there is still no real problem of getting your transaction included in a block in a timely manner.

                            Until everyone starts paying the fee, then we're back to point fourty-minutes-per-transaction

                            [–]launch201 16ポイント17ポイント  (1子コメント)

                            I'm stealing a comment idea from /u/Vibr8gKiwi

                            original comment here

                            You can't fix a capacity problem with fees. Imagine that a block is a bus with only 20 seats. There are 25 people that want to ride. You set the price higher and the 20 people who want a ride the most will get it, but there is no scenario where everyone gets a seat. You still have 5 people that want a seat. Now is there are constantly 25 people that want a seat, the backlog of people who want a ride is constantly growing, and they never get from point A to point B.

                            Soon the fee becomes higher and higher and a large number of people who want to ride are stuck, this opens the door for an alt-bus company to come along.

                            This alt-bus company can do the same thing better and for less money and without capacity restraints.

                            Capacity problems can't be fixed with a "fee market", they are fixed by adding seats, which in this case means raising the blocksize cap. We either fix the capacity problem or we lose to competitive services.

                            Bitcoin, and any currency, benefits from the Network Effect where the number of people adopting that currency brings value to all other people using that currency (since you can all trade using a single platform). If people leave, it hurts everyone and the value of the currency and will lead to it's own self-destruction.

                            [–]basmith7 17ポイント18ポイント  (0子コメント)

                            Higher fees is what the people controlling it want.

                            [–]BullsLawDan 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

                            just pay a big enough fee

                            Which makes the currency useless. The whole point of currency is that it can be used to obtain goods with the lowest possible transaction cost.

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                              [–]grabberfish 10ポイント11ポイント  (0子コメント)

                              They are limiting how many transactions can take place and therefore preventing organic growth. When the product fails to do what it says on the tin, people will seek alternatives in the competition.

                              [–]codyswanson4 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

                              Yes, there is a limit on how large the blocks can become. Since a block is found about every 10 minutes, there is a finite number of transactions that can be included in a block.

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                                [–]futch_blat 199ポイント200ポイント  (3子コメント)

                                Why link to a site that just shows you the first few paragraphs of an article from another site?

                                [–]netherwise 61ポイント62ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                It's the title of the post that counts, not the content... /s

                                [–]acog 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                Here's an article that's rather long, but it's from a guy who was a bitcoin developer for years. He goes into the issues with the blockchain and the behind the scenes drama.

                                [–]twigburst 38ポイント39ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                Why did you post a site that hosts a snipit and a link to another site for the actual story?

                                [–]graffiti81[🍰] 50ポイント51ポイント  (42子コメント)

                                Wait, it took 10 minutes to do a transaction BEFORE this came to pass? WTF?

                                [–]codyswanson4 25ポイント26ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                It takes 10 minutes for your transaction to be added to the blockchain. The person who is receiving the bitcoin gets notification immediately. A transaction that has not been included in a block is called a zero confirmation transaction and are considered risky if you don't know the person, or if you're dealing with a large amount of bitcoin.

                                [–]tobixen 7ポイント8ポイント  (5子コメント)

                                I tend to compare this with credit cards - when accepting a credit card transaction, one has to wait for 90 days before the chargeback risk is eliminated. With bitcoins the equivalent is like 30 minutes.

                                When buying for a coffee, the merchant would typically accept a so-called "zero-confirmation"-transaction. Those has traditionally worked out great, much less risk with those than with credit cards - but theoretically, a fraudster can theoretically attempt to undo the transaction through a so-called "double-spend attack".

                                Now with the blocks being full, this has become much easier and the worst thing is that an honest person may pay for the coffee and the transaction will never get confirmed because the fee paid was too low. The honest coffee-drinker may even be completely unaware of the problem.

                                I think the worst is that many core-developers and participants on /r/reddit is downplaying the problem. "Zero-conf was never meant to be secure, anyway", "you're being cheap paying too low fees" (never mind that it was the coffee-buyers software deciding what is a decent fee - not the merchant), "never mind payments - bitcoin is the digital gold, credit cards do just fine for coffee-purchases".

                                [–]graffiti81[🍰] 2ポイント3ポイント  (4子コメント)

                                I tend to compare this with credit cards - when accepting a credit card transaction, one has to wait for 90 days before the chargeback risk is eliminated. With bitcoins the equivalent is like 30 minutes.

                                So there is no consumer protection built into bitcoin? Great, that's just what I want.

                                but theoretically, a fraudster can theoretically attempt to undo the transaction through a so-called "double-spend attack".

                                And what happens when this happens? Who is fined or arrested? Can it be traced?

                                digital gold

                                lol.

                                [–]cyrux 31ポイント32ポイント  (21子コメント)

                                Yes. Bitcoin has always been a total joke when it comes to transactions.

                                Try buying btc with paypal. Last I saw, it takes 4 steps with 3 accounts, about 20% fees and potentially a day to complete. With no accountability if something goes wrong.

                                Bitcoin is not a currency, it's just a digital commodity.

                                [–]JackPAnderson 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                Try buying btc with paypal.

                                Like bitcoin or hate it, that's not really a fair test. BTC works like cash. If you wanted to buy USD with paypal you'd run into similar hoops to jump through and I think it might even be against paypal's TOS.

                                It's been a long time since I've bought any bitcoins since I have no use for them, but the process was very simple, cheap, and fast. I just logged into my coinbase account (there are other exchanges--I just happen to use coinbase so that's why I mention it) and it looks like the fee to buy BTC is just under 1% and the transaction takes just a few seconds. That's hardly an onerous process!

                                [–]tobixen 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                You know, Paypal probably fears Bitcoin, they don't want it to be easy to buy bitcoins through their system, so it's not a quite fair example you're pulling up there.

                                Buying and selling bitcoins through cash on Localbitcoins is super-easy if you're living in a reasonably civilized area (except New York), though the fees tend to be high (1% to Localbitcoins + commissions to the seller). There are other platforms as well (i.e. the Mycelium wallet has a trading platform), and local solutions (i.e. http://www.bitmynt.no in Norway) and exchanges. It's still lots of room for improvement, but it's not really as bad as your example.

                                [–]GrixM 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                Try buying btc with paypal. Last I saw, it takes 4 steps with 3 accounts, about 20% fees and potentially a day to complete. With no accountability if something goes wrong.

                                This is a problem with paypal, not bitcoin, and is a perfect example of what bitcoin tries to solve.

                                [–]Huntred 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

                                Buying in to Bitcoin has always been varying degrees of difficult. Lots of friction there. But I will say, it has gotten much better over the years. That you are even using PayPal in a conversation to show how hard it is...man, try being around here in 2011.

                                Once you are in Bitcoin, however....well, have you ever been ice skating before? There's that time after you put on your skates when you are walking to the ice when you are all waddling and unsteady and slow and then there's that first step onto the ice....

                                [–]Next_to_stupid 4ポイント5ポイント  (4子コメント)

                                Uhm, that is only because people abuse it, if paypal was irreversible like bitcoin the rates would be ~1:1 like they are with other currencies. Send it with a large fee if you want 3 confirmations quickly (matter of mins).

                                [–]Seen_Unseen 12ポイント13ポイント  (7子コメント)

                                It's digital speculation in vaporware nothing more. I probably will get downvoted for it but it has absolutely no substantial basis for value. Mining bits doesn't slap value on it, a nation with a GDP does. People keep hyping it up and the currency bounces up and down and yet there is no reason whatsoever to actually use it.

                                [–]Phallic 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                there is no reason whatsoever to actually use it.

                                There are some very, very good reasons for people with certain proclivities.

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                                    [–]aonysllo 4ポイント5ポイント  (5子コメント)

                                    I'm with you brother, I don't get that at all. If I went to buy a coffee with bitcoins, do I have to wait 10 minutes?!?!?

                                    Can someone ELI5 this for me?

                                    [–]tomtomtom7 13ポイント14ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                    No. At places that support bitcoin, you can pay within a second.

                                    The transaction will be registered but not confirmed. Technically this means it is possible to retract the transaction (aka double spent). Fortunately, this isn't trivial and it is probably easier just to walk away without paying.

                                    This is why small brick-n-mortar payments with bitcoin are very fast in practice.

                                    [–]noggin-scratcher 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                    The transaction can be seen immediately, but it isn't confirmed/completed until it gets included in a block. Whether you trust an unconfirmed transaction is a matter of choice - it's probably fine for something on the scale of a coffee but you would want to wait the 10 minutes if you were doing a large transaction or had reason to be suspicious of the other person.

                                    Invalidating a transaction after the fact is possible but not especially easy, so for a small purchase it's unlikely to be worth anyone's while to perpetrate the fraud.

                                    Note also, the real "confirmation" time on a credit card transaction or bank transfer (the time it takes for the funds to clear and be irreversibly transferred) is much longer than the time you spend with your card in the machine. So if your coffee shop doesn't insist on having you wait a month after a credit card transaction to be sure you're not going to issue a fraudulent chargeback, they probably also won't make you wait around for 10 minutes to see your bitcoin confirmation.

                                    [–]vierce 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                    I mean usually it doesn't matter when you're purchasing things online. The anonymity is more important.

                                    [–]tobixen 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                    No, the coffee merchant would typically accept a "zero-confirmation"-transaction. Traditionally those were (for all practical purposes) more secure than credit card transactions - but with full blocks that's probably not true anymore.

                                    [–]marouf33 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                    Well, 10 minutes is for confirmation of the transaction (it takes 60 days to confirm your credit card tx). However the seller recieves immediate notification when a transaction is made. For example in your case the coffeshop would wither assume the risk of transaction being illegitimate or pass on the risk to payment processor (BitPay, CoinBase, etc...) who would take care of the payments and assume all the risk till the transaction is confirmed and provide the seller with an immediate confirmation of payement.

                                    [–]yayyyyinternet 2ポイント3ポイント  (4子コメント)

                                    The transactions are nearly instantaneous. The 10 minutes is for the transactions to be "confirmed" (permanently added to the blockchain). Almost all vendors accept 0-confirmation (no waiting) transactions. Waiting for confirmations just adds additional certainty that the transaction will go through. Waiting 10 minutes or more might sound like a long time, but in comparison, credit cards take SEVERAL DAYS to confirm and fully complete (before this period ends, chargebacks are possible). Bitcoin is far superior in terms of speed and cost of transactions.

                                    [–]graffiti81[🍰] 8ポイント9ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                    The difference I see is that the banks running the credit transactions are regulated by law and there is actual accountability through said law.

                                    [–]majinspy 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                    Yah but I trust MasterCard. I don't trust bitcoin.

                                    [–]yayyyyinternet 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                    You don't need to trust bitcoin. That's the whole point! It's a trustless system.

                                    [–]gnu_kid_on_the_block 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                    For 1 confirmation. It is recommended that you wait for 6 so the person can't double spend the money they sent you. So an hour.

                                    [–]iamthinksnow 20ポイント21ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                    Why not just give the direct link, OP?

                                    [–]Rostov_Rocketry 129ポイント130ポイント  (7子コメント)

                                    I mined a 10,000 coin pizza, my son will mine a 0.01 coin pizza, but his son will mine a 10,000,000 coin pencil.

                                    [–]Ganglere 19ポイント20ポイント  (5子コメント)

                                    How much for a camel?

                                    [–]fizzlefist 33ポイント34ポイント  (2子コメント)

                                    Two sheep, or your daughter.

                                    [–]Murtagg 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                    Anywhere from .00000000001 to 1*10320th BTC, depending on the year, time of day, orientation of the sun with respect to Venus, etc.

                                    [–]Ganglere 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                    This is great news for bitcoin!

                                    [–]pudds 11ポイント12ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                    Link is blogspam. Here is the link to the full article: http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/2/11146584/bitcoin-core-classic-debate-transaction-limit-crisis (which admittedly doesn't actually have much more content.)

                                    [–]Phalex 100ポイント101ポイント  (9子コメント)

                                    This is good for Bitcoin!

                                    [–]Fucanelli 17ポイント18ポイント  (7子コメント)

                                    How?

                                    [–]Beatstorm 165ポイント166ポイント  (5子コメント)

                                    Its a joke. Every time something good or bad happens to Bitcoin, the miners always say "This is good for Bitcoin!".

                                    [–]macarthur_park 8ポイント9ポイント  (2子コメント)

                                    I always thought that was an exaggeration but the other reply to the comment was dead serious.

                                    [–]redcola13 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                    I don't really follow bitcoin but there have been so many clickbait articles over the years claiming that the sky is falling I can see why people just brush them off.

                                    [–]macarthur_park 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                    Yeah but its one thing to brush it off, another to claim that somehow this is a positive thing. Parts of the bitcoin community can be delusional.

                                    [–]Philo_T_Farnsworth 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                    TO THE MOOON!

                                    (yes, that was a real physical magazine that actually existed and that cover really did happen)

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                                      [–]Drugbird 6ポイント7ポイント  (5子コメント)

                                      I know nothing about bitcoin, but why aren't the block sizes dynamic based on the current amount of transactions?

                                      [–]random123456789 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                      If I remember correctly, it was a limitation coded in when it was originally released, but intended to be fixed later when BTC got more popular. But you know what they say about best intentions...

                                      [–]Masaca 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                      The 1MB limit was proposed to prevent massive spam attacks against the network. Bitcoin had no really high value back than so it was easy to spam the network with a lot transactions. It was never ment for it to be a permanent solution, just a temporary meassure. The idea was to raise the limit once the block get fuller, but it seems like core sees that different now.
                                      Fun fact: the original blocksize limit was 32MB.

                                      [–]tomtomtom7 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                      This would be a possibility and has been proposed.

                                      However, miners (the ones that create the blocks) can always add as much back-and-forth transactions as they want into the blocks they mine.

                                      Some argue that such scheme would give the big miners a motivation to dramatically increasing the blocksize to eliminate competition that wouldn't be able to handle it.

                                      Others have argued that they won't do that because they would also be pushing out users, hurt bitcoin, its value and hence their income.

                                      Creating a fully decentralized currency purely on incentives is hard.

                                      [–]inmatarian 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                      The block size limit is a balance between having the network propagate and verify data, and allowing miners to focus on generating new coin. By increasing the block size, you take away mining time.

                                      It's a double hit because when the block size is met, people prioritize transactions by adding fees as a reward to the miners. So a small fixed block size both gives miners more time to mine and pays them for it.

                                      [–]zcc0nonA 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                      too easy to manipulate

                                      [–]gravshift 15ポイント16ポイント  (3子コメント)

                                      Is Doge or the other at coins that aren't amenable to FPGA or ASIC mining have this problem with limited block chain?

                                      [–]codyswanson4 11ポイント12ポイント  (2子コメント)

                                      As of this point, I believe all cryptocoins have a limit on the size of the transaction blocks (number of transactions that can be commited at a time), but no other coin has as much usage as Bitcoin does right now, so they still have space.

                                      The mining algorithm does not really have anything to do with the number of transactions committed to a block.

                                      [–]lalala253 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                      would it be viable to "diversify" the transactions via other coins?

                                      let's say that I wanted to do transactions using bitcoin, but the average confirmation time is currently 30 minutes. Is it possible to automatically change my bitcoins to other cryptocurrency which have shorter confirmation time?

                                      if this is possible, then limit on the size of transaction blocks for one cryptocurrency become irrelevant, as I could automatically transform my (for example) bitcoin to other coin which haven't hit its size limit.

                                      Am I making any sense at all?

                                      [–]gravshift 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                      At that point, that would be an interesting divergence point. A federated crypto coin system that can run in parallel. Only the big stuff goes to the primary chain, with smaller stuff staying in smaller chains.

                                      Because Bitcoin , for all of it's stick it to the Man and freedom is good vibe, is very top heavy in terms of management and very conservative when it comes to anything that might lead to a more democratic management method.

                                      [–]elgueromanero 8ポイント9ポイント  (2子コメント)

                                      does litecoin have the same issue?

                                      [–]codyswanson4 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                      It does not have nearly the amount of transactions that bitcoin has, so not yet. This problem, however, is present in all cryptos at this point I believe, as all of them have a maximum size of transactions that can be committed to one block.

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                                        [–]salboacha 14ポイント15ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        Bitcoin death #94! https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/

                                        [–]john_depp 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        core vs classic, this is extremely cyberpunk. I would love to learn more about this, is there a good documentary out there?

                                        [–]austex_mike 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                        I will never understand why people get so divided over bitcoin. It's either the monetary messiah or it is the worst idea ever to come to fruition.

                                        [–]themadninjar 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        Because the majority of people who are in the middle for care enough to comment?

                                        [–]JamesW89 1ポイント2ポイント  (3子コメント)

                                        Can someone ELI5 why Bitcoin is actually worth anything, what is the true value I hold when I purchase a bitcoin. I understand blocks chains all of that, I just have never understood why random strings of code are worth so much to any user.. It is kind of mind boggling.

                                        [–]Octo_Prime 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        You could make the same argument about the US Dollar. The dollars in my bank account are just 1s and 0s. What's their value? Their ability to be exchanged for goods and services. As long as someone is willing to give you goods or services in exchange for your Bitcoins or Dogecoins or Dollars or Alf Pogs, they have value.

                                        [–]Happy_Gaming 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        It is a commodity like gold. Only so many exist so they can be used for trade based on what people are willing to pay for them.

                                        [–]zcc0nonA 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        It is a unique digital information, that's all. it can't be counterfeit, it has other properties that make it like gold except it has no physical use, but maybe other digital uses.

                                        It has value because peoplel give it some, but now there is a vlue in money that the electricity costs to produce a btc

                                        [–]alcogiggles 1ポイント2ポイント  (3子コメント)

                                        Small group of people holding it hostage? Bitcoin is officially dead in my book. Greedy SOB's. Now on to alternatives.

                                        [–]bcrabill 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        Why the fuck am I going to re/code if the whole story is on Verge?

                                        [–]jayfyve 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        Bitcoin makes me feel stupid.

                                        [–]reed5point0 10ポイント11ポイント  (5子コメント)

                                        The answer is simple...buy Dogecoin

                                        [–]Whyevenbotherbeing 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                        I do know that ,on the ground, at an average person level, Bitcoin has come and gone. My city is fairly progressive mixed with plenty people 'suspicious' of big government and world banks etc. (lots of old hippies, draft dodgers, etc. ) Bitcoin made a big splash and was becoming accepted payment at many places, especially online vacation rentals, organic farms, online sellers etc. It was really catching on. Now you'd be pressed to find anyone accepting Bitcoin. No one knows its value or has faith it's actually worth anything. People who accepted it were likely hoping to avoid taxes or otherwise keep earnings hidden. That became scary for them as it went mainstream. It's now dead here. Like no one wants to deal with it. It's over. And it's a joke now. People on board early and vocal are now embarrassed. Any sort of adoption by regular folk came and went.

                                        [–]h0nest_Bender 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        Read the rest of the story on The Verge.

                                        Next time just link to the actual article and not a write up of it.

                                        [–]Bladewing10 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

                                        Wow, a completely unregulated currency where the majority is held by a small group of people turns out to not be a sound long term investment? Color me shocked!

                                        [–]dtfgator 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        That's not the problem here, not even close.

                                        It's also humorous that you bring up unregulated currency held largely by a small minority being a problem... Almost every currency and commodity ever is concentrated in the hands of few, and if you take a look at history, there are PLENTY of examples of failed government currencies. Having a government in the loop isn't exactly a recipe for stability and success.

                                        [–]xyzeche 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        someone's note read the article

                                        [–]cjackc 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        Amazed The Verge didn't link the problem to cis, straight, white, men, or maybe they need to do separate reports on that for more clicks.

                                        [–]mughat 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

                                        The restaurant is so full of paying customers. It's a nightmare.... or a dream come true.

                                        [–]Aedeus 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        And this is why I never wanted to fuck with bitcoin.

                                        [–]stufff 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

                                        This is good for Bitcoin?

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