Bitcoin Forum

The thing that will destroy Bitcoins is simple. It will be the bloated size of the blockchain. Soon the blockchain will be so large, that we will need centralized "housing" to hold it. We will have to trust "Central" to state what is in the blockchain every time we want to use Bitcoin. And, this is the thing we are trying to get away from - centralization.

The blockchain is almost 70 gigabytes large right now. Imagine what it would be like if people around the world traded something like the Forex on it.

Someone better figure out a way to make it a whole lot smaller, and fast. Why fast? Because when fiat collapses, a lot of people will jump into Bitcoin. The blockchain will surge in size. In a short time it will be too large to use.

One solution that I can see would be to keep the current blockchain in total, on several servers around the world, including any person who thinks he has enough hard drive space to store it on, and enough bandwidth to handle all the transactions that hit Bitcoin at once. At the same time, implement a new kind of blockchain that keeps only a record of the first use of a new address, and, say, the last two uses of it. Everything else is deleted. This will be a reasonable solution, I think, until a better kind of blockchain can be developed.

What does anybody think about this?

What ideas do you have for overcoming this problem?

:)

---

Okay. From the comments we have more points. So far we have...

1. Blockchain size for storage and downloading;

2. Number of transactions causes impractical updating of the blockchain because of bandwidth limitations;

3. Impractical confirmation time without a fee;

4. Unreasonably long confirmation time even with a fee;

5, (more?).

i think before that people are going to get tired of waiting days for transaction confirmations..

as it is now, if i want to sell something for bitcoin, i have to wait HOURS before it confirms.. unless you tack on a stupid high fee.. which nobody does..

i totally agree, whenever i send a transaction it takes around an hour for it to confirm, and it gets tedious when you have to stay in contact with your buyer for an hour to make sure it confirms.

1. Blockchain size bloat isn't so much of an issue for storage space any longer. Pruning would be fully enabled by Bitcoin Core 0.12 and there isn't too much of an security risk of average users not having the full blockchain. Bandwidth is however, a problem though. With storage space and bandwidth becoming cheaper, there is little worry for this.
2. I don't get what you mean. If you meant that the blockchain is not able to handle a high TPS, a block size increase could eliminate this issue.
3. Bitcoin fees are relatively low. It makes no sense to not pay a fee.
4. It's a problem with varience, there is no fix about it.

blocksize bloat is not an issue.. raising it to 2mb is not a problem. if you think its a problem then you better also call Netflix and tell them that their 30million customers will need to be datacenters if they want to currently stream 500mb every 10 minutes watching HD movies. (oh wait its alread 500mb per 10 minutes HD shows.. and users are not datacenters..)

a 2terrebyte hard drive is just $100, even at 2mb blocks and the naive belief that every block is filled to 1.99mb always.. thats only 104gb a year, or the equivelent of 35 netflix HD tv shows. (about a weeks worth of viewing time)

which 104gb allows for 20 years of growth.

in four years (average timescale people upgrade their computers) maybe a 4tb hard drive will be $100 maybe 8tb.. this allows people in general to happily accept more data without care.
and internet speed.. well they are faster now than 4 years ago and are going to be faster again in the next 4 years.. so still not a problem
afterall we are not asking for the moon (20mb blocks (1tb per year) we are just asking for 2mb blocks and then a rise in the future..

also when calling netflix (if you disagree with me) please complain to activision because 'Call of Duty' is many GB per release. and no one plays it because of it.. (oh wait they do).

now onto what will distrupt bitcoin.
greedy miners ignoring transactions and using the blocklimit to extort people into paying higher fee's in some first class vs working class snobby debate that forces bitcoin into corporation control rather than easy utility for anyone.

transaction fee's should not be used as a bargaining tool for atleast a couple decades. the blockreward is sufficient to cover miner costs for that time, and the tx fee should only be used as a small disincentive for naferious actors to not want to spam the blockchain.

in short if transaction fee's go above 10cents each, regular people will lose interest. so to avoid that we need the 2mb so that greedy miners cant use the 1mb as an excuse to(analogy) play the first class ticket premium game by saying theres not enough seats on the train for everyone.
causing people to wait for hours. 10 minutes is fine, everyone expects to wait 0minutes per train.. but being told to not get on the next train, and then seeing 5 trains go by, all with snobby rich people onboard. will make regular people try something different

I would also mention that altcoins are experimenting with a range of different approaches to blockchain bloat. If even one of them pans out, the software protocol of bitcoin can almost certainly be updated to implement the fix. (I would think sidechains would be a good solution to bloat as well.) People who declare that bitcoin is sure to die should first make sure their expected cause of death really is something intractable and unsolvable by changing the software. Bitcoin is not a fixed entity.

Bitcoin fees are low at the moment. If the price keeps rising and miners keep making empty blocks, the mining fee will rise. For some people the fees may really become a turnoff. Especially because they don't normally see the fees in their daily transactions. In bitcoin you are constantly reminded of the fees with every transaction.

1 and 2 are really not an issue. Storage space is growing faster than a blockchain could ever do, and bandwidth is improving around the world.

I think bitcoin as it is is enough already, whats gonna destroy it is probably the lack of trust in the ecosystem, like the neverending hackings and even scams.

Nope it want. Storage is very cheap. Also, there are already talks about pruning blockchain.

Uh, so you're comparing a single download stream...to the upload bandwidth required for a full node to reach dozens (or ideally hundreds) of connections on a constant basis. That's not how it works.

In my case, my only options are (actually were) shitty capped cable or DSL. After a dispute with a my cable provider, I am limited to DSL. Running a node on a regular basis is now completely out of the question for me. I turn on my node and sync up only to validate my own transactions. In other words, I can only afford (and I don't mean financially) to be a leech on the system.

We're limited by internet infrastructure. And this basic misunderstanding of download vs. upload bandwidth (not to mention the level of redundancy that block propagation requires) isn't helping the discussion.

I also do not think blockchain size is an issue. Storage devices grow in capacity, year after year. Take a look what we considered a medium sized HDD two years ago and what we consider it to be now.

This block capacity issue is what worries me more. FFS, they cannot agree on it for 6 months.

5. ;D
Constant rise of hash rate and halving of block can influence demise of bitcoin in future..I just can't imagine bitcoin have price of 100k per btc. One day bitcoin will come to his boundaries , hashrate will stay the same or will fall and that can be very dangerous! Fall of hash rate can cause dumps and instability.

Maybe if bitcoin becomes reversible payment method like paypal,buyers will have more trust and will use it more often.Now it`s hard to buy stuff with btc and exchange btc for other currency because of the lack ot trust and many scam attempts.

Simply deleting the previous transactions of the address and keeping only the two of the most recent won't be a suitable solution for the problem.In fact,this destroys the entire meaning of decentralization.Agree there is short of storage space.I think , like miners any other hardware should be introduced which comes along with mining equipment to store the address transactions of the blocks processed by that miner.This way,we can expect more storage space and it will be mandatory for all the miners.

well for you, segwit is not an option either then.. as although they tell you its 1mb.. the real data is 2mb.. (if you want to be a full node).

but most people are able to get fibre.. so although you may have had an argument with your cable provider. i dont think that should be a good example of why bitcoin shouldnt grow.
maybe you can call your cable company back and reconcile. rather then trying to strangle bitcoin growth for everyone

storage is not an issue.
the mining pools just buys a $100 2terrebyte hard drive..1 per pool, not per asic..

the pool stores the transaction data after all.. and the mining ASICs are just hashing small bits of data. of temporary data that they forget about after the average 10 minutes to work on new data.. (unscrew a asic, there is no hard drive) only the pool needs a $100 hard drive.. not each asic, so relax

i get your debate.. but.. server hard drives are MUCH more expensive.. plus any decent pool would have more then one.. for backup, in case one fails..

bigger blocks would help confirmation times.. as most of the blocks will be able to hold ALL of the transactions.. but variance will still play a huge factor in how long you would have to wait to get confirmed.

No, it's capped anyway. So I could never run a full time node. I'm in a major US city by the way. Not the middle of nowhere.

Do you have any evidence that "most people are able to get fiber"? According to broadbandnow.com/Fiber, 25% of the US has such coverage. And I'm willing to bet that it significantly skewed towards dense urban areas due to the prohibitive cost of building the infrastructure. (I don't think that we should limit bitcoin to those in major cities, for instance)

I'm saying the requirements to run a node are already prohibitive. Pushing for 2MB when all you can say is "2MB is fine, derp" is not really a good argument.

it's actually 62gb only, and anyway based on the moor law, we have no problem handling it for the future

also 62 giga is very tiny compared to the enormous 6T and beyond, that we are currently able to purchase on the market for cheap

so essentially your saying that out of 1 million people in bitcoin. the reason for only 5000 full nodes is due to a possibility that only 0.1% of the bitcoin community can get fibre..

ok..

ill call Activision and tell them that online gaming is impossible because 0.1% of population cant play online constantly.
then ill call blizzard

oh and ill call youtube and tell them that they need to turn off their video upload feature because people cant upload.
wait. next ill call skype as their 3mb a minute video calls (30mb per 10 minutes) are impossible.

anyone else you want me to call? as it seems there must be a problem.. and strangely these services have not been aware..

I think its fix is on going right now, the blackchain wallets lets users update and seem to take out the sign message. this is just one of the step they take to solve the block size.


it will grow in the future. might even exceed 6T in a year once billions of users get to make transactions everyday.

I don't understand wallet 0.11 have reduced size of blockchain?
I don't see where is a problem then?
Only if you want to be node you need to have full blockchain?

lol 6Tb?

um 2mb=104Gb a year
 to be 6Tb a year thats means the block limit would be 120Mb a block.

um, sorry thats not gonna happen in 2016

I think the thing that will destroy bitcoin is greed.

Wait a second.

Where do you get "1 million people in bitcoin" and what does that even mean?

In regards to full node count, what is your explanation for the constant decline in nodes (over a period which, of course, average block size constantly increased)? And what proof (statistics, not just empty argument) can you offer?

You sort of glossed over the fact that only a minority (25% -- and likely heavily biased towards cities) have fiber. Do you really believe that block size has nothing to do with upload requirements? We aren't in 2009 here -- blocks are not 10 kb anymore. So yes, we need better and better (uncapped) upload capabilities if block size will continue to grow.

With my capped cable, in order to run a full node at 65-75 maxconnections, I would hit my cap every month without being able to use the internet for anything else. Do you really expect people to do that? And you want to make it worse?

Stop comparing bitcoin to online gaming and Youtube. With those, you're not redundantly propagating the same data to the network hundreds of times. You do it once.

It's not so big. There are PC games with that size. Stop saying something will destroy it because it won't you will see. At least 100 years it will be mined and used.

Some useless statements recently put forth by the top authorities has the ability to destroy the bitcoin. These days those statements were also made false with its value not growing or getting very low that what it was by the end of 2015

its an estimate..it can be more. it can be less.
https://bugsnag.com/customers/coinbase
quotes 1.5mill customers. but i prefer to undersell numbers just to be more fair of regular users as oppose to those who just play with it once and then dont come back

well there are more than 5000 full nodes.. but only 5000 running 24/7.
reasons why they dont run 24/7, because they only do one transaction a day or a week and dont really understand that being a fullnode means running 24/7.
people who are not running businesses dont need the RPC-API connections and so they just run it occassionally.

the reason there is not a 25% usage. is purely because home users dont leave computers on every day and over night.
most of those nodes are businesses and programmers. and hardly any of them are home users.

as for statistics.. well i know ur just baiting me with a trick question. after all bitcoin is decentralized,
but im sure if you do a WHOIS search on the IP addresses found on https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes
you will find alot of businesses rather than users.

so if its a real question you want answers to, ill leave you to investigate


exactly we are not in 2009 anymore.. DSL isnt 2mb down 200k up... its higher.. and as i said fiber is even higher again.
as for 25% american population. which is 79million population so not something to ignore or downplay. i would think that anyone who's mindset is into the internet.. (rather than farmer Joe on a ranch). you know people that are savvi internet users.. are going to be by definition internet ready. and thus if we brush away all the farmer joe's that dont even use the internet and so wont even know or care about bitcoin.. and then just take the demograph that could find interest in bitcoin.. i think you will find atleast 50% of them possibly more are in fibre area's


65-75 connections..?
lol no wonder your complaining
try 7-30 youll be happier.
maybe its worth looking into the term "7 degrees of separation" or the more modern term "7 degree's of kevin bacon" and you will learn that if 7 people who are connected to 7people who are .. blah blah blah eventually everyone is connected to each other.

so complaining about speed and then having your setting up so high, is much like blaming bitcoin for the argument you had with your fibre company.

so relax, set it to 7-30(30 very max) maybe even aim for 20 max. and you'll do fine.

oh and if you are only using it just for a couple hours a day just to resync, and you dont have the community spirit to be a true 24/7 full node.. then knock it down to under 7 connections. you will still get the data. but then you not pissing off the rest of the network by connecting to you temporarily where instead they can connect to other that want to be 24/7 full nodes


wait..so when i shoot a bullet or do a jump or move in the game, those commands only get sent once a day? but magically other players see me moving live and react to situations... are you sure its not a constant pinging of data as fast as my finger can press a key?
because im shocked.. thats like magic.. so i guess call of duty doesnt use the internet to send movement, shooting, target data.. that its instead done through psychic voodoo.. ok i got it thanks :D

I run a full node over public WiFi, and I use a (relatively) cheap notebook to do it. Of course I don't run it 24/7, but I keep up to date by activating it three or four times a day. I've been doing this for virtually the whole time I've been a member of this forum, and so far I haven't encountered any problems. Except for the difficulty I have had in understanding the complexity and potential of Bitcoin.

I'm starting to think that Bitcoin may become the reserve currency for some altcoins in the future. Certainly if there is a proof of stake introduced as an addition to proof of work, it could leads to specialist alt coins being set up as side chains, and this could reduce the transaction volume in the main blockchain.

kind of... team core.. AKA blockstream want it to be the reserve currency for their Liquid, which isnt even a true decentralised block ledger. its not mined as such its just signed off on by a dozen pre-selected computers, that way transaction settlement is near instant as its signing off on transactions rather than gathering them up as blocks of transactions. thus no proof of stake/work to be even considered.. just signatures that 12 people agree the data is valid.

but shhh no one is suppose to know that they are trying to kill off usability of bitcoin to shift people over to liquid

Holding the blockchain on "several servers around the world" is exactly what we're trying to avoid here. It's the exact template the banks use. And, at the same time, that's the secret of bitcoin, of everyone having the opportunity to have the blockchain so no one manipulate it.

FUD and Fedcoin will destroy Bitcoin.

Blockstream/Core supporters are creating such FUD that when Fedcoin (Ethereum) is increasingly introduced to the public with the upcoming Homestead rollout - it will be in tandem with negative stories about Bitcoin being a muddled, confused, dangerous mess.  And that perception is actually reality, since Blockstream/Core supporters seem to be little energizer FUD Bunnies on hyperdrive lately.

So this will weaken Bitcoin, strengthen Fedcoin.  Fedcoin WILL surpass Bitcoin.  That part is pretty much certain.  The question is how badly Bitcoin will sustain self inflicted damages, and will they be deadly wounds, or wounds they can recover from.

Blockstream/Core supporters are attempting to kill Bitcoin, and on the path to doig a very fine job of it.  Mark my words.... expect some dirty surprises at fork time.   And yes, I thin people should be worried.  Not of the technological issues of the fork, which would be a breeze normally.  But there will be really bad behavior I think.  And I think people are going to lose coins.

and even if it will happen, hdd size is growing much faster and cost always much lower than the previous version each passing year

Exactly!

How large of a hard drive do you have (rhetorical)? The blockchain could easily jump to 1 terabyte if the world started using Bitcoin for their basic currency. It might even happen in one day.

What if the Forex (trades in the range of 4 or 5 trillion Dollars a day) were to use Bitcoin? Imagine a blockchain of 1 petabyte size. And what if it goes to a zettabyte or larger in a decade from now?

And the bandwidth to handle all those transactions would have to be enormous, especially when the blockchain system would have to track which fork is the most optimal one to use.

I'm not saying that there is nothing in the works to replace the current blockchain "style." But the current one will never work once the world opens up to bitcoin.

:)

I think that when people notice that BlockStream is NOT what Bitcoin was meant to be and that it is actually an abomination of Satoshi's vision...they will simply move over to something else, be it Classic or some altcoin. ;)

Storage for the Blockchain won't need to be centralized any more than it is already, even if the problem gets so bad that the Blockchain can't be stored on a $100 external hard drive. I suggest looking at what Storj (http://storj.io/) wants to do if you think this is going to be a problem.

No.
A profit motive can be very healthy for honest people acting in a (reasonably) free market.
Greedy criminals, like Big Vern & Mark Gox need to rot in jail for a very long time.

Greed can only destroy the bitcoin price friend not the blockchain technology.
I think we need more and more wallet service like blockchain which are not interconnected and some of the large miners. In this way it will be decentralized also and everybody who uses don't have to run full nodes in his computer.

Oh the horror. It occupies $3.09 USD worth of disk space. Whatever shall we do?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236971 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236971)

Blockstream is pushing the line with their pro-corporations and pro-banksters agenda. Just yesterday I installed Classic beta, and ditched Core.

i am agree with number 4,Unreasonably long confirmation time even with a fee. yes i also think that this is will be not good for bitcoin,delaying more than 3 days is worst,even take some fee,i dont know why it still happen.

also the fact that your #4 can actually cause the transaction to FAIL and the sender getting his bitcoin back.. causing the receiver to be at the mercy of the sender to resend it.

Well yeah, anything has the potential to destroy Bitcoin, but not anytime soon. As far as I am concerned, the best plan to stick with would be to simply just focus on more tacticle moves in terms of growing and strengthening Bitcoin, rather than focusing on what could kill it it. Yes, it is very important to know what we're up against. Sometimes though, it is impossible to eliminate them from the journey, so in some cases (not all), we must learn to coexist.

This is definetly true. More exchanges and BTC transfers, the more the size will grow. And soon you wont be able to store it on your computer, so something will have to get changed. But it will not be as "decentralised" if any new things like that take place such as one central place where transactions will be stored.

nothing,i just said that there is nothing can destroy bitcoin,even bitcoin used for illegal activity,bitcoin will not dissapear,even goverment ban bitcoin,it can be people stop using bitcoin.

Bitcoin was created years ago, time in which it would have died if it would have been so full of imperfections as you say it is. I think time has and will show that the system works. And that's the best argument in its defense.

Yeah, It can be people stop using bitcoin and it is the destruction of bitcoin, but why will they stop using it? Is it the price going lower down and people will stop it, yeah it is the only reason I think that because of it people will leave it, but people are getting more interest in it and so intern there is no any chance for the price to go down.

We don't live in 2004 anymore to be worried about 60 or even 600GB disk space. I wonder if there could be any mechanism that would encourage people to set dedicated bitcoin servers (nodes). If it would be economically reasonable (I am not saying about stream of $$$) I'd run one on my own.

Bitcoin is currently an interesting and benefiting currency for online users, so with that capacity the bitcoin will go stronger and if the people leaved bitcoin then the time of destruction will start, but the people are not going to leave it. So its strength is in us, the people.

But drive capacity will further expand and is relatively cheap to purchase, I have seen multiple 1TB drives as low as £30-40.

But the governments will ban it, yeah the governments will ban if the bitcoin were used for criminal act frequently then the affected states’ governments will ban. But no one can stop people using bitcoin and saving it.

Bitcoin itself it not for criminal usage. I use it a lot. But I am not a criminal. The government should ban the criminal activity itself.

Storage disks will increase in size as well, and decrease in price. Right now, you can get a few TBs for only ~100$.
Regarding 5, I have not had a problem with that.

Rusty, criminal activity is already banned, by definition. It wouldn't be criminal if it wasn't.
Those who do evil shit against which no laws have been written are just evil assholes, not criminals.

Impractical confirmation time without a fee,its almost impossible,i thik every transaction must be have fee,so far bitcoin have a very good fee,and i dont think that exchange or wallet will agree with this.

I'd love to meet you all one year ago from now and see what you'll say when bitcoin will still be here.

But I think the only thing can destroy bitcoin is the Government, as they are against bitcoin and they can ban use of bitcoin in their respective country, So if bitcoin wants to survive then it should get the support from the Government.

They cannot ban the bitcoin itself. It is a legal property. They can ban the usage of bitcoin in criminal activities.

Yes its very annoying but there is nothing we can do about it.
I hope it will be faster and not with a stupid fee....

An hour or maybe 24 hours before the confirmation is technically still faster than transactions with credit cards as far as i know.
So having said that, its no problem with bitcoin still so long as you send the txid to someone you do business with, its going to be good as paid. and transaction is valid.

Guess the blockchain size and its performance would be key. But i dont know what it is but im still confident with Bitcoin.

Wondering if altcoins can provide a remedy on that matter and at the same time maintain all the good stuff BTC brought us.

Minor detail: When I buy with CC, the CC company is lending me that money, for free, for up to a month :o That's on top of buyer protection.
Amazing, huh?

not true.. since you cant control people, if they send the tx with a low fee.. or even the suggested one.. and its not enough the tx will fail and they will get their bitcoin back and you will be out of luck.

Well during that "free" month, sure you don't have to pay the money back immediately, but you also get an average 16% interest rate on that remaining balance after that month. So you better be able to pay the month you spent at the end of the month, or you're going to have more and more money compounding on top of it.

The downside of the debit card (and Bitcoin) is that you actually have to have the money to pay for something, as opposed to being able to spend money that you don't have.

Satoshi wanted it that way.

Lol, paying my bills on time is a bit simpler than not being able to shop @ 99% of the places I want to shop (because they don't accept BTC).
Re. 16% deadbeat fees after 1 month, start here (http://www.cardrates.com/reviews/?utm_source=Adwords&utm_medium=PPC&utm_campaign=CR1Broad&utm_content=CreditCardsEX&adid=88357167424&utm_term=%2Bcredit%20%2Bcards&match=b&referrer=Google&network=g&device=c&query=unknown&gclid=CKvGrs6D7soCFVhZhgodxfMJ-A).
BTW, go to the lending section of this forum -- 16% yearly rate would be a *gift*, people are paying 16% *weekly* :D

Bitcoin can only will be destroyed by some other new and other innovative currency if it appears in near future, there are no other factors that can destroy bitcoin, as bitcoin would be ruling the world unless it doesn't face any competition from any other new currency.

Yes, but in the end that can damage bitcoin severely. Big Brother can't stand not being in control.

maybe like fork. you know bitcoin xt and core. if both live i think bitcoin will destroy

How about a bet? 1 BTC. You name the time period. If BTC lives I get the BTC. If it doesn't you do. :)

What is the measure of being live?

Transaction volume>0

I one thing did not mentioned here, IT so fast moving, that in nearest 10 - 25 years technologies will make very large step, and such things like now days crypto algorithms will be just simple lessons about "how it was starting in early 20xx" . New processors will work 1000000^x faster then today, it will give ability to make backward changes or some kind vulns, that impossible to do today. Then every body will remember Bitcoin like you know Fidonets(early 1990) :) just very old past ... But now blockchain very cool and we need to pleasure it, just like it possible. 

Bitcoin can only be destroyed internally. There is a conflict of interest in the developer team at the moment.

I think there's no other reason that can destroy bitcoin in the future. because if you see some website they accepted bitcoin as payment.
And bitcoin will be strong as real money or fiat.. unlike other new born altcoin in few days they will scam.

Well, this is invalid. If people do need fast confirmation, they just put higher fees. Even with higher fees it is very cheaper than traditional methods of moving money around.

I think the only thing that could definetely destroy bitcoin would be a massive change that would make people get away from it. I don't see this massive change happening, though. Why would that be?

Bank institutions, USA government or other powerful organization could bring down bitcoin if they wanted to. It's not that strong yet.

If these organizations can make more profit by embracing bitcoin. They will integrate it. If they cannot beat bitcoin, they will join it.

That's way too optimistic. Faster blocks is a PROVEN success in altcoins, 99.999% altcoins uses faster blocks, many of them produce blocks every few seconds. This is a pretty obvious trend ever since litecoin was introduced, uh FOUR years ago.

Yet it's not even remotely on the road map of Bitcoin development.

I have no reason to believe an altcoin solution to blockchain bloat can be adopted by Bitcoin. Since many solution to blockchain bloat actually already exist in altcoin for YEARS.

If you think carefully you'll notice anything has the potential to destroy Bitcoin, but not anytime soon (hopefully). As far as I am concerned, the best plan to stick with would be to simply just focus on more tactile moves in terms of growing and strengthening Bitcoin, rather than focusing on what could kill it it.  ;D

A sun storm that is so powerful that it will destroy most electronical devices on earth happens every 500 years and will throw us back into the stone age with en estimated 2.7 trillion in damage.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/

how many orphan block they produce? i bet a large amount, even bitcoin produce orphan with its current block time, but there is a solution for this coming, called subchain

I think the best argument in its defense is that Bitcoin was created years ago, time in which it would have died if it would have been so full of imperfections as you say it is. I think time has been and will show that the system really works for everyone.

That's true we should take things positively rather then focusing on negative things, as we would find more negative people around us who are continuously busy in taking negative things related to bitcoins, and I don't think any individual or a system holds that power to destroy bitcoin.

I think the issue of storage is not so big because there will always be a solution to storage. I remember when computers started there were issues with storage but this has been solved with time thanks to the fast growing technology. May be a solution will be to have options of fees for confirmation of transactions. For instance, say if you want a faster confirmation, you need to include a certain few otherwise the transaction will take a whole day.

My answer is similar - what could take Bitcoin down is not disagreement among developers, this will be worked out. What can really take Bitcoin down is Banks, Governments and bad press.  I am hoping though that they cannot beat it and will have to join.

which bank do you work for ????????????

my transfers are near instant, and confirmations take a few minutes for the 1st
for a whopping big mining fee of 0.0001 BTC, yep today that is equalt to $0.04
and it does not matter about the size of the transaction

or i could pay a priorty mining fee
again a whopping big 0.0005 BTC
really pushing the boat out at $0.20

for a transfer i can send WORLDWIDE in a few minutes
that would take days with banks and fees much higher

i dont know about all these delays people rant about but i dont see them myself
as for BTC to transfer in seconds or instant what do you expect, solutions will come
but as BTC is now its much faster than other methods

nothing will destroy the bitcoin because its impossible to destruct right now, the price of it might drop significantly but it will still exist

It will exist for sure and become more powerful in future, but at a moment bitcoin is not that powerful that can't be destroyed, if government wish they can destroy bitcoin by banning it in their countries.

Bitcoin is legal in many countries. It is like gold, a proper property. It can be used for good for bad things.

Same thing that detroys humans.

Or a better alternative to biotcoin

the problem with bitcoin is just that people are getting so impatient about core devs, ofc that everybody agree or at least i like to think it that bitcoin need improvements/changes, the question here is how to do it without hurt the whole ecosystem...

i have not any doubt that all those things will be fixed, until it happens maybe we can help bitcoin core by adding more nodes ;)

No internet destroys Bitcoin and the entire infra structure that relies on a data connection. No internet is basically an end of the world scenario.

I see so much impatience about Bitcoin development and those who are most worried are the ones who want to be rich soon to get their BTC profit in fiat and leave this world. Most of us should consider themselves sort of privileged to be part of the greatest thing after the Internet.
So the thing that will destroy BTC is basically us.

The blockchain size is not issue, 60 GB is about the size the biggest games take on your harddisk, so the blockchain can grow much larger. Also if the blockchain was actually much larger today then there would be more pressure to implement feature where nodes could keep only some % of blocks based on their prefference how much data keep on harddisk. But in situation where blockchain is just 60 GB and it is common for people to have 1000 GB harddisk space, there is enough space for faster blockchain growing to keep Bitcoin adoption uncapped for now.

I think some people will lose trust as more exchanges go down with their money.  If that continues, it could destroy bitcoin.

But I don't see it happening, the only thing that can destroy bitcoin is its own value, if value goes to zero then it would directly destroy bitcoins, so the value is the most important factor in deciding the future of bitcoins.

What do you mean by own value? The value of bitcoin comes from usefulness. If there is no use, there is no value.

Bitcoin will be destroyed by some new and innovative currency that will take birth in future, till then there is nothing that can destroy bitcoins, the future of bitcoin is safe till then.

I think block chain being fully loaded is not that problem since blockchain could just make a lot of servers or there will be a new company from which bitcoin is being controlled and soon be combined with blockchain ... But what I think that will destroy, ruin .. bitcoin will be the internet itself since for all we know internet is an untrusted thing from which anyone who know that can manipulate it will manipulate it..

I don't think anything can destroy bitcoin as it is becoming more popular day by day, and people are positively adopting it, till it keeps on getting support from the society, no one can destroy it.

If the community is not unified, there is a chance that bitcoin to be destroyed from within. Government agents or terrists can infiltrate.

Will you do a write up on "How to infiltrate Bitcoin as a terrorist"?

So IS is going to buy more miners than China to infiltrate the network? Or can you explain how they could actually DO infiltrate Bitcoin instead of spreading some smattering that you caught somewhere on the net?

I think criminals can do that. Or the world economy can do that too. It depends on the time and what is happening.
You never know what can happen later. Maybe the world is going or something. It so unpredictable to the future.

i don't think that bitcoins will be destroyed, i mean too many people knows about them, so it would be hard to destroy it

I'm glad more users here are actually discussing and criticizing Bitcoin current state. These are the steps that must be done in order for it to improve no so many empty praises from signature campaigners (I should know I'm one of them) praising Bitcoin like it's the second coming while at the same time it's impossible for a common person to choose it over any other method (Paypal, CCs, etc).

I think Bitcoin should reinvent itself and focus on what I think was its first intention, virtual gold. As a payment system is completely useless in my opinion, at least for everyday life. Confirmations take forever, it's a complete hassle, having to convert decimals all the time, who needs that when you have Paypal or a simple credit card swipe right? But as a commodity it has a lot of potential, so much more than we can imagine.

FFS, read at lest THE TITLE of Satoshi's white paper.
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
http://s12.postimg.org/hnobar765/Capture.png

 ???
 ::)
 :-\
 :o

the only thing will destroy bitcoins is dooms day. that 4 idea is good,but not sure its can be make bitcoin long life,maybe if bitcoin regulated and accepted in some country as main currency,it will save bitcoins.

Yeah i think bitcoin will still alive and it will never die.. Unless if we all die or internet will be disappear so we can't use internet.
Bitcoin has a good future and it will be popular in every country. We just wait or the near future we will see the bitcoin still alive..

Underutilisation of resources will limit bitcoin (not destroy it). Fill the blocks, and do something about selfish miners.

Only temporary, when China Gov. decides to do own coin and take over  existing mining power by politcal act. Maybe in combination with a >50% attack and massive short selling...

After that decentralisation might be better and trust might come back by time.

That will create a lot of chaos and huge dumps but I agree it may be for the best in the long run. Another way to see it is that if the dumps are too big it could damage Bitcoin irreversible if many people get burned all of a sudden, including many here hehe.

I am not sure this is going to happen.
Governements are not understanding bitcoin at all, let alone would they participate. It's just not the right sentiment now.

Hm. I am surprised this is still up for discussion. Well, I must say that more than a million things would have to go wrong before Bitcoin is destroyed so let's keep our chins up and do what we have to do to stay positive.

I don't think there is anything that can destroy bitcoin, as bitcoin is raising at a moment and getting more popular worldwide, negative people are trying to destroy it but its never gonna happen.

I'm not saying it will happen tomorrow, if happens at all. But the topic here comes down to the probability of a real Black Swan event and I estimate the joint prob of all three events up in my post ito be quite high. Much more higher than e.g. the CHF event from 15th Jan 2015 where the Swiss Nat Bank removed the floor...

1. I agree with that

2. Working on it, it'll get it ok ;)

3. Fees are incredibly low, just pay it xD

4. Nah with a fee it's really fast! It takes a few minutes for the first one.

I Would agree with you dude, We no need to pay big transactions fees in PayPal transactions or western union.

The problems in bitcoin is lack of awareness among the people If its reaches to all people Even same case If this also will come to the practice dude.

Yeah! Fees are like a few cents for hundreds dollars transactions! You pay much more in any other mean of paying.

The overall concept of bitcoin is just incredible.
My guess is there is no such that can or will destroy bitcoin. So haters go away.

The bitcoin is a legal property, so it is not destroyable by law without changing the law. It can only be destroyed by itself.

I agree with that. It won't stay the only accepted crypto-currency, and it won't be the largest. With its feature rich structure, and its decentralised administration, it will remain the gold standard though.

at the moment the single greatest point of weakness in the bitcoin ecosystem is the concentration of mining in China. bitcoin is vulnerable to the POV of the Chinese government.

i quite like the 'distributed' model of 21 as a possible solution.  

Well yeah even if btc price drops or if number of bitcoiners drops, difficulty is here to keep things stable ;)

If something can destroy bitcoin, than it is people's support , if people stop using bitcoin, supporting bitcoin, then bitcoin surely will destroy, but I don't think this could happen. More and more new people are getting into bitcoin every day.

No, if it happens it will be EMP. Anything else can be fixed much cheaper and faster.

I hope that nothing stands in Bitcoin's way. But if anything is to destroy bitcoin it will certainly be another altcoin!

Yeah. In the mean time bitcoin is growing like there is no tomorrow.

I like the bitcoin adoption to grow like no tomorrow. But I like to bitcoin price to grow slowly, gradually.

Yes bitcoin cant be destroyed because its the most popular among the people. The transactions takes time to complete but eventually it will be solved because a lot of peoples and minds working on it.

Currently there is no Altcoin  which can cause threat to bitcoin existence.
Rather its the other way around, when the Bitcoin grows it helps other altcoins grow as well.

There some many brutal people inside the BTC universe that it is like an all-star army. Nothing can destroy it... neither someonewho is pretty old inside of the core... things are so hugr now that I think neither them know exactly th size of this "universe".

dit: altcoins are so distant that it's in the event horizon of bitcoin.

Only the delay in the decision making over various developing features of the technology would destroy the bitcoin. If the decision making is made faster and effective no need to think of destruction.

the Chinese government could hurt bitcoin, but it would take a concerted international effort to "destroy" the ecosystem.

The crash of some big asteroid in our planet if it will hit the place where most of the bitcoin nodes reside.

But this corency must bring something more innovative and revolutionary than anything else on altcoin scene.
This can be only some tokens that have real usage in industry, or wider.
Example Samsung tokens: created with every using of device (every minute counts, activity and usage), and this token can be traded and can be used in samsung online stores for buying..

how about Etherum? altcoin which steal the show microsoft azure and already cooperated.
Microsoft and ConsenSys are partnering to offer Ethereum Blockchain as a Service (EBaaS) on Microsoft Azure which bitcoin couldn't.
some people make a speculation too about etherum could equal or even exceed bitcoin. but i hope it wouldn't destroy bitcoin.

a smart investor would take a position in both bitcoin and ether.

If someone or one enitity owned all the bitcoins, that would certainly destroy what bitcoin was intended to do.

IMHO FUD and Fedcoin will destroy Bitcoin... Blockstream/Core supporters are creating such FUD that when Fedcoin (Ethereum) is increasingly introduced to the public with the upcoming Homestead rollout - it will be in tandem with negative stories about Bitcoin being a muddled, confused, dangerous mess.  And that perception is actually reality, since Blockstream/Core supporters seem to be little energizer FUD Bunnies on hyperdrive lately. So this will weaken Bitcoin, strengthen Fedcoin.  Fedcoin WILL surpass Bitcoin.  That part is pretty much certain.  The question is how badly Bitcoin will sustain self inflicted damages, and will they be deadly wounds, or wounds they can recover from.

Ethereum is bitcoin 2.0

It won't destroy bitcoin but turn it in to something much better.  Something which isn't controlled by chinese mining farms.

Well bitcoin has a great community inside it and crypto has milions if not bilions invested into them,soo bitcoin to die must be something really deep ,and anothe altcoin would replace it ,but its unreal to think about the end since all altcoins are compared,traded vs bitcoin.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/technical-roadblock-ahead-new-research-paper-warns-of-future-bitcoin-network-scaling-concerns-1455994211

And you think Ethereum is fully decentralized? Don't make me laugh.

Ethereum is being controlled by just a few persons. Not really something cool to look out for, dude.

Since no govt or entity owns the bitcoin, it can never be belonged to one person.
Its the currency of the people and people will own it.

i said it once and ill say it again..
the only thing that will destroy bitcoin is the really long transaction times.

i sent a transaction yesterday and its still unconfirmed today. i sent it with the standard .0001 fee.

yes i could have sent it with a .0005 or higher fee.. but no i didnt.. and no not everyone will..

the wallet picks .0001, its pretty much automatic.. i hit send and it sent.. now it wont confirm.

I don't know how they are going to speed up some things, this is serious issue.
On the other side Bitcoin have most secure network, so i doubt he will be killed so easily.
-Bitcoin was first
-Too much money is already involved in bitcoin.
-Whole mining industry is behind bitcoin.

This will not happen. You can to spend a lot of money to buy out all the bitcoin in circulation. The last one will cost $10 billion.

It all depends on how you do it. You could do it in such a way that everyone loses faith and sells cheaply. You'd need a great deal of BTC in the first place to do it though, but you could start by spreading FUD and then crashing the market. Of course that's an all-or-nothing: if the FUD coupled with the crash aren't enough and people keep on buying, you're fucked.

After the bitcoin become valueless, there is no point to hold the coins. And it is more difficult to pump the price.

In my opinion nothing and no one can destroy bitcoin, because bitcoin is a completely decentralized and peer to peer currency, no one have or can control it. It is a decentralized source of payment system and it won't get destroyed. :)

I agree with you too, there is nothing will destroy bitcoin , because of its completely decentralization and peer to peer currency, and when the time will come, it will solve the problems too.

Yeah, that's true and bitcoin is getting more and more powerful, so it is difficult for any one to destroy bitcoin, and now its time for bitcoin to rise and not to die.

 As days pass by, more people know about bitcoin. And they will use it. This makes it more powerful.

Yeah and for that we need that bitcoin should be promoted on a global level, if the promotion is good, it can attract many users towards adopting bitcoins.

and then they can all get this email

Transaction Confirmation Failed

A transaction made through Blockchain.info has been removed from our database because it was taking a long time to be included in a block.

Any funds have been returned to your wallet and you can now spend the coins again. Please consider including a larger fee in future transactions.


this will be number 4 for me.. :/

i love how it says please include a larger fee.. yet their APP was the one that chose the fee..



edit,

HAH so get this.. the stupid blockchain app on my phone just automatically resent the bitcoin again.. and it didnt change the fee.. so its going to fail again.. :/

edit2,

so i talked to blockchain and it some other node that is rebroadcasting my tx.. since they assured me they do not rebroadcast failed txs..

so this is what will kill bitcoin.. my tx has been resent now 4 times.. its going around and around and around and i have NO way to stop it and NO way to add more fee...

Shit. Send that issue to the helpdesk of the consensus roundtable. ::)

According to the press, bitcoin has been destroyed 88 time. it's not going to die soon.

i did contact blockchain and they said to try to double spend it.. as they cant do anything about it.

not sure how to do that, so ill just watch it go around and around haha.

The thing that's gonna kill bitcoin is the lag time between payment and confirmation.  Also, the need for escrow for larger transactions.

fork of bitcoin could break bitcoin and users, I think it could destroy bitcoin

more higher than xt and core

i think nothing can destroy bitcoin easily. there has been a lot of problems in the past like in the beginning people didn't trust it and called it ponzi and later there were all the hacks, gox,... but bitcoin had survived all of them. so i guess in the future any problem is solvable, even if it is big.

Damn right. There are just too much too lose if this trains stops. No matter what it could survive, there may have better coin out there but still bitcoin will survive like how LTC survived right now.
issues may rise but yeah BTc will live.

true. bitcoin've been through a lot of trouble. from as early 7 years ago, such as mt gox, fork bitcoin xt and bitcoin core. etc bitcoin can still survive. if the user remains solid in using bitcoin, bitcoin will certainly continue to survive

I think litecoin, will die in the future. they have a slightly users

Of course that's true, in this particular time of splendid growth high adoption is required to make it move in the successful path. It can be attained
only of promoting.

Ethereum will never nothing will destroy bitcoin, because of its completely decentralization in structure but Ethereum is controlled by few peoples. It may be promising in the start but it wont last long. No other altcoin can be compared to bitcoin.

Agreed with you. I think bitcoin is now strong enough in the world, in the community, in the peoples and in the online payments. Bitcoin is now able to face any problems and attacks, so I too don't think bitcoin will be destroyed ever..

Yeah bitcoin is still the best and no other coin can be destroy for bitcoin.. Bitcoin is hard as steel and i think no altcoin can break it..
Bitcoin has a good future and more people will be attract once the bitcoin will be advertise in tv.. Honestly here in my country i heard bitcoin from a news  that someone rich in bitcoin..

Sometimes transactions are taking long time to complete. But you cannot say that it will destroy bitcoins. There has to be a solution to this problem and when the solution will be implement, bitcoins will rise to new heights

Some problems  as confirmation will have to be handled over the year ,we all know that this is one of tabu around bitcoin as we send it instant but its required some minutes to get the money able to moove,soo i believe the team around bitcoin can solve any problem related to bitcoin or that appears at it.

Delayed transaction wouldn't "destroy" bitcoin, but maybe it broke bitcoin feature that we know the fastest transaction.
Nothing can destroy bitcoin unless United Nation decide to shut down every activity realted to bitcoin .

And I don't see it happening bitcoin is decentralized and it will continue its freedom in future too, no government body or UN can control it, so just relax and enjoy the fun of holding bitcoins.

I don't think that anything can destroy bitcoin atleast for an decade, bitcoin is still in its primary stage and will become more popular in future, and no one has control over it so none can destroy it.

Yeah, but only fear that I have is government comes into action then they can destroy bitcoins, no doubt no one has control over it, but still have a feeling that they can ban the use of bitcoin in their country.

a team of bitcoin ? i think bitcoin is dezentralitation. is it possible any team ?

He is talking about the core development team of bitcoins they can surely make this issue resolve as many of us are facing the problem of confirmation time of transactions.

True, government or even UN can't touch / control bitcoin, but once they decide to announce that bitcoin is totally illegal and agreed by most countries in the world people will leaving bitcoin and dump hardly the price in exchange  then make bitcoin worthless means they destroy it.

as far as I know now, things that could destroy bitcoin is, the length of the transaction confirmation. it makes some bitcoin users into a panic, especially if the long confirmation almost one full day. it will make the poster becomes saturated and panic. apart from that there are some issues that I heard that some users lost half or the entire bitcoin that he had in his wallet, it can make bitcoin into something ugly and make bitcoin destroyed

not to mention there is absolutely NO guarantee that the sender that sent you bitcoin chose a high enough fee and that you will even get them..

so as a merchant standpoint.. bitcoin is not dependable enough at the moment.

Well bitcoin team of developements or do you think nakamoto made bitcoin and it upgrade by itself?Anyway bitcoin has a long road ahead ,with the mining being active atleast more 100 years ,predictions says that on that time the mine time would be end soo on that time we will see how bitcoin will lead and act,knowing the most of us here wont be alive on that time.

Well the thing that is more important today is the blocksize discussion. On one hand we got the miners and on another hand we got the users.
For us users a bigger size makes the stability of the network better. So i really hope to see that.

Yeh thats the way I see it as well. That is really the only thing that pisses me off with Bitcoin.

the worst thing that can destroy bitcoin or at least harm it severely is not reaching consensus between developers and eventually division of development group so they give up on developing bitcoin.

This halfway answer dude. Actually lack of awareness about bitcoin and it's usage is the main thing which is destroying bitcoins power in the world.
We have responsibility to do that, please guys just share about bitcoin in Facebook, Twitter and other social sites.

I can see only 2 things which can destroy Bitcoin.
First, if Internet disappears in the future, which is unlikely.
Second, if anything better than bitcoin appears, which is unlikely to.
So, I don't worry about this 2 points now.

Exactly that's true. When such situation gets changed the bitcoin will be the cryptcurrency with more adoptions.
These are just getting as a cryptcurrency which might soon be used equal to the local currency.

I also hope that bitcoin will continue to survive all the problems, but at one point there must be a big problem, big sites like mt GOX turn out to be a scam., it was enough to make the price of bitcoin fell enough in, what if all the sites exchangers and wallet turned into a scam. of course it would be very detrimental for bitcoin

Bitcoin came in very strongly and I don't think there is anything that will make it fail. Its true that the biggest let down is awareness. If any of us can make a point of creating awareness to at least 5 a day, I am very sure it gain popularity within a short time.