Title: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 15, 2016, 07:30:32 PM Regardless of current debates over different implementations or scaling solutions... it is much more important for us as a community to have a rough consensus on what we want for Bitcoin. Not in a year or two... but 10 years down the line. That way we can work together towards the same goal and plan ahead.
What do you want Bitcoin to be? Do you want Bitcoin to be digital P2P cash? Or do you want Bitcoin to be a secure settlement layer? or do you want it to be something else (Digital Gold? Smart Contract platform?)? Please don't just vote, but also give your opinion and explain your reasons. This poll can provide extremely useful info for everyone... users, miners, devs... And please, pretty please don't turn this into another us vs. them debate. We've had enough of those. Just rational arguments with no reference to people. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 15, 2016, 07:40:44 PM It does not matter what people want if it is not possible. The real question is what is achievable.
Do you want Bitcoin to be digital P2P cash? How do you define P2P cash? Is it not P2P cash right now? If you define it as a system which everybody in the world can use a the same time, then you won't like the answer.Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: ahpku on March 15, 2016, 07:44:34 PM I want it to be exactly what it was meant to be:
Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System by S Nakamoto. (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 15, 2016, 08:04:55 PM It does not matter what people want if it is not possible. The real question is what is achievable. So within what you believe is achievable... what would you want Bitcoin to be? Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 15, 2016, 08:30:12 PM So within what you believe is achievable... what would you want Bitcoin to be? You didn't give me a definition of P2P Cash. I would say that a mixture of both is achievable by raising the block size limit (only conservative and safe time) and developing a secondary layer (e.g. Lightning Network). I do not think that Bitcoin can become "mainstream cash" on a single layer. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Fortify on March 15, 2016, 09:02:16 PM I think the only magic ingredient left to be added is speed of confirmations. If you want to compete with the big credit companies and their payment processing platforms (VISA, Mastercard, Paypal, etc) then transactions need to be validated quickly. The fees that bitcoin could knock off are huge. It may be an inherent and unavoidable feature of the way bitcoin works but almost-instant confirmations would mean it beats anything else out there. This way would help both P2P and business deals
Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: pawel7777 on March 15, 2016, 09:48:59 PM Why not both? They're not necessarily mutually exclusive. Also, maybe you should re-phrase the question to something like "what the primary purpose of Bitcoin blockchain should be". Otherwise the results won't tell you much. If someone sees BTC primarily as P2P cash but prefers txs to be done via off-chain solutions, how does he vote? Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: danda on March 16, 2016, 12:48:48 AM I did not participate in the poll because the question presents a false dichotomy.
Bitcoin is what it is. I want the consensus rules to remain the same. If they change for anything that is not near 100% unanimous then that means that a majority can dictate to the minority and steal their funds away from them. That undermines trust in all cryptocurrency, not only bitcoin. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: lolgato1 on March 16, 2016, 12:51:09 AM I rather it be a p2p system as it seems I will be mainly be using that as I just like moving my coins around alot ;D
Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 17, 2016, 03:15:22 PM I did not participate in the poll because the question presents a false dichotomy. Bitcoin is what it is. I want the consensus rules to remain the same. If they change for anything that is not near 100% unanimous then that means that a majority can dictate to the minority and steal their funds away from them. That undermines trust in all cryptocurrency, not only bitcoin. Maybe it's a false dichotomy... that is why there is the "Other" option... but still a fair point. Bitcoin is what it is... but it is not a finished product, it is still evolving. I would at least want to make explicit what direction we want it to evolve in. There are many choices and trade-offs in development.... so it would be nice to know what priorities existing users have. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 17, 2016, 03:18:35 PM So within what you believe is achievable... what would you want Bitcoin to be? I would say that a mixture of both is achievable by raising the block size limit (only conservative and safe time) and developing a secondary layer (e.g. Lightning Network). I do not think that Bitcoin can become "mainstream cash" on a single layer. I actually agree with you. Still.. given a choice I would like to see enough on-chain capacity for Bitcoin to be used regularly by millions of people. If we then need a second or third layer to reach billions of people.. I'm OK with that. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 17, 2016, 04:24:01 PM I actually agree with you. Still.. given a choice I would like to see enough on-chain capacity for Bitcoin to be used regularly by millions of people. If we then need a second or third layer to reach billions of people.. I'm OK with that. The amount that can be reached on-chain is very questionable. Look at the network now, we're still not sure what the exact block size limit would be considered safe (a maximum). Currently the network is able to do around 3 TPS on average. Even if we had 10 MB blocks, that's only 30 TPS and nowhere near enough for it to be used regularly by millions of people. It might be enough to be used occasionally by millions of people. However, wouldn't this make it some sort of settlement layer as well? Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 17, 2016, 05:15:41 PM I actually agree with you. Still.. given a choice I would like to see enough on-chain capacity for Bitcoin to be used regularly by millions of people. If we then need a second or third layer to reach billions of people.. I'm OK with that. The amount that can be reached on-chain is very questionable. Look at the network now, we're still not sure what the exact block size limit would be considered safe (a maximum). Currently the network is able to do around 3 TPS on average. Even if we had 10 MB blocks, that's only 30 TPS and nowhere near enough for it to be used regularly by millions of people. It might be enough to be used occasionally by millions of people. However, wouldn't this make it some sort of settlement layer as well? I am not talking about millions of people now... but in 5-10 years time. Sure, there are technical hurdles. I don't think that these obstacles are larger than what the Internet had to overcome in the 1990s to become what we use today. I still remember WebCrawler and Mosaic... Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 17, 2016, 05:28:27 PM If billions of people can share selfies, videos and other media online.... I have to believe that we will be able to find a way to send a few million txs a day and have the Bitcoin Network process them. The theoretical n2 traps only affect a few aspects of tx confirmation and validation.
I understand the argument that Facebook, YouTube or Bittorrent don't have to have every node independently validating all the data that they transmit... but if you think about it, neither does Bitcoin. How much data do you need about a tx to really validate it? can you validate txs in the mempool and then just check that txs in blocks are ones that you had already validated? can you torrent the mempool? can you delegate validation of certain parts of the blockchain among collaborating groups of nodes? Can you separate parts of the tx data (as SegWit proposes) to reduce the amount of on-block data? Can you make validation modular so that different types of nodes focus on different parts of the process (just like mining specialised by separating from full nodes)? The truth is that Bitcoin has less than 100 significant contributors on GitHub. It is a tiny project with tiny resources. Once we get to 1/100th the size of Linux and there is significant more brainpower put into this... we will find all kind of solutions that right now seem far fetched. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 17, 2016, 07:26:02 PM I am not talking about millions of people now... but in 5-10 years time. Sure, there are technical hurdles. I don't think that these obstacles are larger than what the Internet had to overcome in the 1990s to become what we use today. I still remember WebCrawler and Mosaic... Well, we can't exactly know when these block sizes are going to be safe exactly right now. Additionally, it is worth saying that the internet uses several layers in order to operate.If billions of people can share selfies, videos and other media online.... I have to believe that we will be able to find a way to send a few million txs a day and have the Bitcoin Network process them. This is a very bad analogy. You're comparing uploading/downloading data from centralized servers and uploading/downloading data from a P2P decentralized network.The theoretical n2 traps only affect a few aspects of tx confirmation and validation. That's what the worst case scenario is, and one has to be prepared for it.Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 17, 2016, 07:42:39 PM If billions of people can share selfies, videos and other media online.... I have to believe that we will be able to find a way to send a few million txs a day and have the Bitcoin Network process them. This is a very bad analogy. You're comparing uploading/downloading data from centralized servers and uploading/downloading data from a P2P decentralized network.It is not meant as an analogy... that is why it is immediately followed by this: Quote I understand the argument that Facebook, YouTube or Bittorrent don't have to have every node independently validating all the data that they transmit... ..so I am not ignoring the argument. Just trying to inject some perspective. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 17, 2016, 07:46:59 PM The theoretical n2 traps only affect a few aspects of tx confirmation and validation. That's what the worst case scenario is, and one has to be prepared for it.Agreed. But if that worst case scenario proves unfounded and there are solutions... we should make the most of them. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: btcbug on March 17, 2016, 08:53:36 PM Both?
Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 17, 2016, 08:58:46 PM ..so I am not ignoring the argument. Just trying to inject some perspective. Oh, I must have missed that part somehow (fatigue got the upper hand). However, I don't prefer this perspective as some might think that it can be directly compared. Agreed. But if that worst case scenario proves unfounded and there are solutions... we should make the most of them. A worst case scenario can't be unfounded. When it comes to the processing time of algorithms, different instances will have different processing times and those will always be in O(something). That O(something) is the upper limit, i.e. worst case scenario. That upper limit is obviously used for a reason and would never be an unfounded numbers. People who have worked with algorithms and data structures should be aware of this, the other well, might have a hard time understanding even when it gets explained to them. It might be worth reading (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best,_worst_and_average_case) this if you want to learn more. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 18, 2016, 03:12:49 PM So... let's say that we want 20 million people to be able to use Bitcoin as P2P cash regularly (say once a day).
20.000.000 tx/day --> 232 tx/s or 13.889 tx/min --> 138.890 tx/ block Currently txs are on average 250 bytes... but let's say that we can somehow get that down to 100 bytes... (I've see discussion on several ways of doing this). 140.000 txs x 100 bytes = 14.000.000 = 14MB What would be the big tech constraint in 2020 preventing 14MB blocks? Memory? Bandwidth? latency? Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: CIYAM on March 18, 2016, 03:19:23 PM Currently txs are on average 250 bytes... but let's say that we can somehow get that down to 100 bytes... Getting a tx to be much smaller than the current minimum size would be no small feat although I do understand that a reduction of maybe 30% for the signature size might be possible after SegWit has been implemented. But I think that is more likely going to be 200 bytes than 100 (and in general over time crypto stuff tends to need more bytes in order to remain secure so you can't really expect any further significant size reductions). Personally I think get the settlement side perfected first and then work on the payment side of things (there are already quite a lot of off-chain services to do payments as it is so this isn't really so urgent IMO). Understand that the settlement side of things includes the remittance market which is actually huge (it is the first big market that Bitcoin should actually have already disrupted yet it has failed to make any significant inroads into so far). Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Victor Beckham on March 18, 2016, 03:21:23 PM Please don't just vote, but also give your opinion and explain your reasons. This poll can provide extremely useful info for everyone... users, miners, devs... I agree with the questions u have raised, but disagree with the way u r looking for resolution. In this poll, a person having 0.0001 BTC have the same voting power as of the guy holding 10 or 100 BTC. U could get a better representation if u used http://bitcoinocracy.com/. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: franky1 on March 18, 2016, 03:46:27 PM It does not matter what people want if it is not possible. The real question is what is achievable. Do you want Bitcoin to be digital P2P cash? How do you define P2P cash? Is it not P2P cash right now? If you define it as a system which everybody in the world can use a the same time, then you won't like the answer.the OP means. do we want bitcoin to be fast instant transactions like visa. or a reserve/store of wealth secure like a bank savings/investment account bitcoins rarity and ledger seems to be more on the onus of long term store, and not aimed at the instant transaction market. we should not ruin bitcoins rarity or ledger to enter the instant transaction market. nor should we force people away from bitcoins rarity or ledger for a different service/network/chain that offers instant transaction market. allow bitcoin to grow capacity to allow more users to transact comfortably at the own pace and have the freedom to choose to use a blockstream faster service features. WITHOUT abusing bitcoin by hindering it to attempt to force people into blockstream features. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 18, 2016, 03:52:50 PM Currently txs are on average 250 bytes... but let's say that we can somehow get that down to 100 bytes... (I've see discussion on several ways of doing this). This is where it all starts being flawed. That's not the average transaction size, not even close. Source (https://tradeblock.com/blog/analysis-of-bitcoin-transaction-size-trends).Quote In particular, the average transaction size has increased from 450 bytes in Jan 2013 to almost 600 bytes in Oct 2015 What would be the big tech constraint in 2020 preventing 14MB blocks? I can't answer this as your calculations are flawed due to using a wrong average. If you re-do them, then we might be able to talk about it.Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 18, 2016, 03:53:06 PM It does not matter what people want if it is not possible. The real question is what is achievable. Do you want Bitcoin to be digital P2P cash? How do you define P2P cash? Is it not P2P cash right now? If you define it as a system which everybody in the world can use a the same time, then you won't like the answer.the OP means. do we want bitcoin to be fast instant transactions like visa. or a reserve/store of wealth secure like a bank savings/investment account Well... I don't want to be dismissive... but that is definitely not what I mean. Visa is not Cash. And I don't consider bank accounts a secure store of wealth.... so if I had to pick an analogy (imperfect as they all are) by cash I mean something similar to how cash payments work now with coins and notes: final, irreversible, P2P payments (but online.. obviously). By settlement I would mean something similar to gold (as it was used between central banks to settle international balance of payments before 1971 and by regular people before 1913). Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 18, 2016, 03:55:01 PM Well... I don't want to be dismissive... but that is definitely not what I mean. I've already told you that if you want a definite answer that you'd have to provide a definition. What exactly is P2P cash? What features does it have? How does it compare to a settlement layer? Once we have answers to those, then we might be able to come to some sort of conclusion.Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 18, 2016, 03:57:04 PM Well... I don't want to be dismissive... but that is definitely not what I mean. I've already told you that if you want a definite answer that you'd have to provide a definition. What exactly is P2P cash? What features does it have? How does it compare to a settlement layer? Once we have answers to those, then we might be able to come to some sort of conclusion.Sure... but I don't want to constrain or bias the poll by limiting it to my own definition. Other people will probably disagree... Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: CIYAM on March 18, 2016, 03:58:00 PM Sure... but I don't want to constrain or bias the poll by limiting it to my own definition. Other people will probably disagree... Polls on this forum are basically useless (as people will just use sockies so it only ends up telling you who is more determined to win the poll rather than anything about general opinions which is why I have never voted in a single poll on this forum and never will). Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 18, 2016, 03:59:14 PM Sure... but I don't want to constrain or bias the poll by limiting it to my own definition. Other people will probably disagree... You aren't doing that at all. If people disagree with it then it can be discussed. Just share it and let's see. Keep in mind that answering all three questions would be very helpful.Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: franky1 on March 18, 2016, 04:07:25 PM So... let's say that we want 20 million people to be able to use Bitcoin as P2P cash regularly (say once a day). 20.000.000 tx/day --> 232 tx/s or 13.889 tx/min --> 138.890 tx/ block Currently txs are on average 250 bytes... but let's say that we can somehow get that down to 100 bytes... (I've see discussion on several ways of doing this). 140.000 txs x 100 bytes = 14.000.000 = 14MB What would be the big tech constraint in 2020 preventing 14MB blocks? Memory? Bandwidth? latency? i understand you dont want to talk about the centralization aspects of banks and visa. but please "pretend" we are talking about banks and visa just in the context of end user method of usage, rather than the technicals of controls behind the scenes. then it helps 'lay' people get to the basics of your debate about long term store vs daily spends anyway using blockstreams doomsday story of comparing bitcoin to possible Visa..(dont worry i hate it too, but relax, think of it from the end-user usage not the who controls it mindset) visa averages each customer does 40 transactions a year. bitcoin currently has 2.5mill users and based on the maths of ACTUAL average transactions per block(2000tx=500byte/tx) 2000tx(block)*144(day)*365(year)=105mill .. which not surprisingly also corresponds to a 40tx/user per year.. (kinda funny that) after all not everyone will use it daily. some use it a couple times a day some use it once a month. hense the 40tx/year is a good average as proven by both bitcoin and visa so 20million people doing 40 transactions/year to compare both visa and bitcoins current usage = 8mb maxblocksize hard rule doing traditional transactions. 4.2mb maxblocksize hard rule doing Segwit transactions with a real data storage of 8mb (based on segwit and laudas assumption of 190% capacity) 4.2mb maxblocksize hard rule doing Segwit transactions and confidential payment codes with a real data storage of 12mb so we went from 1000 tx in 2013(0.5mb block due to DB bug) its going to be 2mb+segwit in 2017(hoping to be sooner personally). and based on technology growth. a 4.2mb +segwit wont be a big deal by 2020 in short by summer 2017 bitcoin can handle 10million people doing similar daily transactions like they would using bitcoin or visa today give it 4 years there wont be an issue with 20million. (ONLY if people dont stupidly use confidential payment codes extra feature by default) Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 18, 2016, 04:35:23 PM in short by summer 2017 bitcoin can handle 10million people doing similar daily transactions like they would using bitcoin or visa today give it 4 years there wont be an issue with 20million. (ONLY if people don't stupidly use confidential payment codes extra feature by default) I like those numbers. ;) Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: calkob on March 18, 2016, 06:30:58 PM I think it will end up as a settlement layer with other better faster tokens taking the currency role.
Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: pawel7777 on March 18, 2016, 08:57:37 PM ... I have never voted in a single poll on this forum and never will). That's a lie. Your user stats say you casted 2 votes in the past. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Chronikka on March 18, 2016, 09:21:06 PM Why can't it be both? This is just software isn't it? We should be able to come up with a reasonable platform that can do both without jeopardizing security, or usability. Its just a matter of getting the right minds working on it, and time. This is going to take time to create.
Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: CIYAM on March 19, 2016, 01:47:22 AM ... I have never voted in a single poll on this forum and never will). That's a lie. Your user stats say you casted 2 votes in the past. Hmm... that must have been a long time back (as I don't even recall what they were) but I think that having voted in only 2 polls in 5 years shows you that I don't care for the polls on this forum (back in late 2011 and early 2012 there weren't so many sockies and the polls might have had more apparent value). So let me correct the statement to say that I have only ever voted in 2 polls in this forum and that those were a long time ago and that I wouldn't do so again. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: honeyhtet on March 19, 2016, 09:52:40 AM I prefer it to be a peer to peer cash IMO, that's more close to the current bitcoin system and it's very idea IMO.
Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 19, 2016, 09:57:23 AM I prefer it to be a peer to peer cash IMO, that's more close to the current bitcoin system and it's very idea IMO. People keep saying that yet nobody provided a single definition of P2P Cash. I'm still waiting for a clear definition so that discussing would make sense.We should be able to come up with a reasonable platform that can do both without jeopardizing security, or usability. Its just a matter of getting the right minds working on it, and time. This is going to take time to create. We already have a platform, that's the issue. You can't fundamentally re-engineer Bitcoin from scratch anymore. I think it will end up as a settlement layer with other better faster tokens taking the currency role. You can't really know that.Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Chronikka on March 19, 2016, 01:46:35 PM We should be able to come up with a reasonable platform that can do both without jeopardizing security, or usability. Its just a matter of getting the right minds working on it, and time. This is going to take time to create. We already have a platform, that's the issue. You can't fundamentally re-engineer Bitcoin from scratch anymore. Except that its being "re-engineered" every single day already. There are developers already working on changing Bitcoin right this minute. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 19, 2016, 04:54:27 PM People keep saying that yet nobody provided a single definition of P2P Cash. I'm still waiting for a clear definition so that discussing would make sense. OK... let me give it a shot: -Cash: A token of value used for exchange. eg: a coin. -Digital cash: A digital token of value used for exchange. eg: 1 BTC -P2P Cash: A form of cash in which the token's value does not require a third party to the exchange. However the above definitions refer to bitcoins as the units of value or tokens in a cash system... but for the Bitcoin Network to be an effective P2P Cash transmission system which can be used in a way analogous to how we use physical coins and notes today face to face... it would need to have certain characteristics: -Open, permissionless system. If you have the token, you can use it. -Mere Possession of the token is enough. No extra proof is required. -Payments are simple, fast and have low transaction costs. -Tokens are fungible. -Payments are irreversible and final. ...and for it to be P2P: -Only the voluntary interaction of the 2 parties to a transaction is required. No third party can block the transaction. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: thejaytiesto on March 19, 2016, 05:11:47 PM I think the most important feature has to be a settlement network, the "new gold" approach is in my book the one that we have to focus on, before we can pretend to compete against centralized systems like VISA.
If we are going to compete against centralized systems like VISA, we must deliver something that makes it worth using for the average user. I think, the fact that anyone can start sending and receiving money without any consent, is a big advantage we will always have against our competition when it comes to the goal of making Bitcoin a worlwide used currency with millions of transactions per second. The work done by Blockstream in this matter is excellent and im looking forward to it. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 19, 2016, 05:14:00 PM Actually.. thinking a bit more about this.. if Bitcoin can become good money... that is if it can perform effectively the 3 traditional functions of money (store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account) it will have to be as easy to exchange as cash and as hard to confiscate or devalue as gold.
Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: jonald_fyookball on March 19, 2016, 05:32:37 PM Cash is king. Settlement implies its not trustless.
Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 19, 2016, 07:11:03 PM -Open, permissionless system. If you have the token, you can use it. 1) Correct. Bitcoin is censorship resistant.-Mere Possession of the token is enough. No extra proof is required. -Payments are simple, fast and have low transaction costs. -Tokens are fungible. -Payments are irreversible and final. 2) Correct. Owning the private key is everything that is needed. 3) They current are (fees have an unknown/undecided future). 4) Somewhat fungible (unknown?). 5) Correct. ...and for it to be P2P: Correct.-Only the voluntary interaction of the 2 parties to a transaction is required. No third party can block the transaction. Do you agree with my statements? Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: flix on March 19, 2016, 07:18:34 PM -Open, permissionless system. If you have the token, you can use it. 1) Correct. Bitcoin is censorship resistant.-Mere Possession of the token is enough. No extra proof is required. -Payments are simple, fast and have low transaction costs. -Tokens are fungible. -Payments are irreversible and final. 2) Correct. Owning the private key is everything that is needed. 3) They current are (fees have an unknown/undecided future). 4) Somewhat fungible (unknown?). 5) Correct. ...and for it to be P2P: Correct.-Only the voluntary interaction of the 2 parties to a transaction is required. No third party can block the transaction. Do you agree with my statements? Of course I agree. Bitcoin can currently be used as P2P Cash. However as the network grows from 2 million users to 20 million... there are engineering choices to be made which could change some of these qualities. There will be trade-offs between speed, cost, simplicity, fungibility, etc... That's what this thread is about. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 19, 2016, 08:50:23 PM Of course I agree. I wanted to know if my view is correct; that's why I asked if you agreed. How about listing some features that are present in a settlement layer so that we can compare? As far as the trade-offs are concerned, I'm not sure. We might experience increased on-chain fees.Bitcoin can currently be used as P2P Cash. However as the network grows from 2 million users to 20 million... there are engineering choices to be made which could change some of these qualities. There will be trade-offs between speed, cost, simplicity, fungibility, etc... That's what this thread is about. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: VeritasSapere on March 20, 2016, 02:41:52 AM Bitcoin can be both a P2P Cash and a settlement layer, among many more things. Thinking that we must choose between these two is a false dichotomy. Though I do question what the point of a settlement layer even is when everyone can transact directly, cheaply, easily and quickly. It is almost as if the very idea of a settlement layer might even be antithetical to a world where cryptocurrency becomes the dominant form of currency, rendered obsolete like many of the other functions that banks carry out today.
Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Quickseller on March 20, 2016, 03:13:20 AM Bitcoin was designed to be a Peer-to-peer electronic cash system, and that is what it should be. I would note however that even if Bitcoin is used as a P2P electron cash system, it can also be used as a settlement layer, however there is little reason why anyone would want to do so.
As mentioned by ahpku above (see reply #3), the title of the Bitcoin white-paper by satoshi implied that satoshi designed Bitcoin to be a P2P cash system. The features of Bitcoin support a P2P cash system while they do not support a settlement layer. For example, once confirmed, transactions are irreversible, this supports a P2P cash system because this alleivates the risk of a check bouncing, a PayPal payment being disputed, ect., it does not however support a settlement layer because if an employee of a financial institution were to make a mistake and send the wrong amount to an incorrect address then the financial institution will pretty much need to eat the loss verses generally being able to fix said mistake with current available settlement layers (SWIFT, ACH, FEDWIRE, ect.). Another good example is the pseudonymity when using bitcoin. Note that in order to use Bitcoin correctly, one should not use the same address more then one time. This is something that would be attractive for a P2P cash system because neither a buyer nor a seller would have an advantage when negotiating a price on a trade, I can mask how much money I have/where I am spending my money/how much money I am making with my trading partners. With a settlement layer (system), current available options make it very easy to audit transactions, which is necessary for a settlement layer, and Bitcoin would make this more difficult. For example if Bank of America needed to send $1,000,000 to US Bank, they could use the FEDWIRE system and deposit said amount into US Bank's account at the FEDWIRE system which will not change and is established, however if Bank of America were to use Bitcoin to send this transaction, they would need to get a Bitcoin address from US Bank (via a GPG signed message?), then send $1,000,000 worth of bitcoin to said address, and Bank of America would then need to keep/store said GPG signed message indefinitely for audit purposes. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: kanazawa on March 20, 2016, 03:28:57 AM I'm wait for all of the options. But to me, Smart Contracts are the most powerful tool that a currency could have. It makes the whole world different. 'm crazy about that. Since lsat november I've been thinking too much about that. ;D
Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 20, 2016, 10:01:20 AM Bitcoin was designed to be a Peer-to-peer electronic cash system, and that is what it should be. I would note however that even if Bitcoin is used as a P2P electron cash system, it can also be used as a settlement layer, however there is little reason why anyone would want to do so. That depends. There is a difference between what it can be and what it should be. As we can see there are limitations that currently would prevent a lot of people using Bitcoin everyday (even if we increased the block size limit tenfold). It is almost as if the very idea of a settlement layer might even be antithetical to a world where cryptocurrency becomes the dominant form of currency, rendered obsolete like many of the other functions that banks carry out today. Everyone keeps talking about it yet nobody mentions the differences between P2P Cash and a settlement layer.Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: VeritasSapere on March 20, 2016, 03:04:16 PM It is almost as if the very idea of a settlement layer might even be antithetical to a world where cryptocurrency becomes the dominant form of currency, rendered obsolete like many of the other functions that banks carry out today. Everyone keeps talking about it yet nobody mentions the differences between P2P Cash and a settlement layer.By attempting to turn Bitcoin into a settlement layer you are turning it into the very financial systems Bitcoin was meant to counter. I find the entire idea to be unrealistic however, the large banks and financial institutions would be much better off if they designed their own systems for this purpose, even Ripple is a better settlement network then Bitcoin, I do not think these large financial institutions would even adopt Bitcoin because it is not in their interests to do so, the only way I see that happening is because they are "forced" to do so in order to stay relevant, and that could only happen because of mass adoption of Bitcoin as a currency. Not increasing the blocksize undermines Bitcoins ability to be a currency as was always intended, the whitepaper even describes this in its title, Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: pereira4 on March 20, 2016, 04:37:12 PM It is almost as if the very idea of a settlement layer might even be antithetical to a world where cryptocurrency becomes the dominant form of currency, rendered obsolete like many of the other functions that banks carry out today. Everyone keeps talking about it yet nobody mentions the differences between P2P Cash and a settlement layer.By attempting to turn Bitcoin into a settlement layer you are turning it into the very financial systems Bitcoin was meant to counter. I find the entire idea to be unrealistic however, the large banks and financial institutions would be much better off if they designed their own systems for this purpose, even Ripple is a better settlement network then Bitcoin, I do not think these large financial institutions would even adopt Bitcoin because it is not in their interests to do so, the only way I see that happening is because they are "forced" to do so in order to stay relevant, and that could only happen because of mass adoption of Bitcoin as a currency. Not increasing the blocksize undermines Bitcoins ability to be a currency as was always intended, the whitepaper even describes this in its title, Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System. Increasing the blocksize goes against the idea of decentralized peer to peer cash because it centralizes the nodes, so we need additinal layers like LN. If the core of Bitcoin is centralized (and it's impossible to not end up with massive centralization if you want to scale everything on chain) we will end up a paypal 2.0 (not cash) Increasing the blocksize by hard forking every now and then because the blocks keep getting full is the dumbest thing I've heard. We need additional layers like LN, the sooner you understand this reality the better. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: VeritasSapere on March 20, 2016, 04:43:48 PM It is almost as if the very idea of a settlement layer might even be antithetical to a world where cryptocurrency becomes the dominant form of currency, rendered obsolete like many of the other functions that banks carry out today. Everyone keeps talking about it yet nobody mentions the differences between P2P Cash and a settlement layer.By attempting to turn Bitcoin into a settlement layer you are turning it into the very financial systems Bitcoin was meant to counter. I find the entire idea to be unrealistic however, the large banks and financial institutions would be much better off if they designed their own systems for this purpose, even Ripple is a better settlement network then Bitcoin, I do not think these large financial institutions would even adopt Bitcoin because it is not in their interests to do so, the only way I see that happening is because they are "forced" to do so in order to stay relevant, and that could only happen because of mass adoption of Bitcoin as a currency. Not increasing the blocksize undermines Bitcoins ability to be a currency as was always intended, the whitepaper even describes this in its title, Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System. Increasing the blocksize goes against the idea of decentralized peer to peer cash because it centralizes the nodes, so we need additinal layers like LN. If the core of Bitcoin is centralized (and it's impossible to not end up with massive centralization if you want to scale everything on chain) we will end up a paypal 2.0 (not cash) Increasing the blocksize by hard forking every now and then because the blocks keep getting full is the dumbest thing I've heard. We need additional layers like LN, the sooner you understand this reality the better. You should question your rhetoric a bit here, increasing the blocksize to two megabyte would not turn Bitcoin into paypal 2.0, that is a completely unqualified statement, such propaganda is not helping your case. It might scare people that do not know better, but if you have access to any decent computer equipment and internet connections you should know that two megabyte blocks are not a big deal and most people in the developed world will still be able to run full nodes out of their homes. Not to mention that the node count has been rising over the last year disproving some of the theories around node centralization. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: pereira4 on March 20, 2016, 05:06:18 PM It is almost as if the very idea of a settlement layer might even be antithetical to a world where cryptocurrency becomes the dominant form of currency, rendered obsolete like many of the other functions that banks carry out today. Everyone keeps talking about it yet nobody mentions the differences between P2P Cash and a settlement layer.By attempting to turn Bitcoin into a settlement layer you are turning it into the very financial systems Bitcoin was meant to counter. I find the entire idea to be unrealistic however, the large banks and financial institutions would be much better off if they designed their own systems for this purpose, even Ripple is a better settlement network then Bitcoin, I do not think these large financial institutions would even adopt Bitcoin because it is not in their interests to do so, the only way I see that happening is because they are "forced" to do so in order to stay relevant, and that could only happen because of mass adoption of Bitcoin as a currency. Not increasing the blocksize undermines Bitcoins ability to be a currency as was always intended, the whitepaper even describes this in its title, Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System. Increasing the blocksize goes against the idea of decentralized peer to peer cash because it centralizes the nodes, so we need additinal layers like LN. If the core of Bitcoin is centralized (and it's impossible to not end up with massive centralization if you want to scale everything on chain) we will end up a paypal 2.0 (not cash) Increasing the blocksize by hard forking every now and then because the blocks keep getting full is the dumbest thing I've heard. We need additional layers like LN, the sooner you understand this reality the better. You should question your rhetoric a bit here, increasing the blocksize to two megabyte would not turn Bitcoin into paypal 2.0, that is a completely unqualified statement, such propaganda is not helping your case. It might scare people that do not know better, but if you have access to any decent computer equipment and internet connections you should know that two megabyte blocks are not a big deal and most people in the developed world will still be able to run full nodes out of their homes. Not to mention that the node count has been rising over the last year disproving some of the theories around node centralization. You are delusional by thinking just because Moore's law say that X technology will be cheaper by X year, we can indefinitely be hard forking all the time. You also don't realize that it's not about the total count of nodes, but how widespread they are across the globe. There's a lot of people struggling to run nodes on their countries, if you double the blockchain size now it's over for them, this will increasingly centralize nodes. The node count has decreased, most of those nodes that raise the total count are the fake VPS Classic nodes. You can't have security encryption backed by tons of power (the biggest network on the planet) in a decentralized way if you want to scale everything on-chain and pretend to ever compete against centralized solutions like VISA The end user will not have any problems, this can be easily solved with a good and clear layout. Dealing with banks it's way more complex than Bitcoin will ever be ( 1 opening up a bank account, 2 signing up into a website, 3 typing user and password, 4 typing the code in your physical card that the bank gave to you (and typing it by clicking on a virtual keyboard, and this code changes every time) 5 do the former again quickly enough because your login session was automatically closed for security measures 6 waiting for the transaction to be processed...) This is bullshit compared to what we'll have with Bitcoin. LN will be more decentralized, cheaper and faster than any other alternatives. If you are waiting for a coin to ever have the level of encryption Bitcoin has, backed by the hashing power Bitcoin network has, have the transactions per second VISA has, and have nodes decentralized... take a seat and keep waiting, because that just means you don't understand physics. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Quickseller on March 20, 2016, 05:33:50 PM Bitcoin was designed to be a Peer-to-peer electronic cash system, and that is what it should be. I would note however that even if Bitcoin is used as a P2P electron cash system, it can also be used as a settlement layer, however there is little reason why anyone would want to do so. That depends. There is a difference between what it can be and what it should be. As we can see there are limitations that currently would prevent a lot of people using Bitcoin everyday (even if we increased the block size limit tenfold). This is what was so good about BIP101 in that the block size would automatically increase every 2 years, so there would not be this contentious debate that is making Bitcoin look very bad to the outside world all the time. Granted the doubling of the max block size every two years might have had a higher growth rate that Moores law would be able to support over the long term, but this could have easily been fixed by say slowing the growth rate to something like doubling the max block size every 2.5 years, or increasing the maximum block size by 75% every 2 years, or increasing the maximum block size by 75% every 2.5 years, or some other variation thereof. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: CIYAM on March 21, 2016, 05:12:22 AM http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/moores-law-really-is-dead-this-time/
Moore's Law is dead and has been so for some time already (so anyone using that as a basis for anything to do with science must be clearly hoping for miracles). Perhaps Santa Klaus will also be a key factor in the future? Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: 4by2 on March 21, 2016, 05:19:38 AM http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/moores-law-really-is-dead-this-time/ I agree that it is dead, but I kind of wish we were still in a golden age of computing, per say. I personally believe that it is slightly under doubling, but it is nowhere near stagnant yet.Moore's Law is dead and has been so for some time already (so anyone using that as a basis for anything to do with science must be clearly hoping for miracles). Perhaps Santa Klaus will also be a key factor in the future? Am I just being too hopeful? Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: CIYAM on March 21, 2016, 11:38:23 AM Am I just being too hopeful? Far too hopeful (did you read what I linked to?). Basically the only thing growing at anywhere near that sort of rate now is storage (and yet people whinge about the size of blockchain which is actually the least serious problem). The two things that are not increasing in a way that will allow massive scaling (through simple increases in block sizes) are bandwidth and processing power. This is why smart ways of reworking the Bitcoin implementation (such as SegWit) are essential to allowing the system to provide the kind of P2P Cash that many are hoping (or expecting) it to provide. As a settlement layer it is already perfectly functional as is. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: exstasie on March 22, 2016, 09:29:03 AM Bitcoin was designed to be a Peer-to-peer electronic cash system, and that is what it should be. I would note however that even if Bitcoin is used as a P2P electron cash system, it can also be used as a settlement layer, however there is little reason why anyone would want to do so. That depends. There is a difference between what it can be and what it should be. As we can see there are limitations that currently would prevent a lot of people using Bitcoin everyday (even if we increased the block size limit tenfold). Reality check. Moore's Law is bullshit, proven false (as if it were ever scientific). LOL try again. Do you realize that Moore's Law didn't actually apply to bandwidth? It regarded processor speeds, or overall processing power. And again, it's dead, finished, irrelevant so the point is moot. Take your "technology gets better, don't worry!" talk to the kindergarten class. This is what was so good about BIP101 in that the block size would automatically increase every 2 years, so there would not be this contentious debate that is making Bitcoin look very bad to the outside world all the time. Granted the doubling of the max block size every two years might have had a higher growth rate that Moores law would be able to support over the long term, but this could have easily been fixed by say slowing the growth rate to something like doubling the max block size every 2.5 years, or increasing the maximum block size by 75% every 2 years, or increasing the maximum block size by 75% every 2.5 years, or some other variation thereof. Any numbers to back up your claims, given that Moore's Law is dead, and didn't apply to bandwidth/broadband, anyway? Contentious debate is good -- contentious forks, not. Learn the difference, and therefore where the real problem is coming from. Or just fork off, I don't care. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 22, 2016, 04:29:50 PM This is what was so good about BIP101 in that the block size would automatically increase every 2 years, so there would not be this contentious debate that is making Bitcoin look very bad to the outside world all the time. Granted the doubling of the max block size every two years might have had a higher growth rate that Moores law would be able to support over the long term, but this could have easily been fixed by say slowing the growth rate to something like doubling the max block size every 2.5 years, or increasing the maximum block size by 75% every 2 years, or increasing the maximum block size by 75% every 2.5 years, or some other variation thereof. BIP101 was horrible because of many reasons. I have no idea why you would say that it was good. Additionally, Moore's law is not a law in the traditional sense but rather an observation based on nothing. Even Moore himself confirmed this. Relying on something like that for scaling would be a very bad idea.Cash is money for the people, a currency that everyone can use cheaply, directly, easily and quickly. A settlement layer is what large financial institutions use to settle balances between them. It is exclusive, elitist and reinforces or recreates the power structures we have today. Settlement networks would become obsolete if people chose to use cryptocurrencies on mass as currency. Fair enough, however you don't seem to list any features in comparison to the other list (about P2P Cash). How would Bitcoin as a settlement layer even look like?Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Herbert2020 on March 22, 2016, 04:54:06 PM bitcoin has been both for me so far. i used it both as a settlement layer to invest and take profit and also as a payment system (p2p cash) and i love both of them so far.
AFAIK bitcoin was created as a p2p cash in the first place and i hope in the future it gets closer to this purpose, and i think it can get there too if the number of users increase and the volatility decreases. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 22, 2016, 05:22:39 PM AFAIK bitcoin was created as a p2p cash in the first place and i hope in the future it gets closer to this purpose, and i think it can get there too if the number of users increase and the volatility decreases. That's a rather complex problem (volatility) that is not directly related to the debate. Bitcoin should be able to always accommodate new users; as long as it continues functioning the same way that it does. The problem that we can run into is that suddenly 1 million people (arbitrary number) want to buy Bitcoin and create 1 TX in a day. This would create a 'heavy' backlog because the system is only able to handle 3 TPS at the moment. This is why we need everything (to be ready and prepared):1) Segwit 2) Block size increase 3) Lightning Network 4) Sidechains The network should not have backlogs unless it is under attack, else I don't see how it could be considered 'P2P cash'. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Quickseller on March 24, 2016, 05:08:27 AM http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/moores-law-really-is-dead-this-time/ I don't think that I agree with the conclusions of that article. There was an article (http://www.wsj.com/articles/moores-law-is-showing-its-age-1437076232) in the Wall Street Journal (paywall) that said that it was believed that the interval for Moore's law might be slowing to something closer to ever 2.5 years:Moore's Law is dead and has been so for some time already (so anyone using that as a basis for anything to do with science must be clearly hoping for miracles). Perhaps Santa Klaus will also be a key factor in the future? Quote from: article published July 16, 2015 “The last two technology transitions have signaled that our cadence today is closer to 2½ years than two,” Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich said during a conference call with analysts to discuss second-quarter results. Reality check. Moore's Law is bullshit, proven false (as if it were ever scientific). LOL try again. Do you realize that Moore's Law didn't actually apply to bandwidth? It regarded processor speeds, or overall processing power. And again, it's dead, finished, irrelevant so the point is moot. Take your "technology gets better, don't worry!" talk to the kindergarten class. Moore's law applied/applies to how many transistors can fit on a chip, however the principles behind moore's law generally apply to other kinds of technology as well. Moore's law is also generally accepted to be slowing, but is far from dead. On a cost (to the consumer) per unit basis, technology has been increasing at an exponential rate for decades, and I do not see any sign of significant slowing down of this growth. AFAIK bitcoin was created as a p2p cash in the first place and i hope in the future it gets closer to this purpose, and i think it can get there too if the number of users increase and the volatility decreases. That's a rather complex problem (volatility) that is not directly related to the debate. Bitcoin should be able to always accommodate new users; as long as it continues functioning the same way that it does. The problem that we can run into is that suddenly 1 million people (arbitrary number) want to buy Bitcoin and create 1 TX in a day. This would create a 'heavy' backlog because the system is only able to handle 3 TPS at the moment. This is why we need everything (to be ready and prepared):--snip-- 2) Block size increase --snip-- Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: exstasie on March 24, 2016, 05:39:01 AM Reality check. Moore's Law is bullshit, proven false (as if it were ever scientific). LOL try again. Do you realize that Moore's Law didn't actually apply to bandwidth? It regarded processor speeds, or overall processing power. And again, it's dead, finished, irrelevant so the point is moot. Take your "technology gets better, don't worry!" talk to the kindergarten class. Moore's law applied/applies to how many transistors can fit on a chip, however the principles behind moore's law generally apply to other kinds of technology as well. LEL. Applies how? Why? On each of the last three trips I took to California (~ once per year), the number of cockroaches I saw doubled. I've concluded that the cockroach population is doubling every year, and therefore that they will eventually take over the world. This is called Exstasie's Law. This is the "science" of Moore's "Law." Moore's law is also generally accepted to be slowing, but is far from dead. On a cost (to the consumer) per unit basis, technology has been increasing at an exponential rate for decades, and I do not see any sign of significant slowing down of this growth. Your mindless opinions mean the world to us all. So what are we waiting for? Someone upgrade Quickseller from "signature spamming scammer" to "bitcoin developer"...STAT!!! Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: pooya87 on March 24, 2016, 05:50:16 AM what i want is for the price to reach a level and stays there no matter what the price is, so i would love it to become as it was intended meaning P2P cash and i am hoping for a day to see all payment processors like PayPal disappear with their rules and be replaced by bitcoin.
until that day i am taking this opportunity to make as much profit as i can from trading bitcoin and the volatility. Title: Re: P2P Cash or Settlement Layer? Post by: Lauda on March 24, 2016, 08:34:07 AM Quoted for reference. No problem, as long as you use the other 3. My statement stands and I wouldn't be the first one who said something like this.On each of the last three trips I took to California (~ once per year), the number of cockroaches I saw doubled. I've concluded that the cockroach population is doubling every year, and therefore that they will eventually take over the world. This is called Exstasie's Law. Exactly. I have no idea why people without relevant/adequate knowledge talk about these things. Moore's law is not a law in the traditional sense, it is an observation. This is the "science" of Moore's "Law." |