Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin is great, but we can all admit its not a perfect technology. I'd like to hear what different attributes/qualities would make it better, just to see how far from a perfect online currency it actually is. Usually tech companies/ideas all start out flawed but they all have room to change significantly as they grow (think of all the tech companies of the last 15 years). However as far as I know Bitcoin is pretty set in stone and radical changes can't be implemented as technology progresses or lessons are learned. The aim here is not to bash Bitcoin for not being perfect (which is impossible in a constantly changing world anyways) but instead to analyze how future-proof it is and how resistant it is to possible new online currencies that might pop up as the idea of an online currency becomes more popular.

So I'll start with some ways that a competing online currency could theoretically edge out Bitcoin:

-Transactions/confirmation of payment can be made quicker
-51% network attack threat could be removed
-Exchanges can be made decentralized using a system like Ripple
-A less costly 'maintenance system' can be used instead of using GPU/CPU power.


That's all I can think of right now. It would be interesting to get some insights from more technological capable minds.

IF a sovereign government adopted a crypto-currency, other than BTC, as a standard Bitcoin would take a serious hit in market share. In fact if BTC turns out to be a long term viable currency some government will do this.

It would be an ideal play for a small country that wanted to gain market share in central banking.

...Mrs. Peacock in the kitchen with the rope!

Damn!  I was sure it was Col. Mustard this time.  >:(

Sorry for the off-topic (I still can't edit my posts so I had to add a new one), but I wanted to say that the real bitcoin killer is going to be bitcoin without the need for mining, whatever it is.

That's an interesting thought.

I think you are wrong there. It's the process of mining that makes bitcoin so great. In what way would you have new money be brought into the marketplace?

As it currently stands, there is work or effort involved in getting new money. That has always been the case for natural money. Only fiat money has no essential cost of creation. And many people are obviously wanting out of that.

Sovereign Mining... perfect for one of Dee Hock's Chaords.
Decentralize the authority and centralize the information.

There is work involved in fiat. It takes lots of time to make those printing plates!  :D

The "work" involved in bitcoin is nonsense that doesn't need to be done imo. It's password password cracking in a game of find-the-hidden-treasure. I know it's unique and interesting, and as a project in itself I'm certainly not dissing on it in that respect. What I am saying is that if the purpose of Bitcoin is to be a currency for *spending*, then it doesn't *need* to be mined. It could just automatically start with the values of everything in the world already. It's impossible, I know.

In my opinion, the only currency that will kill all other currencies is a currency that merely reflects the value of the person's life, time, possessions etc. Something akin to a credit report, but on the biological level. "This person will die in 2 years" "Then his worth has gone down". Then life itself would be quite expensive. Wait, didn't I watch a movie recently where time was a currency? Maybe that's where I'm going with this.

Agreed. If it is simply for spending, then there is no need for it to retain value. You buy it, spend it and move on. That's a currency that has no lasting value. But it's no different from fiat.

BTCitcoin itself and what is happening right now in its marketplaces shows that people want more than that. They want a deflationary money for a change. They want to work less as they get older, having saved in their productive years. They want control over their resources. They want to retain the value rather than have it sneaked out from under them through the inflation tax.

I really think BTCitcoin finally hit the mainstream news between September '12 and January '13. It's amazing what its price has done since. In addition to that, the market price seems to be from an expanding market, rather than speculation.

I agreed with everything you said up until this part. For a "currency" that is still basically controlled by a handful of exchange owners, investors and business men, and the ability imitate legitimate transactions on a daily basis in any volume you like, it's impossible to make any assumptions as to the reasoning behind the price that don't also support claims of being a pump and dump. I'd be careful of making those assumptions about the reason for prices. To me for example, it just looks like the people who already had shittons of money and believe in Bitcoin are simply dumping more of their money into it in a panic. It absolutely is possible for this to be just a giant circle jerk. Only time will tell.

Movie was called "In Time", highly recommended to Bitcoiners that haven't seen it.

LiteCoin is the BitCoin killer.

They fixed the bugs in Bitcoin.  ;)

Interesting, I might have to take a look at that as a short term investment since bitcoins are going so high right now.

I think is time to buy some LiteCoins :P

I don't think any country's central bank would have much luck with crypto's as there will probably need to be inbuilt restrictions and tracking information, making people keen to hold onto BTC. What will kill bitcoin, if it is not a systematic crackdown by the US government, will be people's adoption of altcoins, specifically litecoin. Bitcoin confirmations can be a bit slow when compared to litecoin, which might one day be the deciding factor for a slow and steady transfer of wealth from the former to the latter.

bugs? explain more :)

There was a bug in the implementation of Bitcoin-QT 0.7.2 (the "reference" implementation of the protocol.)  Well, not a bug, so much as an oversight in the configuration of the underlying database.

It caused a problem (a hard fork in the blockchain) which was solved by the majority of miners temporarily downgrading to 0.7.2.

Hence the "News" link in purple at the top of your screen, inviting everyone to upgrade to 0.8.1 or better before May 15, as the limitations of 0.7.2 will be ignored after that date.  (http://bitcoin.org/may15.html (http://bitcoin.org/may15.html))

It's important to note that the bug wasn't in the Bitcoin protocol, just in a certain implementation.

-Transactions/confirmation of payment can be made quicker

I think this is a big one.  In finance, they make tons of transactions per second.  If a cryptocurrency were made that was suited for finance, it could take that part of the market.

Ripple does not have decentralized exchanges. You have to trust the exchanges, the same way you have to trust an exchange if you want to trade coins now.

Howabout abducting the developers from Bitcoin 2013 in San Jose, sending them to GitMo as financial terrorists and torturing them for their alert key(s), then sending out false alerts about massively forked blockchains, get the media to run stories 24/7 about people losing millions as the price collapses, set fire to Mt. Gox and blame it on litecoin developers, declare martial law and confiscate every computer, turn off the electricity and STILL!!! there will be some person in a mud hut in Tanzania mining on a laptop from a 2005 UN international development program and using them to play SatoshiDice in an internet cafe in Arusha.

You have to also remember that Bitcoin isn't proprietary. It can be expanded, added on and improved. It already has been and will continue to be.

There is no shortage of ideas about improving bitcoin. For example:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/alt_ideas