Bitcoin Forum

Let's assume that for some reason people start transacting a few times more actively than they are doing right now, say, from today's 250k to 1,000k transactions per day on average. That could be, for example, due to Coinbase, Xapo, and other major web wallets being outlawed with the funds of their clients moved to their personal wallets (or for some other reason to that effect). That would most certainly lead to a huge spike in on-chain transactions since transactions inside these wallets are mostly off-chain (if I'm not mistaken). The recent transaction congestion clearly reveals that the Bitcoin network is already somewhat overstretched to digest even the current level of activity...

So, would that spike of activity mean an eventual collapse of the Bitcoin network with the number of unconfirmed transactions constantly rising?

I don't think it would directly mean a collapse, but it would definitely mean some chaos. People would be all over the place complaining, fees would skyrocket and people would immediately claim we should raise block limits to 999999999999MB. We've seen similar in the past, similar would happen again.

I don't think either that what we saw in the past will be like what I think might potentially happen in the future. There were a few periods in the past when a few dozens of thousands of transactions (a rolling total, of course) hadn't been confirmed for some time, but it was on the scale of one or two days in most if not all cases. Now imagine a situation when the number of unconfirmed transactions grows totally off the reel every day. And we end up with millions of such transactions that get eventually dropped by the network and then sent again by angry users. And note that raising fees will not help to mend this situation altogether...

That would have a devastating effect on Bitcoin

Off-chain transactions occur only when people move funds from one Xapo wallet to another Xapo wallet or from one Coinbase account to another Coinbase account. Everything else not contained in the same proprietary wallet eco-system needs to be broadcasted on the Blockchain like foreign outgoing and incoming TX.

My 2 satoshis.

I think most people lose track when they think about situations like this.... If something like this happens, developers will act quickly and the

consensus decision will be forced. People will not let this fail, because they have their own hidden motives. Those motives will fail with their

plans, if they continue and everything around them is collapsing. Do you think people will just accept a total collapse, or will they accept

a quick fork?

This happens to me, when I take a transaction become more slowly, maybe almost 30 minutes or maybe over. I used default fees(which it's usually take 10-20 maximum).


Not sure people will be prepared with quick fork, since I see pretty much new comers.
Well I think since it not take for a days it's still be fine, not sure for future networks looks like.

A collapse is a bit too much imo.

It would would however force a much faster implementation of a solution and it would cause all the parties to agree on something eventually as there is no more time to keep fighting over the best solution.

With the increasing interest in bitcoin, I do think something like this may start to occur sooner rather than later.

Learn to read


There may be a total chaos coming on if something like that happens for real. In real life, though, it is more likely that events like what happened two days ago will just start happening more often, and people might get eventually accustomed to them, at least, to a degree, either having to wait and maybe resend their transaction a few times after it gets dropped or pay substantially higher fees if they want it to be processed "sooner rather than later" (that would be miners' paradise and klondike all in one)...

http://s018.radikal.ru/i526/1611/55/ff62dfa63f37.jpg

In this case, we would probably witness a phenomenon known as the boiling frog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog)

Sure, mate. Keep writing 40 posts a day half of them spreading fud in the Bitcoin discussion section masked in dubious threads with pompous long-winded write-ups then tell me I need to learn to read.

Sorry to burst your little bubble.