Bitcoin Forum

Hello guys,

My understanding of crypto-currencies/Bitcoin is, I would say, intermediate. I need people to make me understand why my assumption that Bitcoin WILL disappear in mid-term and be replaced by another cryptocurrency/technology could be wrong.

Why am I making this assumption ?
If I am not mistaking, one of the main principle of the Bitcoin (and most crypto-currencies) is that you can't change how the technology / the blockchain / the crypto currency is made. Meaning that the Bitcoin that went out in 2009 is supposed to always be the same. (unless you make a Fork butt well, it seems like all forks will always be much smaller in Market Value than the original Bitcoin).

If technology stays the same forever, isn't it OBLIGATORY that another technology (and I mean by that, probably another cryptocurrency) will take the place of Bitcoin in the short/middle term ? Not sure if you know it, but if Bitcoin was a country, it would already be 71th in the world in electricity consumption ! Isn't the Bitcoin aim to be the world-decentralized money simply impossible due to the limitations of the technology?
It seems to me quite obvious that another crypto-money WAY less demanding in energy/electricity and also waayyyy faster with calculations should replace the Bitcoin in the future IF the Bitcoin technology isn't evolving.

English is my third language but I hope I am making sense.

I don't think so dude, bitcoin might stay in our world and it will not disappear. Bitcoin is just connected to the internet. And when the internet will die so as bitcoin. That would be the possible reason for the death of bitcoin not just it will just leave this world. Another way of dying is that when it will be delete by the maker, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bankers want you to think that blockchain is the new disruptive tech and bitcoin just an experiment.
Lightning Network will be massive, Kim dotcom's Bitcache will be massive, Bitcoin will last hundred of years.

I do not agree when you say technology stays the same, Bitcoin is making new improvements and still being the leader as segwit (many altcoins implement this) soon with LN which many altcoins will follow...It could be that another future better technology appears but as most alternatives its open source and can be improved. So I do not think it will dissapear in mid-term

I think this is where I do miss something here. Isn't the principle of Bitcoin (and most Cryptos) to never change the technology they start with ?
As Bitcoin technology is right now, it is IMPOSSIBLE that it accomplishes it's aim to be the decentralized money for the whole world it aims/dreams for. Because energetically speaking, the technology requires way way too much electricity/energy.

When Bitcoin technology want to be improved, it has to be done through a fork. (meaning Bitcoin always stays the same but any fork of Bitcoin can be improved when it comes to energy-consumption for example).
Am I wrong here ? BTC is actually constantly improving itself and it's technology ? I really fail to see how Bitcoin keeps evolving/improving as a technology. And thus, I really fail to see how a non-evolving technology could keep improving it's price.

@ xskl0 : Bitcoin will last hundred of years - Well, I actually believe you IF we talk about a crypto-currency that keeps evolving in technical terms. But if BTC as we know and HODL is not evolving any more, I am afraid you are wrong. It's obvious that similar crypto-currencies to BTC will improve what is, imho, the biggest problem of our beloved crypto : it's energy consumption.


Maybe my quite low technical understanding is having me writing wrong assumptions but I would really like to be proved wrong?

No.  The consensus rules of a blockchain are whatever people want it to be.  If consensus decides to support a newer chain which has altered consensus rules (which is what "technology" seems to mean to you in this case), then that chain will be regarded as "Bitcoin".

The original chain would not be changed in that scenario and if there was enough support for people to continue using it, they are more than welcome to continue using the chain with older technology.

For this to happen though and for there to be a "domino effect" where almost everyone is onto the new chain, almost everyone has to agree to switch to the new chain.  This will typically only happen if there is an urgent and important reason to do so, such as a major bug, but sometimes there may be something important enough that everyone agrees.

BTC has very active development from the Core team and a lot of other independent developers, so I don't see what makes a new coin which everyone actually has to actively sell their BTC for so important.

I think that electricity is not a matter of distress for BTC, because there are new renewable energy techniques that can decrease that problem. Now one think that can mingle with BTC is the advancement of technology, maybe there might be ways of disrupting the Blockchain in the future.
And I guess with the value that it will become stable, it will be a big value that will make you have satoshis divisibles, and with that BTC sustainability is guaranteed!

Well, nothing is impossible if we see the current progress of technology in the world. So for sure what you are saying makes sense, but for that we will of course need someone to come out with a brighter idea and a better technology than blockchain to take over the currency called the king of Crypto Currencies (Bitcoin). If in future, someone can successfully create a coin that would have the same features and more, then maybe people will think of switching to that coin, but by that time, i have no idea what the value of Bitcoin would be, and if it reaches very high, i'm sure people won't think of leaving it.

Really don't understand why these people wake up and come here to say it's going, it will go away. Get a life op, Bitcoin is here to stay, none of your reasons or words even make any sense. If you're not aware Bitcoin market cap has crossed Nike also. There's nothing that can stop Bitcoin from falling down, you're just wasting your time assuming things that's not going to happen, instead I would advise you to get your money in Bitcoins ans get rich. Electricity and Bitcoin hmm don't know what you're trying to connect but that's a flop try.

This is my first post with positive attitude. I dont agree with you my friend, you are telling that bitcoin will dissapear, which i think is not possible . The bitcoin is fully working on Internet and it is only possible for bitcoin to die only, if the internet die or almost dissapear then you can expect the bitcoin to dissappear otherwise not. The bitocin's Blockchain technology will also exists till the end of internet and i always feel positive about the bitcoin and also about the blockchain technology.

Your basic assumption is wrong. Out of Satoshi's code, only ~30% is present in Bitcoin's code today. There have been multiple changes and BIPs (Bitcoin Improvement Proposals) which have been implemented.The only issue is that consensus has to be developed for any change to be implemented.

the technology doesn't have to change, it doesn't have to not-change either. it can evolve and become better. you can think of it as improvement to match the new kind of demand. but it doesn't have to disappear in a short time just because it has changed or has not changed!

it is like saying the car you drive (the technology) should disappear after 10 years!
for example the first automobile was created in 1808 (209 years ago). for about 70 or so years things stayed the same and the next groundbreaking invention was in 1870 with the usage of internal combustion engines.

you can't say vehicle disappeared. the technology used in it was improved and we are still using the same but improved internal combustion engines that was invented in 1808!

bitcoin and the blockchain technology is the same as the 1808. it will be 100 years before someone comes up with something new to "replace" it as we have not yet replaced vehicles with teleportation devices ;)

Bitcoin cannot disappear in mid-term because it is the king of crypto currencies so far. It is build on a very solid foundation and I don't think any new coin will take the place of bitcoin anytime soon. There are hundreds of dozen projects and altcoins that have tried to do that for quite some time now and they have not succeeded. These coins are not as safe as bitcoin is because the community behind them is not as big as it is in bitcoin.

Bitcoin will never disappear or be replaced not even by a long shot. The demand for bitcoin is really high and that alone is more than enough to ensure bitcoin stays alive and the demand will just keep increasing as more people gets to know about bitcoin.

I am trying to understand things better - not very much interested in non-constructive posts by what seems to be a very angered and uninteresting forum-member. Thank god, most other comments in here are so far interesting and productive. With your exception obv.

For this to happen there's needs to be a alt coin which actually improves upon Bitcoin. There's not many out there which are unique and most are just direct copies of litcoin and bitcoin.

Thank you.
And thank you to most comments, which are really helpful and interesting. I think you exactly point out something that I seemed to not understand yet.

- When you speak about the BTC Active Development team, we are speaking about https://bitcoinfoundation.org right ? Who is behind the Core Team?
And basically, the forks are happening when a big part of the community is not agreeing with part one or another development made by them ?
And thus, my assumption that Bitcoin technology is not evolving is completely wrong?
And, for example, I guess that the energy-consumption problem is something that they actively always try to find solutions about / make evolve in the good direction.

Bitcoin has already changed. The segwit thing that was activated this summer wasn't in satoshi's whitepaper - which means the current bitcoin is very different from the one that was launched in 2009.

Bitcoincash is similar to the bitcoin of 2009, except it has 8 mg blocks.

I think you will find that there is NO coin in the cryptocurrency space that is identical to what was launched in 2009 by satoshi.

This is good point, you are right but I also would like to open another page to change how we are looking to the ecosystem. The technology will not change and the philosophy as well but even we get closer to the planned distribution or amount of bitcoin produced, each day mining gets harder and harder.

Technology is supposed to be updated, that is why bitcoin undergone several forks to meet the needs of the other end.  The purpose might probably will be unchanged but the codes that compose bitcoin does need improvement.


Indeed, technology need to evolve while leaving the philosophy behind Bitcoin intact :)

Very interesting. Didn't know about BIPs. Then I understand the importance of a consensus. And that a non-consensus situation over any BIPs can basically lead to a fork.

BUT. Who are responsible for these consensus ? That's something I also fail to understand.

And, another question though. Am I wrong thinking that the biggest challenge of Bitcoin devs now is to make Bitcoin less energy-consuming ?
Am I wrong thinking that Bitcoin as it is now would be FAR from capable of handling the decentralized exchanges of even ''only'' a single Occidental 20 million people country , if, tomorrow, such a country would decide to uniquely use Bitcoin.

my understanding is that the technology isn't the same always; there are improvements and updates that can be made without altering the main currency.

Now there is no technology that can replace traditional sources of electricity. All cryptocurrencies require a large amount of electricity for operation of equipment. Price in all countries electricity is different. If you need to destroy the cryptocurrency it can be done with the help of energy suppliers. They can make it so that mining is not profitable.

Technology isn't the only consideration though. You also have to consider the userbase, the ease of use, and the general acceptance, all of which bitcoin just has a really huge lead on. It might happen down the road, but there are already altcoins better than it and they can't even touch it. This won't happen anytime soon.

The people who are behind the Bitcoin Core team are listed here (https://bitcoincore.org/en/team/).  Bitcoin Core is the reference client for BTC and is currently used by about 75% of listening nodes (https://coin.dance/nodes).  Note that listening nodes do not make up 100% of nodes.

Anyone can contribute to Bitcoin Core, but of course the contributions that they accept are typically going to be the ones which align with the main developers' viewpoints, which is why it's important to note that anyone can develop their own client and get people to run it, hence why there are many active developers other than Bitcoin Core.
Yes.  Usually the forks we are talking about are forks of the Bitcoin Core software in which people are taking the Bitcoin Core software and altering it to suit their preferences.  Of course they have to garner a lot of support for their alteration, otherwise the fork does not become relevant.  There are other forks including unintentional ones, but the ones we are talking about are intentional.
Yes, IMO.
Yes, and altcoins are certainly providing interesting solutions as well, such as Proof of Stake and NEM's Proof of Importance system.  As of yet, it seems that the BTC community and developers do not yet think they're secure enough or good enough to replace the current Proof of Work system, and the Proof of Work system may be hard to remove because it would render billions of dollars worth of mining equipment obsolete.

Bitcoin term will never dissapear, looking at all cryptocurrencies and bitcoin, bitcoin is the most stable, most popular and most expensive virtual currency, other cryptocurrencies can dissapear very easy but not bitcoin, bitcoin just found his way in this world, bitcoin just started his destination.

Bitcoin is a convenient thing to take and disappear. And its technology is very modern. As long as the Internet exists, bitcoin will live and prosper, and these are not tales, but real facts. It will not disappear so easily (neither the Internet nor bitcoin). Bitcoin is the basis of the basics of all crypto currency, and hardly any coin can surpass it.

Your basic idea is right of technology not evolving in bitcoin. But there is no real reason for bitcoin not being able to stand several decades.
There is no kind of "technology" used in bitcoin which cant be "updated" without forking.
Even if a fork would be required, if there is a good reason to make these changes to the original bitcoin, this would be a good option since you can still
reach the majority of the userbase to make it rise and rise and make bitcoin fall.
Therefore if a fork is required it can easily be "swapped over" to a new forked coin.

All countries conduct research and development for reducing energy consumption. Heavy duty supercomputer consumes energy about 1 megawatt. in terms of its performance it is approximately equal to the human brain. For processing the same amount of information our brain spends 10-30 watts. Imagine what the prospects for science! We will see a continual increase of computing power while reducing energy consumption. Bitcoin will live.

I have no reason to think that the Bitcoins will disappear. The only thing I can see to lose the bitcoins is that the founder of this founder knows that we only know the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Even the government can not break it because it is decentralized. And we can not manipulate it because of its price. So while we live the Bitcoins are still there

They have been saying this for the last 5 years at least!

How long is "mid term" 10 years, 100 years?

The electricity consumption is high, because the difficulty is high and the amount of hashing power needed to hash it, is also very

high. So let's say another technology takes the crown, because it is more energy efficient.. then miners will flock to that technology

and the difficulty of Bitcoin will drop.. making it more energy efficient again. The difficulty of the other Alt coin will go through the

roof and it's difficulty will also increase. { It cannot stay the same }  ;)