Bitcoin Forum

If you have watched any of Roger Ver's videos or debates, you will find that he repeats this comparison between BTC and BCash like a parrot. BTC = Slow / Expensive & unreliable and BCash is Fast / Cheap & reliable. <over and over and over again>

Everyone that can use some common sense, will know that BTC is in a transition phase to a more efficient and fast and cheap network. This is called the Lightning Network.

BCash supporters like Roger Ver, have to emphasize the difference, because that is their current sales pitch for Bcash.

They will never acknowledge the fact that the Lightning Network is a much better solution than simply increasing Block sizes. <Bigger Blocks = Centralization>

Once the Lightning Network is implemented and the scaling debate is laid to rest, we will have to add that as a slogan -- Bitcoin - The Real Fast/Cheap/Reliable Bitcoin.  ^lol^

Well they kind of have to. Strike while the iron is hot, as they say. Bitcoin is probably at its most vulnerable right now, and this might be their only chance to win converts. Him and Jihan Wu are also in a race against time to squeeze all that they can from Bitcoin Cash before the Lightning Network completely renders it obsolete. I just hope the Lightning Network really works that well, and that it arrives soon. Things are really getting out of hand.

You are sharing the concerns of a lot of people and I hope the Lightning Network developers realize what big responsibility they have on their shoulders with this project. A lot of hopes and dreams rest on the success of this project.

Let's hope the implementation of SegWit will ease the pain, until the LN takes affect. ^smile^

lightning network also requires a fast and cheaper on chain transactions otherwise opening and closing the channel is going to cost a lot of money.
I disagree that saying with saying "Bigger Blocks = Centralization". there is always a middle ground that we can follow. it doesn't have to be increase to 8 MB and it doesn't have to be staying at 1 MB.

with that said I am very excited and scared about the future of bitcoin for now. with the speed that SegWit adoption has, you can expect LN to have somewhat similar speed. the same services like Coinbase that are blocking SegWit will also block LN. and it may even take a year to reach an acceptable adoption level.

also as far as bitcoin cash goes, I give it a year tops. there are a couple of scenarios that I imagine can happen to it:
it will grow bigger and may increase in price a lot (because how bitcoin is struggling). it will be adopted more just as bitpay said they will support it in their platform soon. and as that happens the blocks reach a fuller state and eventually BCH will be exactly where bitcoin is right now with a lot of angry disappointed people and services. at that time you can't fork to bigger blocks while the blockchain is >500 GB anymore and if they try to implement SegWit + LN or anything remotely similar they announce their failure.
by then bitcoin has its LN up and running and there is no point in using BCH anymore. in any case there is only death for BCH.

actually, the lightning network is made Bitcoin centralized although we can choose whether we want to use Lightning Network or not. honestly, I can't understand why you saying "Bigger blocks = centralized", we can't judge the decentralized thing by a blocks size.

And it's good to add that time is already ticking against BCash supporters.
From what I've read in the news (https://news.bitcoin.com/first-real-bitcoin-lightning-network-payment-completed-via-bitrefill/) the first Lightning Network transactions were successfully completed on main network (not on testnet!).
Now let's see how quick the companies adopt it, since I've also read that some unexpected companies have Ver as shareholder and/or adviser.

not true.
I am not an expert in lightning network but from what I can see it is a decentralized network no matter what the competitors have been saying on the internet. it uses the same technologies that are currently available in bitcoin such as the scripts and timelock transactions. and you can still run a hub (even now to try and contribute by finding bugs) and when people use LN, you earn fees.

I completely agree that a small increase may be beneficial as a middle ground, especially in cases like now where immediate relief would go a very long way, but the OP was talking about Bitcoin Cash supporters in this context. As far as I know, their idea of addressing the scalability issue is to increase the block size as needed. I've even seen arguments floating around that continuously increasing block size is sustainable. That can't be good for decentralization.

Lightning Networks will help bitcoin to become to stay at the top and it helps the clients to transact easily and fast. The most awaiting solution for the people who are complaining with the charges.
Bitcoin will now proves that it will stay on the top, in contrast to what some critics said.

LN will be fast, but it is not clear that it will be reliable or cheap. The complexity, availability, and reliability of the connection might make it difficult to make a transaction. It is possible that opening and closing a channel could be very expensive.

I think it's time for a new Crypto Currency to arise and replace Bitcoin. It has become way too expensive and slow for now. We need something faster, cheaper and more reliable.

LN can't come soon enough. Judging from the testnet clients there's still quite some work to be done, but once the kinks have been worked out things should get interesting.



The clock is definitely ticking for BCH right now.

Short to mid-term I can imagine BCH getting scarily close to BTC in terms of market cap.

Long term I don't see much of a future in it: Either BCH becomes the victim of its own scaling approach, or people lose interest due to all the other shiny alts promising riches and scalability.



Note that SegWit blocks can effectively reach up to 4 MB in size. That's kind of a middle ground.



SegWit adoption has indeed been underwhelming, to say the least. If SegWit were more widespread we probably wouldn't even discuss Bitcoin's scalability issues right now. Here's hoping that LN will see a better launch.