Bitcoin Forum

Hello everyone.

Before starting with the topic I would like to clarify something: my account was hacked a while ago and recovering it was practically impossible since I had no BTC address on the signature. So, that's why I had to open a new one, I haven't done it before simply because I didn't need it, I have been away for a long time but I was here by the time Bitcoin was worth about $500 or even before that. I've become interested on it back then and started to collect them from faucets. Not long after that I started to collect other cryptos from faucets. I've seem Bitcoin and the others to evolve over these last years and frankly speaking it's a kind of sad to see the current status of the Bitcoin.

Now, moving to the point I should explain first why I think that Bitcoin is dead as a currency. Well, the reason it's quite simple: moving Bitcoin around had become very very expensive. There are two main reasons for that. The first one is inflation, currently at the time of writing Bitcoin's price is around $8000, that's quite high. If I remember correctly the network fee for standard transaction used to be between BTC0.0001-BTC0.0004 that would be worth now between $0.84 and $3.37 that's a bit far away from "low fees" that the original presentation video mentioned (https://youtu.be/Um63OQz3bjo?t=16s). On top of that there is the other reason which is network congestion. Take a look at https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/ it shows the number of transactions in the mempool. Well, I must admit that it looks much better than the last time I checked it, which is a relief, but my point is still valid, the recommended fee for a standard size transaction at the time of writing is 130 satoshi per byte which roughly translates to BTC0.0003. That's $2.53 for a single transaction, which means that if what you want to purchase has a price of $1 you will end up paying $3.53 due to the transaction cost. That renders Bitcoin almost unusable (but it was much much worse the last time I checked), of course there are transactions off the blockchain via wallets like Coinbase and Xapo, but using those it's not the as using BTC, because they are centralized, so you lose the main point of using a cryptocoin.

As a closing I would like to share with you a picture which illustrates how I felt when I was about to exchange my altcoin dust and discovered that BTC price was over $10000 https://imgur.com/a/JaKkV

Lol @ the Mr. Robot reference!

In a nutshell, you should consider creating a SegWit-enabled address and start using it to transact bitcoins. I've sent several super-low transaction fees for my past several payments, mainly to test the network... And they've all cleared within the first few blocks after initiating the transactions.

26sat/byte: https://blockchain.info/tx/c46fd90647cc0c1071339e2b09c1643b8574487c0cdd7014b34b4bf50068f76a
15sat/byte: https://blockchain.info/tx/1c925686d899759c0793ac51e75eb634f8dbfeb01b3628bfdfb55dfbed34ee6a

As SegWit-enabled wallets become more commonly adopted by Bitcoin users, it should help with the network congestion. While the effects are pretty minuscule now, I can only imagine what would happen if the large exchanges like Coinbase and Bitfinex and Binance were to implement SegWit wallets...

As far as how "dead" it is as a currency? I pay my rent monthly with Bitcoin. I top up my phone with Bitcoin. I purchase food at restaurants (locally here in Belize, of all places) with Bitcoin. I use it on a regular basis, so I don't know about you, but I'm using Bitcoin as it was originally intended. Yes, I absolutely believe that the fees can and should be lower, but I assure you that it is alive and well, my friend. :)

Oh, and welcome back to the forums. Congrats on your new find!

I believe Bitcoin will move on as community's demands. The network is now much better with all the new technologies available right now.

I'm glad to hear that BTC is still being used as a currency but. What do you mean by "SetWit-enabled address"? Do you mean moving to a Bitcoin fork?

Please see https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segregated_Witness.

I don't think that the speculation is true or has enough basis to tell that. We have been 9 years  here and we are still existing and the demand is really increasing more so I don't think that it will be dead. A lot of bluff speculations will really circulate the forum and around the internet don't believe, just believe in  what we are believing and that is bitcoin will worth holding at.

Not much moving with Bitcoin and still the miner fees are ten times more than anywhere else
and we have discovered that the Lightning network is a thinly disguised system of banking with
all its new fees.

Yes we are being scammed and the apple has gone rotten but hang in until the price hits zero
for me since I took the time to read the writing on the wall.

What are you talking mate? Are you asking him to move on?  What the relation with dead currency?
However, move on is always need if we do something wrong because by moving on, we can learn from it

I agree that bitcoin is currently dead as a currency, but it doesn't have to be a currency in the first place. It is perfectly fine as a commodity, or an investment method as well. There are countless other coins out there which are very fast and have low transaction fees.

All coins serve different purposes and I'm perfectly fine with bitcoin not being a currency, i.e. a mode of daily payment.

The points you made as the reasons why you conclude that bitcoin is dead from where I see it can be summarised into two which are the price of bitcoin at $8000 and the transaction fee which is not sustainable for transferring small amount.

On the first, as the high price of bitcoin, a lot of people would disagree including me because that amount you quoting is a crash from the all time high of above $19000 and at that point a lot of people still got in which would made me conclude that the high price is based on your status and not the general feel of the market which in turn cannot be relied on as a basis to declare bitcoin dead.

On the other concerning high transaction fee, it's practically the same thing with the bank because you can transfer 1$ equivalent from one account to another in the same bank without any fee, you can't do that to other banks as the fee would be more than that which is what the Xapo and Paxful etc that allows you transfer across their platform with little or not fee. Again, tell me how possible using the bank to transfer $2500 dollar equivalent across the world and pay less than $20 as at this day. Even though its not perfect, but its still way better.

I am also worried about the money invested in Bitcoins mainly for safety aspect. Have tried to diversify by buying from different exchanges so that I do not loose all at same time.

No. All it means is that you use a wallet that's SegWit-enabled. Considering the nature of the question you just asked, it's highly doubtful that you have any hardware or cold wallets... So I will recommend the SegWit wallet that I've been using.

GreenAddress: https://greenaddress.it/

It's available for PC or Mac (via the Chrome browser/extension), iPhone and Android

The biggest "inconvenience" is just having to switch your Bitcoin address. GreenAddress uses change-addresses, as well, which I believe is the most secure practice that you can have for accepting Bitcoin.

Look into it, and start doing some research about SegWit.

If you have bought as much bitcoin that makes you worry about the investment, first go and buy a hardware wallet (Trezor or Ledger Nano S) and transfer your bitcoin to the hardware wallet. Don't store your coins on the exchange, unless you want to trade with all of them. It's always better to diversify but that doesn't mean that to diversify between exhanges. Paper wallet is also OK but it needs some reading but hardware wallets work  out of the box.
To be ontopic a bit:
It seemed to be dead as a currency at last Christmas, but since the price and the tx fee has fallen and now if you use SegWit address, you can manage to send your transactions with reasonable fees. If you have time, you can try lower fees too like 10 sat/B, because I think the ViaBTC accelerator is running empty these days... so if your 10 sat/B transaction won't confirm in a few hours, you can still try to accelerate it.
On the long run, wait a bit until Lightning network gets widespread and the micro transactions (coffee, newspaper, etc) will run with fees close to zero. Devs needs some time but fortunately now the network is better than in December 2017.

Segwit is the best solution right now, when you use a segwit enabled address, fees will not be a big problem. Though, not many wallets support it.
OP, if you knew about Bitcoin for long time as you said, you can't say it is dead. All problems will be solved and Bitcoin will rise again.

Even though there are other coins out there that are fast and have low transaction fees, they still can’t be used as a currency because of the lack of adoption. They can't be used that much except for trading since not many platforms accept these coins and it's not yet widely used. Once they get adopted, their transaction fees will start to increase as well just like what happened with bitcoin. Bitcoin has other uses aside from being a currency which cannot be realized for now.

Bitcoin is very new to the people that use regular money. I think that Bitcoin will get purchased more when it's on the news more often.

How is Bitcoin better than something like Cash App or Venmo?

Based on what I am seeing around now, Bitcoin is getting more popular than before and was being used by stores as a form of payment. There are disadvantages though like volatility, slow transactions and high fees which there is still a chance to solve and improve it. It's understandable that not all merchants can support BTC as a form of payment but I know little by little some of them are able to accept it too once Bitcoin is being recognized by many because these merchants will definitely follow the trend and convenience of their customers. So for me bitcoin is NOT DEAD as a currency as it is still being used by others.

The recommended fee is not permanent to 130 sat/byte but I agree that it's still high but you have the option to send lower fees if you want to save. I sent a transaction yesterday 30 sat/byte miner fee (678 satoshis) and it got confirmed in less than 10 minutes.  I don't know if i'm lucky or not with that transaction but still I don't think bitcoin is dead in terms of being a currency. I always use transaction fees lower than the recommended amount and i'm not even using a segwit address what more if I started using one.

    I think bitcoin is not yet dead as currency because even it drop it's price it is still has a value. It is still use as payments. There is still a lot of demand and supply in the matket. There is still investors that always think possitive about the future of bitcoin. And because of a new technology bitcoin will remain currency because i believe more people will continue to adopt it

Those who do not believe in earning money on crypto-currency are better off not investing in it at all.