I love bitcoin... But...

I think Bitcoin is a great cryptocurrency. I think it has innovation and is way better than many of the pump and dumps following it, however I do have trust in Litecoin also. This post may be controversial but I feel I must air my view and I am sure many repeat it, some will agree and disagree, that's fine but I must say it...

This entire block size issue has grown serious. If one even hopes to solve the scaling issue, there must be consensus. My humble opinion feels that segwit is the best option. All well and good having unlimited block sizes until you have a transaction quantity the size of visa or mastercard and if 1 MB blocks allow around 7? transactions a second, purists will never be able to get widespread adoption without stalling. So no hope of widespread adoption if we follow the 'pure' 1MB blocks route.

If we have a one time increase, its pushing the problem forward until its harder to fix due to a wider userbase. If we have unlimited blocksizes, then the block propagation times will be insane. 100 times the current amount would be 100MB blocks, or 700 transactions a second by my calculations. It nowhere near dents visa or mastercard even there.

All of these are hard forks.

Then you have segwit which adds another layer on top allowing lightning networks or other payment channels. This adds a small increase in blocksize. This is also a soft fork. A Soft Fork. And is adding the best solution yet to the scalability problem by allowing off chain yet secure payment channels which can be pushed to the blockchain if needed. Older nodes can still spend coins they have or that are sent to them. Yes it is tricking older nodes a bit but...

As bitcoin gains widespread adoption, this needs fixing NOW. Not tomorrow, not when its already too late and the userbase is too large. It must be fixed. How can we hope to have widespread adoption with 1MB blocks. One time increases are a Band-Aid. Segwit in my opinion solves this problem. The price increases are lovely, but if it becomes unusable and the chain stalls due to transaction demands... This could set it back a long way. Enough arguing, enough of this rubbish about profits being harmed etc(aimed at some larger pools), there wont be any profits to harm if it crashes due to chain stalling. Burying head in the sand is fine, but it does not stop you drowning when the tide comes in!

If blocks are kept as 1MB, it may become a store of value like gold for serious investors, but never a widespread payment currency. No, segwit is not perfect. But I feel that segwit is the best solution, based on the information above if we wish to use it for payment solution. Or people run the risk of being like people stuck in the 1970s not wanting world change. Things have to move onwards and upwards.

Now we get onto Litecoin. This unlike many altcoins has not been a pump and dump but rightly holds silver to BTC gold. Price has been quite low but STABLE* compared to many crapcoins. Crapcoins bug me enough that I made my own coin, BST (bullshit) and people were already wanting it on an exchange to trade the damn thing but it was fun and I am quite pleased many were mining it for fun as that is all it was and it was fun!

Litecoin I have half of my mining profits paid as on prohashing. I feel that if Litecoin implements segwit first it may 1. Show bitcoin community that it works and 2. Litecoin could be used for general day to day transactions like shopping while BTC is reserved for the larger ones. This is kind of where I feel it could go if Litecoin gains consensus for segwit. If Litecoin does it opens many doors for it, even if not it is a second chain. A potential market backup if something went wrong with Bitcoin's. All eggs in one basket is not a good move.

I have many earnings from clients in both LTC and BTC and use a bitcoin debit card which also I can shapeshift LTC to it if I need to.

I have carefully spent ages reading on solutions from all developers for Bitcoin, and I feel that the core team may not have a perfect solution, but in my eyes it makes sense, in a nutshell because.

1. Keeping blocks at 1 MB will forever wall bitcoin off from being a payment currency for the wider world without great effort. Rules out purists if bitcoin has a future.

2. One time increase is a Band-Aid, same problem as above. Hard fork would again be required later.

3. Unlimited blocks or blocks larger than say 8MB will increase propagation times to stupid amounts as adoption increases, and don't count on mores law to save you with traditional storage devices, something has to give.

4. Segwit is not a perfect solution and as a soft fork involves 'lying' to old nodes in a way. But it is a soft fork so less risky than a hard fork and allows bi directional payment channels, and those purists may still spend coins as they always did without using them should they wish! Yes it may have some stuff to iron out based on what I have read, but I do not see a better solution. I have spent weeks waiting this out and frustration at the sheer lack of consensus.

This is the reason I solo mine as well, because I do not want a pool to decide, I want to decide. No I have not found a block yet and have thrown away electricity, but what Bitcoin could hold for humanity if properly treated is insanely positive.

There is also one last thing. HAVE SOLO MINING ON YOUR OWN NODE AS A FINAL BACKUP FAILOVER IN YOUR MINERS. For the love of the divine creator (pagans) god all mighty (Christians) Allah (muslims) Buddha (Buddhists) etc etc (I am pagan)... I cant emphasize this enough... A DDoS on even a few major pools could spell disaster. Seriously, it could. 9 to 10 pools to DDoS and you stall the chain. Nothing a large botnet could not accomplish. Bitcoin is weak because of this and would not be difficult for a well resourced attacker who had no financial risk in bitcoin to do. At least in this case, you can failover and blocks still get solved by miners who may have otherwise been in a pool, transactions still get propagated and as a result some miners would even get lucky and it is a win win all round. 50PH of miners for example, one or more of those would most likely find blocks as they would have done in the pool. This really is another issue I rarely find discussed. And CK Pool solo could make a great backup and I have some miners there, and more reliable than many nodes but even if you mine there, for a FINAL backup, your own node without the IP address published everywhere. They can DDoS major pools, but cant take down every single node like a shot in the dark.

Maybe another solution would be to have many smaller but still sizable pools, why are some miners mining on antpool for example when there are other smaller ones like johnnys pool? I like Kanos pool also even though I disagree with him on the block size and segwit, it is a small pool compared to many others and many small pools that still have good variance reduction are better than a few large ones for network security and he puts quite a lot of work into his pool. Yes it means delayed gratification on showing earnings on a pool like johnnys, but still its good

This is part rant, part venting, part stating my opinion and part showing my concern for something that has the potential to help so many people and wrestle power back from the powers that were and into the hands of the people. Can the people handle this yet? We will find out. And for the above reasons, I have 50/50 in BTC/LTC. Both currencies have a future and a place, but LTC seems to have its boots on the ground trying to solve this more than major pools are on BTC. Both can co exist, like visa, mastercard and amex do. There are many developers contributing to Bitcoin and that is good. I personally feel the Core team has the best solution at present as it is the only one that makes sense in my own mind, not just NOW but in the Future. The clock is ticking though to get a solution out there.

Note, I am not taking a dig at anyone, just giving my opinion. If I have any facts wrong feel free to correct me, but no one can deny some of the issues I have bought up!