transition to bitcoin successor

[darsie]

btc have some flaws (block chain processing is too difficult, scales badly; anonymity not so great; too much energy wasted for block confirmation), so I'm wondering how the transition from btc to it's successor will be.

If it's btc related maybe there could be a conversion of btc to the new currency. Otherwise I guess ppl will just sell their btc and btc will become worthless.

[ab8989]

I have no idea what kind of conversion you think could be technically and economically possible rather than selling their BTC.
If you come up with some other idea how the conversion could technically work ( like destroying the BTC by sending them to a random address in order to achieve new kind of coins ) I think that would be even more drastical because if people are willing to destroy their BTC in order to jump to some other currency, it means that BTC has already lost itst value. If the conversion happens by selling it means that BTC still has value and everything is fine in BTCland. Just the one user have just switched priorities. If on the other hand everybody agrees that BTCv1 must go and BTCv2 is the future, then BTCv1 must become worthless so that it does not threaten BTCv2. How to guarantee BTCv1 becoming worthless is however another highly nontrivial problem. I think.

[WikileaksDude]

btc have some flaws (block chain processing is too difficult, scales badly; anonymity not so great; too much energy wasted for block confirmation), so I'm wondering how the transition from btc to it's successor will be.

If it's btc related maybe there could be a conversion of btc to the new currency. Otherwise I guess ppl will just sell their btc and btc will become worthless.

You are just saying random things.. "anonymity not so great", "too much energy wasted for block confirmation" what are talking about?

[ZodiacDragon84]

What Dafuq did I just read here???
1. How do you figure processing is too difficult?
2. The anonymity is only as good as YOU, the user, makes it.
3. What energy is wasted for block confirmations? If your computer is already on and idle, you have wasted no more energy than you would have otherwise.

[ab8989]

Some cryptocurrency could provide better anonymity solution, so that the USER does not have to think about it at all. If it is left up to users to figure out and add steps to their normal lives in order to achieve sufficient level of anonymity, then that means that the solutions offered so far are not that good. All the need to create more addresses and pass coins around to hide your ass are indications that the anonymity is not 100% great.

[ZodiacDragon84]

Some cryptocurrency could provide better anonymity solution, so that the USER does not have to think about it at all. If it is left up to users to figure out and add steps to their normal lives in order to achieve sufficient level of anonymity, then that means that the solutions offered so far are not that good. All the need to create more addresses and pass coins around to hide your ass are indications that the anonymity is not 100% great.

You can use one address, and remain anonymous It is no different than going to Wal Mart and paying cash at the self checkout in a different town. Users are responsible for their own anonymity in that situation as well. As the software development community says, you can program an idiot proof program, but the world will just make better idiots.

[ab8989]

Yes, I agree that there are problems in also in other systems.
However I am very much in the opinion that everything can be improved and once you think that you have achieved a perfect solution, you stagnate and will get overrun.
I believe using one address and stay anonymous is viable only if you are not conducting much business with it. Once you start using it heavily with hundreds of counterparties every week you cannot be sure any more that you are going to stay anonymous.

[ZodiacDragon84]

True, However, that is the case with most any Payment solution I have seen.

[Endgame]

While I agree that there will one day be a successor to bitcoin, I think that day is a LONG way off. The adaptable nature of bitcoin, the fact that it was the first of its kind, and the lack of any real competitors in the market mean that you do not need to worry about the transition process anytime soon.

[ZodiacDragon84]

While I agree that there will one day be a successor to bitcoin, I think that day is a LONG way off. The adaptable nature of bitcoin, the fact that it was the first of its kind, and the lack of any real competitors in the market mean that you do not need to worry about the transition process anytime soon.

Well spoken. The Dev. Team is constantly working to improve the client.

[hamdi]

it will be like when bittorrent came out to succeed kazaa/limewire/gnutella protocols.

still enough people will stick to the old shit!

[Kazimir]

btc have some flaws (block chain processing is too difficult,

utter nonsense

scales badly;

utter nonsense

anonymity not so great;

utter nonsense

too much energy wasted for block confirmation

As explained in the Bitcoin Myths FAQ, in terms of energy usage, Bitcoin is actually more efficient than any other currency or commodity.
So: utter nonsense.

Sorry sir but you seem to miss the point

[evoorhees]

So Bitcoin works beautifully in so many ways, but because you think it's not perfect, you'd rather start from scratch than continue building?

No system is perfect, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the amazing. Also, what you said about scalability and resource consumption is nonsense

[darsie]

btc have some flaws (block chain processing is too difficult,

> utter nonsense

scales badly;

> utter nonsense

When I fired up bitcoin-qt first it took about 24h to d/l and process the block chain. I read that it's very disk intensive, so I temporarily put .bitcoin in a ram disk. Was still slow. Then I configured it to start automatically at boot. It hogged my system so much that I removed it from the autostart applications. Now I start it, when I need it and then it takes very long to catch up. If btc was as widespread as paypal, I'm pretty sure it would not catch up at all. But IMHO there are plans to address this issue, when it's getting necessary.

anonymity not so great;

> utter nonsense

I haven't dealt with btc anonymity so far, but I read due the public transaction history mixing is required for anonymity. This seems to work, or ppl would not be able to buy illegal drugs on silk road, but it is still awkward, and requires a trusted mixer, or a chain of mixers.

too much energy wasted for block confirmation

As explained in the Bitcoin Myths FAQ, in terms of energy usage, Bitcoin is actually more efficient than any other currency or commodity.
> So: utter nonsense.

That others are worse doesn't mean btc doesn't waste energy. From https://blockchain.info/stats I figured the hashing network uses 13 MW continuously. I would have guesstimated it to be more efficient, like 2 MW, but that's really a wild guess. I believe making an anonymous digital currency is tricky, but I'm not convinced there is no more efficient way. For instance, the block reward could be much lower, then ppl wouldn't throw so much electric/computing power at it. Maybe we need a supply of btc to keep the market fluent. There could be other ways to generate them.

> Sorry sir but you seem to miss the point

But that's entirely not the point. Even if I'm wrong with some of my points, I still believe btc will be superseded by something and the topic here is if that necessarily requires all the bitcoins to lose their value and if people will suffer financial loss from this.

[DannyHamilton]

If you come up with some other idea how the conversion could technically work ( like destroying the BTC by sending them to a random address in order to receive a new kind of coins ) I think that would be even more drastic because if people are willing to destroy their BTC in order to jump to some other currency, it means that BTC has already lost its value.

If the conversion happens by selling it means that BTC still has value and everything is fine in BTCland. Just that one user has switched priorities.

I think you have this backwards.  If there is a newer, and much better, currency that everybody wants, then many people will want to sell their BTC to get the new currency.  Nobody will want to buy the BTC.  Why would anyone want to buy an inferior outdated currency that most people don't want to use anymore.  With lots of people selling lots of BTC, and very few people (if any) wanting to buy it the value will quickly drop and everybody will be left holding worthless currency.

On the other hand, if the new currency is directly connected to BTC, and you can instantly convert any amount of BTC to a matching amount of the new currency simply by sending the BTC to a "BTC destruction address", then BTC will still have value (a value exactly equal to a matching amount of BTCv2).  People will be willing to buy or receive BTC, because they know exactly how much BTCv2 they can get by sending to the destruction address without any fear of loss of value.

If on the other hand everybody agrees that BTCv1 must go and BTCv2 is the future, then BTCv1 must become worthless so that it does not threaten BTCv2. How to guarantee BTCv1 becoming worthless is however another highly nontrivial problem. I think.

If BTCv2 is determined to be objectively better than BTCv1, then there is no reason to be concerned about BTCv1 threatening BTCv2.  Even so, by creating a fee free one way conversion that destroys the BTCv1 coins in the process of creating BTCv2 coins, the BTCv1 supply will dwindle over time while the BTCv2 supply grows.

[PinkyPie]

Bitcoin is always evolving. Considering how much network effect Bitcoin has, it draws the most developers who in turn will make it better. Any competing crypto currency will have to offer something bitcoin simply can not (what would that be anyway?)

Bitcoin is just a baby, but it will grow up strong.

[Monkey1]

Otherwise I guess ppl will just sell their btc and btc will become worthless.

I don't see how this will make bitching worthless? For someone to sell btw it needs someone to buy it, therefore it will have a value.  If there are more sellers than buyers the price will go down.  If it is worthless, you couldn't give it away, so you wouldn't be selling it!

[wareen]

Bitcoin can facilitate near-perfect anonymity and sooner or later someone will write an anonymity-centric client which makes it easier for the average user to protect their financial privacy. No need for a whole new currency.

You might want to rethink your idea with lowering the block reward in order to gain energy efficiency. Once you realize why this wouldn't work you might also see that it's not that easy to do something about it, as long as you're not willing to trade security for some form of more centralized control.

Scalability: use Electrum, MultiBit or wait for one of the various scalability improvements for Bitcoin.

And to answer your question: any protocol for a new kind of cryptocurrency could easily recognize Bitcoins sent to certain destruction-addresses as valid new coins. In fact, that might be a wise choice because by doing that it would surely be considered much more openly by the current Bitcoin community.

But again: most of your perceived flaws of Bitcoin can easily be solved without needing to change the protocol. You might want to read up on some of the many ongoing developments to address these issues within Bitcoin.

[ZodiacDragon84]

Bitcoin can facilitate near-perfect anonymity and sooner or later someone will write an anonymity-centric client which makes it easier for the average user to protect their financial privacy. No need for a whole new currency.

Using plug ins for firefox or the Comodo browser goes a long way towards protecting your privacy. Throw in the use of TOR browser, and that makes you damn hard to find. If you really want to screw with things, use an open WiFI portal to mask your assumed loctaion with the above mentioned methods.

[Etlase2]

Although only a proposal at this point, Decrits addresses many of your concerns.

By using an account ledger in lieu of a transaction ledger, transactions have a maximum size of half to one-third that of the smallest bitcoin transaction size, but many will be a quarter or less the size of a typical bitcoin transaction.
By separating coin creation from network security, no energy (other than tx verification) need be wasted in protecting the network. Additionally, only a small portion of new coins are minted by miners, the rest are given freely to people who save and transact. This is part of the solution to making an inflationary currency possible.
Due to the account ledger instead of transaction ledger, individual coins can't be tracked, only accounts. While this doesn't immediately add anonymity, it makes coin mixers significantly simpler.

See sig for the link.