Why i think Bitcoin will ultimately change or fail: Speed of evolution

[BNO]

One thing about bitcoin i think a lot is this: Its amazing how far bitcoin has come, but how you want to build a payment system for the entire world with maybe 15 Programmers working fulltime on it?

To put this number in perspective: facebook does nothing important for the human race, its just a place to post your drunk pictures from last nights parrty and of course cat videos. And Facebook had at end of 2013 6000 employees. At the End of 2014 9200. Just the increase from one year to another ist 200fold what bitcoin has as developers. So 15 programmers for the global payment network and 9000 for cat videos.

In the global financial industry hundred of thousands of people work just in the payment processing area, not consulting, not personal wealth just payment processing. How will bticoin be able to compete in the future, when it is not in Beta anymore and is moving trillions of dollars per day? How sophisticated will attacks become when that kind of sums are on the table? How the secure a network againgst that attacks with 15 full time Programmers?

You probably remember the Malleability issue some time ago. Mike Hearn said, that they had been discussing this specific topic for 2 years before the actual attacks, but they couldn't do anything about it because the had even more urgent things on the list to do (!).

Edit So i didn't mean donations. I meant more that in the protocoll something is implemented that every hour you hold btc a really tiny fraction (so for 1 whole year it is 1%)  is taken and sent to a special adress. This "honey pot" would then be the money for development. Of course there would have to be mechanism to check how the many is spent? A lot of ideas come to mind how to do this. But for now just more how it would play out financial wise:
Even with current rather low BTC prices and a "market cap" of aprox. 3 billion $, with this 1% fee you would be able to collect 30 Mio $/per Year. With lets say cost for "google class" programmers of 150 000 a year you could hire 200 full time high quality programmers. Its clearly not the 9000 of facebook but SO MUCH different than today. So many people hold there coins for price increas, but where does the price increase come from if not that bitcoin becomes a better and better payment solution and competes better and better with other solutions? Wouldn't 1% per Year be a very good investment, given the fact, that when bitcoin goes well it goes up 5% a day?

Edit2: 1% of the total bitcoinholding. so just from every existing address 1%/year.

[tonycamp]

well better a social service like facebook and the bases of bitcoin as a digital good the diference its more easy to find value into  bitcoin than into facebook in my case soo i value facebook like 1 satoshis and the unit of BTC its yes like 200$

[Herbert2020]

maybe if bitcoin becomes more of a currency that everybody from any country can use to purchase their day to day needs, rather that just an investment.
also i personally don't know where (if) is the donation address that i can donate to the developers.

[Denker]

Poll --> 1% of what?

[HeroCat]

Bitcoin is the first and most popular and will stay. First come, first served 

[runpaint]

But Facebook runs on servers that will never be the newest or fastest.

Bitcoin has more processing power than all the supercomputers in the world.

With Bitcoin, computers do the work.  And they do more work than billions of people could do.

[Mickeyb]

I think that Bitcoin is evolving just fine. It's not just a protocol that needs to advance, it's a whole infrastructure that needs to advance with the Bitcoin protocol. Wallets, exchanges, applications for the phones and tablets, etc..  all need to advance and follow the Bitcoin protocol, and of course the most important are the Bitcoin users that also need to advance and learn together with the protocol.

So as you can see, this is a very complicated network. Trust me, when Bitcoin grows even further, all these much needed developers will come alone to the Bitcoin. Why? Because there will be money to be made with all these different start-ups.

[BNO]

As much as i agree with you statement that bitcoin needs an ecosystem as much as the protocoll. The thing to worry are programmers for developing the protocol.

So as you can see, this is a very complicated network. Trust me, when Bitcoin grows even further, all these much needed developers will come alone to the Bitcoin. Why? Because there will be money to be made with all these different start-ups.

Ah i don't see how programmers that work for coinbase now go over to work for Bitcoin core. And I'm not sure if we want that kind of help from companies...

[NorrisK]

The biggest problem is deciding where the money goes and who is in control of this..

Besides, many more people are building block chain related services. It should not be overlooked how important these side developments are compared to core development.

Also, it would be quite difficult to check the code changes of all these programmers. Imagine one malicious coders putting exploits in the code..

[BNO]

Also, it would be quite difficult to check the code changes of all these programmers. Imagine one malicious coders putting exploits in the code..

No i mean more a business like operation: one building in a country that is considered safe. Daily meetings, daily reports. Imagine how fast bitcoin would evolve. Maybe switzerland its in europe, but not the E.U. - so less chance of influence maybe. Or radical different solution going to a third world country like Africa. There government will have other problems than to interfere with Bitcoin development. In any case in the contracts of the persons working for Bitcoin core stands that they have to be willing to work in EVERY country of the world. So in case the country the headquarter is is not safe anymore the will just leave to another country. Much possibilities here..

[Meuh6879]

TRUST work is always ... free.
It's the result that is ... 




Early adopter have winned ... and it's good for me and you.

[El Emperador]

One thing about bitcoin i think a lot is this: Its amazing how far bitcoin has come, but how you want to build a payment system for the entire world with maybe 15 Programmers working fulltime on it?

IMO, more developers = greater difficulties reaching a consensus

 

[Delek]

Facebook is most difficult to code and to maintain than Bitcoin. Bitcoin is revolutionary, but because of the idea, not because of programming complexity.

[BNO]

IMO, more developers = greater difficulties reaching a consensus

Haha. No seriously thats my number 2 concern for bitcoin this over-consensus oriented culture which is not sustainable (1 coder just blocking all others with marking topic as controversial). I just didn't want to mix with the topic of funding development.

[dachnik]

Two things.

First, more developers doesn't always result in faster development or higher quality code, because building a good team is not a simple task. There is an old saying: "if you make 9 women pregnant, you won't get baby in a month". This applies to engineering in general (and software development in particular) very well.

Second, working for money and working for an idea are two different things. The former can be influenced, (mis-)directed and manipulated, the latter cannot. If you don't believe in what you are doing and don't get paid, there is no reason to continue. If you do continue, though, then you know what you're doing.

[maokoto]

Facebook is most difficult to code and to maintain than Bitcoin. Bitcoin is revolutionary, but because of the idea, not because of programming complexity.

I agree. The mechanism is not as complex as facebook, which has to handle uploads, sharing, showing on other walls the info following user defined rules, handle an advertising system, playing videos and audios in site, online chats and video conferences.... much more complex.

[MoorChael]

Two things.

First, more developers doesn't always result in faster development or higher quality code, because building a good team is not a simple task. There is an old saying: "if you make 9 women pregnant, you won't get baby in a month". This applies to engineering in general (and software development in particular) very well.

Second, working for money and working for an idea are two different things. The former can be influenced, (mis-)directed and manipulated, the latter cannot. If you don't believe in what you are doing and don't get paid, there is no reason to continue. If you do continue, though, then you know what you're doing.

I partially agree. But in the team performance increases significantly. And find a solution to problems encountered much easier. Of course, provided that the team worked well. "One head it's good, but two better"

[dachnik]

Two things.

First, more developers doesn't always result in faster development or higher quality code, because building a good team is not a simple task. There is an old saying: "if you make 9 women pregnant, you won't get baby in a month". This applies to engineering in general (and software development in particular) very well.

Second, working for money and working for an idea are two different things. The former can be influenced, (mis-)directed and manipulated, the latter cannot. If you don't believe in what you are doing and don't get paid, there is no reason to continue. If you do continue, though, then you know what you're doing.

I partially agree. But in the team performance increases significantly. And find a solution to problems encountered much easier. Of course, provided that the team worked well. "One head it's good, but two better"

Yeah, there is a threshold for the number of developers in a team for it to be efficient. More complex projects would then require sub-components with corresponding sub-teams working on them and the group of architects would then design and coordinate the development. I don't know if Bitcoin has already reached this level of complexity or that it ever should. I mean the basic principles that it's built on are not that complex, maybe it's better to keep it simple.

[runpaint]

No i mean more a business like operation: one building in a country that is considered safe. Daily meetings, daily reports. Imagine how fast bitcoin would evolve.

Don't you think it's fast enough already?

It's a currency that didn't exist 6 years ago, and had no help from any government, and now it's the most valuable currency in the world, worth over 200 times the global standard U.S. Dollar.

So far, it's the most successful thing that has ever happened. 

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  Which means, don't start changing something that is already working, because you'll probably mess it up. 

[BNO]

Don't you think it's fast enough already?

It's a currency that didn't exist 6 years ago, and had no help from any government, and now it's the most valuable currency in the world, worth over 200 times the global standard U.S. Dollar.

No I think the evolution of the protocoll its way to slow. As i wrote in the opening post, when programmers know for a serious security bug, but can't fix it for 2 years, because they had to fix even more severe problems first, then something isn't going so well.

What goes well is the building of the ecosystem and apps/services based on bitcoin. Probably coinbase which is just an exhange with a wallet has 5x the Programmers as Bitcoin has.

And that comment that bitcoin is worth 200times the dollar is total bogus. There are bitcoins worth 3 billion $ in Circulation as of this writing. Just the debt of US government (not corporations, or citizens) is 17.000 billion US dollar. That alone is over 5000times (!) (yes you red right 5000 times) the entire worth of all bitcoins ever mined. Bitcoin is really one of the tiniest currencies in the world. And the only way to change that is to become better...