Mike Hearn is wrong. Bitcoin isn't dead

[chennuan]

Mike the next job seems to be in contact with the bank.

This can explain the problem.

[kingbritain]

I believe that bitcoin will never die and will always maintain some kind of value.

[cjmoles]

I don't think Bitcoin is dead either.  But, I think it's getting ready to die soon....It's not dead, it's just dying.  There are too many scams, manipulations, and outright thefts for any serious consumer to trade-in their fiat for it. The arguing over block size is small.....because we won't need to increase the block size if there aren't any transactions on the ledger anyway, right?  Whatever the R3 group hired Hearn to help work on, might just throw the final five finger death punch at Bitcoin!  We need to come together and try to stop them....Right?

[btcxyzzz]

It seems you can't click anywhere on the Web today without a "Bitcoin Has Failed" article quoting Mike Hearn.

First of all, Bitcoin is not the VISA Payments System.  It will never process millions of transactions per second on Black Friday while simultaneously juggling chainsaws and making love to your best friend's wife.  That's not what it was designed to do.  The fact that it lacks the capacity to do this isn't a bug.

The megabyte block size limit is an important parameter of the Bitcoin protocol, and the unintended consequences of changing it need to be more carefully considered.  That a couple of developers, who shall remain nameless, went off and did their own version, designed to fight with Bitcoin Core for ownership of the blockchain, was the height of foolishness.  Of course, no one should run their code.

If there is no consensus on bumping the block size, and it remains at a megabyte forever, Bitcoin will be fine. Transaction space in blocks is a finite resource for which we charge fees.  As those fees rise, Bitcoin will slowly and seamlessly transition to a model where tiny transactions are handled by exchanges such as Coinbase, and transaction space in blocks is used primarily for settlement between exchanges and parties making larger trades.  This will happen so slowly, you'll barely notice it.

It is the height of hubris for the former developers, having failed to impose their vision of the code on the rest of us, to run around telling the press "Bitcoin Has Failed."  They have failed.  Bitcoin is fine.

Like most things in the P2P world, Bitcoin will last as long as at least two people are running a client, and it does something useful.  ed2k hasn't gone away, and will probably be here forever, along with Bitcoin.

Huge minus man, you're blinded.

[HabBear]

This is a psychological power move. Someone as well known as Mike Hearn cries "failed!" (unless you all accept my hard fork idea =})

Mike knows better than anyone that the success or failure of Bitcoin is driven ONLY buy the volume of people who decide to use it as a currency or store of value. So for him to say it has failed doesn't make any sense. It will not have failed unitl people stop using it...which could come from lack of interest or lack of ability.

[gmaxwell]

Mike Hearn is R3CEV's bitch now, he has sold his soul to the devil, now he has to keep pushing their agenda for life

Mike has always been pretty pro-centralization.  R3CEV didn't change his thinking, they just appear to have matched it. I'm glad he found a space where his perspective was welcome and I'm sad he doesn't realize that doesn't mean that people who don't share it are wrong.

Mike knows better than anyone that the success or failure of Bitcoin is driven ONLY buy the volume of people who decide to use it as a currency or store of value. So for him to say it has failed doesn't make any sense. It will not have failed unitl people stop using it...which could come from lack of interest or lack of ability.

Bitcoin is more than just an arbitrary scarce asset. It's a decentralized ecash that set out to solve a specific set of problems around the level of trust required in traditional currency. If Bitcoin became functionally equivalent to a traditional payment processor-- a system with centralized and censored transaction processing then I think it would be fair to say that it failed at what it set out to do.  Perhaps it would be more correct to say that to those, like Mike, who didn't really care about that part of the system, Bitcoin couldn't have failed until it was no longer used. ::shrugs:: regardless, things fail all the time-- it might be sad, but there is no reason to throw a fit about it.

[Cconvert2G36]

Bitcoin routes around attempts to centrally steer and control its destiny. Nothing Mike Hearn, nor anyone else, can do about that.

[partysaurus]

Mike the next job seems to be in contact with the bank.

This can explain the problem.

Yeah i wonder how many times i have seen articles from scientists saying something is bad for you and defending something thats been around for years , and then you see where the money for the reserch came from and you understand why they say something like that. always look where they get their money from and you know why they abandon former beliefs and start bad mouthing.

[Bitcoinbro]

Mike the next job seems to be in contact with the bank.

This can explain the problem.

Yeah i wonder how many times i have seen articles from scientists saying something is bad for you and defending something thats been around for years , and then you see where the money for the reserch came from and you understand why they say something like that. always look where they get their money from and you know why they abandon former beliefs and start bad mouthing.

Well yes many have said bitcoin is bad or broken.
But i have to agree some points of Hearn.
F.e. sending micro transactions. Isn't that the whole concept of bitcoin?

[jmintuck02]

Watch Mike Hearn in 30 years in from here. He will wish he hadn't sold and will likely go back to Google or somewhere and work

for peanuts while we are real millionaires. He will be PISSED at himself for falling off the horse and not getting right back on the

horse so quickly. Welp, he'll have only himself to blame.

Mike Hearn, if you are stomped by the horses hooves, don't cry to me in 30 years.

[fuathan]

Watch Mike Hearn in 30 years in from here. He will wish he hadn't sold and will likely go back to Google or somewhere and work

for peanuts while we are real millionaires. He will be PISSED at himself for falling off the horse and not getting right back on the

horse so quickly. Welp, he'll have only himself to blame.

Mike Hearn, if you are stomped by the horses hooves, don't cry to me in 30 years.

Ahaha!.. It is very assertive man! But I think it would be true in 5-6 years. 

[elizabethqueen]

Another perspective...

http://coinjournal.net/scaling-bitcoin-austin-hill-blip/

As most of the forum users think that bitcoin can't dead with this stupid speculations...

i also on of forum member that not believe that bitcoin can dead,but as a bitcoin expert,why mike hearn tell us like that?is this first time he had wrong with his speculation?really wonder

[jmintuck02]

Bitcoin can't be dead yet. Too many people still supporting it minus Hearn and those few. They want to cause waves and fall off

the horse, which they may regret doing shortly. After btc goes through this blip, will rise after. If the horse stomps those who fell

off their horses and sold their btc, I don't know what to say to them, except doubters didn't give the benefit of the doubt.

Sure, they'll slam btc, but they'll wish they hadn't once it is over 1K USD a btc. Watch those horses hooves, fellas, they gonna hurt!!

[iCEBREAKER]

Something has to be done about the current limitations on the bitcoin platform.

Or what, Bitcoin will be d000med and die again?   

Blockstream has been testing their segwit solution since last year and the code for Lightning was just make public.  So you can calm down now.

[jonald_fyookball]

To be fair, he never said it was "dead".

Here's what he said:

But despite knowing that Bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly. The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwards.

Right now, I agree that the fundamentals are broken
as long as there is a civil war going over scalability.

However, that can change and it can change quickly.

How quickly is up to us.

[rokkyroad]

"All things shall pass."

A little hiccup in the grand scheme of things.

People need to relax and, FFS, quit dumping their bitcoins because some self proclaimed prophet predicts doom and gloom.

[disclaimer201]

Strange that I haven't heard of this Mike Hearn in over 5 years, I spent a lot of time on this forum looking for information. Let him go, he is just one dev.

The scalability issue needs to be solved sooner or later. Bitcoin will continue to function as a niche product if we don't change how many people could use it. That could be fine, but I don't want to be forced to use an altcoin if I don't have to. If we leave everything as is, fees will become so high that it will stop the growth rate. People will not use BTC today if they have to compete with other users for their transactions to go through. This was designed to be the endgame and to be worried about when it has seen mass adoption. The 1MB block size wasn't Satoshi's idea to begin with and was not introduced before 2010. Bitcoin will evolve as it has and therefore I support a gradual block size increase.

Bitcoin Classic it is.

[iCEBREAKER]

To be fair, he never said it was "dead".

Here's what he said:

But despite knowing that Bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly. The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwards.

Right now, I agree that the fundamentals are broken
as long as there is a civil war going over scalability.

However, that can change and it can change quickly.

How quickly is up to us.

The now commonplace, everyday miracle that is Bitcoin works fine, great even.  Your FUD about 'zomg borken fundurrmentals' is ridiculous.

Controversy is orthogonal, if not congenial (because Bitcoin runs on drama), to network health.

Idiot Gavinistas, Tooministas, and Buttcoiners (is there really a difference?) whining loudly does not affect the system's integrity.

[jonald_fyookball]

https://medium.com/@ripper234/the-bitcoin-experiment-is-not-over-2edf8b63268b#.bz4i65tpt

[MicroGuy]

Strange that I haven't heard of this Mike Hearn in over 5 years, I spent a lot of time on this forum looking for information. Let him go, he is just one dev.

Exactly, the press keeps printing, "Bitcoin's lead developer", ad nauseum. He was never bitcoin's lead developer.