What are the biggest faults of BTC & how would you fix them?

[pooya87]

one big problem that i have with bitcoin is difficulty, which will lead to this situation that i as an individual with a pc at home (no extra mining equipment) can not mine bitcoin, so mining becomes a business that a few (mining farms) can only do it.

can't say if it is all a bad thing, but i wished that mining of the cryptocurrency that is supposed to be decentralized could be done by anybody who wanted to do so.

[Lauda]

one big problem that i have with bitcoin is difficulty, which will lead to this situation that i as an individual with a pc at home (no extra mining equipment) can not mine bitcoin, so mining becomes a business that a few (mining farms) can only do it.

can't say if it is all a bad thing, but i wished that mining of the cryptocurrency that is supposed to be decentralized could be done by anybody who wanted to do so.

Your post contradicts itself. You are talking about mining at home where you earn money; you can forget about that. You can mine at your home with whatever you want, but you won't be earning money. There's a huge difference and this can't be prevented either.

i can't suggest anything to Satoshi Nakamoto,bitcoin is perfect for me,even some transaction delay so long,i think its not happen many time.

Satoshi is gone and thus irrelevant at this point in time. There are no transaction delays; there are only confirmation delays because people don't include the proper fees.

Take out all the irrelevant text message capabilities. They fill up blocks with rubbish, and nobody is going to take a money transfer service seriously if it is full of dog obituaries and wedding reports.

That wouldn't be a censorship-free and decentralized system then.

[owm123]

There are no transaction delays; there are only confirmation delays because people don't include the proper fees.

What are these proper fees? Because clearly default fee amount set by the wallet is often not enough? How a person should now that fee is "good", that the person is not overpaying nor underpaying?

[Amph]

There are no transaction delays; there are only confirmation delays because people don't include the proper fees.

What are these proper fees? Because clearly default fee amount set by the wallet is often not enough? How a person should now that fee is "good", that the person is not overpaying nor underpaying?

10k+ satoshi is a proper fee, there are some that use 1k or below and zero fee, i admit i have used less than 10k satoshi many times

[Herbert2020]

the biggest fault of bitcoin right now is the bitcoin development team. they can not even reach a consensus among themselves which is tearing bitcoin into two groups and scaring everybody for its future.

[btcxyzzz]

Bitcoin is lacking capacity (remove Blockstream guys and let it grow)
Bitcoin is lacking instant transactions (I know it's hard to make but market really wants it)
Bitcoin is lacking anonimity (no one even talks about it)

[Lauda]

Bitcoin is lacking capacity (remove Blockstream guys and let it grow)

Wrong. Stop posting nonsense.

Bitcoin is lacking instant transactions (I know it's hard to make but market really wants it)

Transactions are near instant. Confirmation times aren't; you've mixed those two up.

Bitcoin is lacking anonimity (no one even talks about it)

A fully anonymous coin would most likely be labeled illegal pretty much anywhere. Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous; besides we might see confidential transactions one day.

the biggest fault of bitcoin right now is the bitcoin development team. they can not even reach a consensus among themselves which is tearing bitcoin into two groups and scaring everybody for its future.

This is not a flaw inherent to Bitcoin. Bitcoin works without a development team. Besides, if you exclude Gavin and Garzik there is consensus (a roadmap has been signed).

[OROBTC]

Bitcoin is lacking capacity (remove Blockstream guys and let it grow)

Wrong. Stop posting nonsense.

Bitcoin is lacking instant transactions (I know it's hard to make but market really wants it)

Transactions are near instant. Confirmation times aren't; you've mixed those two up.

Bitcoin is lacking anonimity (no one even talks about it)

A fully anonymous coin would most likely be labeled illegal pretty much anywhere. Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous; besides we might see confidential transactions one day.

the biggest fault of bitcoin right now is the bitcoin development team. they can not even reach a consensus among themselves which is tearing bitcoin into two groups and scaring everybody for its future.

This is not a flaw inherent to Bitcoin. Bitcoin works without a development team. Besides, if you exclude Gavin and Garzik there is consensus (a roadmap has been signed).

Lauda

Thank you for correcting my remarks (last page).  And for correcting various other comments since.

But, what I was really trying to communicate was the problems I have in the who Bitcoin Ecosystem, things we would like to see made better.  Sure, developer's coding issues are different than other parts of the Ecosystem, but it all has to work fairly seamlessly in order for Bitcoin to gain Major League acceptance.

I hope that the various problems re block size (including the "next time" the issue comes up) get resolved through a professional consensus.  Acrimony about "hard forks" and other scary-sounding matters will NOT help normal people look with favor on Bitcoin.

My opinion only, I am not a programmer.

[simon66]

Mining pools and mega farms..

I think the code should have something to disincentivise the centralization of mining. I don't think rules that disallow it would be the answer. More like built in conditions that the free market will turn into decentralization rather than encourage centralization as it is.

This makes sense. Centralization is indeed a problem, albeit nobody has a real solution for this. Incentives to run nodes would be also nice in order to relive the costs and promote decentralization.

Yes, I agree that some incentive for nodes would be nice. I would run a node if so. Even just 1% of TX fees directed to nodes would be nice.

Mining pools and mega farms..

I think the code should have something to disincentivise the centralization of mining. I don't think rules that disallow it would be the answer. More like built in conditions that the free market will turn into decentralization rather than encourage centralization as it is.

This. Maybe it is not a concern right now but it will be soon. Don't think Satoshi imagined that mining will become like this. But I don't think there is a solution to this now.

What if there was a way to make bitcoin's code aware of mining data such as in this pie chart..

And then vary difficulty based on who is connected and how much hash they are putting on to where connections of lesser hash would be hashing on a smaller difficulty then the mega hash connections. Like assign the greatest hash difficulty + 10% and the smallest hash difficulty -10%. To where if say actual difficulty was "find a hash with value less than 10" assign the greatest hash connection "must be less than 9" and the least hash connection "must be less than 11" and assign every hashing connection in the middle between least and greatest a difficulty somewhere in the middle..

hash=100=less than 9
hash=75=less than 9.5
hash=50=less than 10
hash=25 less than 10.5
hash=1= less than 11

Where hash=100 is the greatest hash connection and hash=1 is the least hashing connection.
This could be done linearly or exponentially or variably based on the difference between the least and greatest hashing connection and the solved block would be accepted based on difficulty X (connection hash % of max/min) and could even be weighted based on the % of miners that fall into a certin ange between least and greatest. Give an advantage of lower difficulty to connections with less hash power to bust up the mining monopolies.

Ofcourse I have no idea if something like this is possible because I really don't know what I'm talking about but I think it would be good to find a way to put the mining monopolies at a disadvantage VS the more decentralized miners.

I also think that this must not be done with rules or laws but rather in a way that provides incentives based on the code so the free market will sort it out.



Took me a while to find this post again..

Someone who could very well be Satoshi said:

I have been following the recent block size debates through the mailing list.  I had hoped the debate would resolve and that a fork proposal would achieve widespread consensus.  However with the formal release of Bitcoin XT 0.11A, this looks unlikely to happen, and so I am forced to share my concerns about this very dangerous fork.

The developers of this pretender-Bitcoin claim to be following my original vision, but nothing could be further from the truth.  When I designed Bitcoin, I designed it in such a way as to make future modifications to the consensus rules difficult without near unanimous agreement.  Bitcoin was designed to be protected from the influence of charismatic leaders, even if their name is Gavin Andresen, Barack Obama, or Satoshi Nakamoto.  Nearly everyone has to agree on a change, and they have to do it without being forced or pressured into it.  By doing a fork in this way, these developers are violating the "original vision" they claim to honour.

They use my old writings to make claims about what Bitcoin was supposed to be.  However I acknowledge that a lot has changed since that time, and new knowledge has been gained that contradicts some of my early opinions.  For example I didn't anticipate pooled mining and its effects on the security of the network.  Making Bitcoin a competitive monetary system while also preserving its security properties is not a trivial problem, and we should take more time to come up with a robust solution.  I suspect we need a better incentive for users to run nodes instead of relying solely on altruism.

If two developers can fork Bitcoin and succeed in redefining what "Bitcoin" is, in the face of widespread technical criticism and through the use of populist tactics, then I will have no choice but to declare Bitcoin a failed project.  Bitcoin was meant to be both technically and socially robust.  This present situation has been very disappointing to watch unfold.

I like that post a lot and think it is something that should really be thought about.

I don't know. I wish I was a genius and understood all the code but I don't. I probably barely understand the whole concept.

[bearex]

Limited acceptance -> fix by telling them about Bitcoin , educating them.
Long transaction confirmation time -> really bad, you cant buy physical goods fast because of this, no idea how to fix though.

[Mitchow]

Limited acceptance -> fix by telling them about Bitcoin , educating them.
Long transaction confirmation time -> really bad, you cant buy physical goods fast because of this, no idea how to fix though.

Exactly confirmation time is the major issue with bitcoins, I think bitcoin core team should work on it and make it more fast as it is very time consuming and irritating sometimes, and bitcoin is not that popular in many countries.

[ignitiondefect]

What's so bad about huge mining pools?

[Lauda]

Lauda

Thank you for correcting my remarks (last page).  And for correcting various other comments since.

You're welcome. I'll keep at it, however it is obvious that some of these 'users' are only posting because of their signatures. They are choosing to ignore what was already posted and/or corrected.

But, what I was really trying to communicate was the problems I have in the who Bitcoin Ecosystem, things we would like to see made better.  Sure, developer's coding issues are different than other parts of the Ecosystem, but it all has to work fairly seamlessly in order for Bitcoin to gain Major League acceptance.

I think that OP was supposed to be 'flaws inherent to Bitcoin' (as in design, code, features), not flaws revolving around its ecosystem.

I hope that the various problems re block size (including the "next time" the issue comes up) get resolved through a professional consensus.  Acrimony about "hard forks" and other scary-sounding matters will NOT help normal people look with favor on Bitcoin.

There will never be a solution if we continue with just increasing the block size (or this being our primary objective). This is why contentious HF's like Classic don't really solve anything but delay the debate a bit.

Yes, I agree that some incentive for nodes would be nice. I would run a node if so. Even just 1% of TX fees directed to nodes would be nice.

Yes. Anything would be good IMO; way better than nothing.

Limited acceptance -> fix by telling them about Bitcoin , educating them.

Not a Bitcoin flaw.

Long transaction confirmation time -> really bad, you cant buy physical goods fast because of this, no idea how to fix though.

You don't need to wait for a confirmation to buy something. It should be okay to accept zero confirmation transactions for goods of lower value, especially if there is trust between the buyer and seller.

What's so bad about huge mining pools?

With enough hashrate they are able to control/attack the network.

[ignitiondefect]

Why would miner's use their hashrate to attack the network? Wouldn't that make their coins worth much less?

[pooya87]

one big problem that i have with bitcoin is difficulty, which will lead to this situation that i as an individual with a pc at home (no extra mining equipment) can not mine bitcoin, so mining becomes a business that a few (mining farms) can only do it.

can't say if it is all a bad thing, but i wished that mining of the cryptocurrency that is supposed to be decentralized could be done by anybody who wanted to do so.

Your post contradicts itself. You are talking about mining at home where you earn money; you can forget about that. You can mine at your home with whatever you want, but you won't be earning money. There's a huge difference and this can't be prevented either.

i know that it is an strange thing to say. but what is the point of mining with no reward. mining is going to need electricity so it will cost me. and i am not even looking for a big reward (profit), even a small amount which could cover the electricity cost. this way mining would not be centralized by mining farms.

besides if i want to support bitcoin and blockchain i would run a full node, not mining without reward.

[yenxz]

Put another way, if you could go back in time to before BTC was launched and suggest changes to the original code to Satoshi Nakamoto, what would you suggest?

this is maybe silly suggestion,i just suggest to Nakamoto for create bitcoin with faster transaction and confirmation,so i feel use cash money,with per second transaction and confirmation,is that immpossible?