is trollcoin (bytecoin) unwittingly the solution to bitcoins scalability issue?

[Anon136]

So the logic goes something like this: A single blockchain can not be expected to service the needs of 7 billion consumers. We can not possibly be expected to store every transaction every time some random guy anywhere in the world buys a couple of bannanas or a pack of gum.

One option is centralization. Essentially instead of using bitcoin clients ourselves we would all have accounts with banking institutions that store huge amounts of bitcoin and when we make a transaction between two banks it would be recorded off blockchain. The blockchain in this scenario would be used like a clearing house to clear debts between these banking institutions once they become large enough. This could work but i dont think i need to point out the drawbacks.

Alternatively we could embrace multiple blockchains. This would maintain that precious decentralization at the cost of de-homoginization. In my mind the recent ddos attacks on mtgox demonstrate that decentralization is more important than homogeneity and so in my mind multiple blockchains is the better of the two options.

now if we accept for the sake of discussion that multiple blockchains are infact the better option than i say why not simply make carbon copies of bitcoin as it becomes necessary to do so? Sure some might argue, why not atleast ATTEMPT to innovate but attempting to innovate for the sake of it and not because you have a legitimately great idea on how to improve bitcoin (yes im talking about all existing alt coins) than really you are just opening yourself up to a world of possible bugs and problems for very little advantage. Not only that but you need a separate development team for each blockchain. Bitcoin is familiar it, it has been vetted, it works great, i say dont mess with a good thing unless you have a really good reason to do so, which i don't see as being the case.

So what do you guys think? I know this may sound like a bit of a false dichotomy fallacy because there are some other proposals out there such as chaum banks but again the centralization opens them up to attack. I have not yet seen any other way to solve the scalability problem with out resorting to centralization other than multiple blockchains. If it is the case that multiple blockchains is the best solution than do you guys see any reason why the second and third blockchain shouldnt be carbon copies? atleast until someone thinks of some way to legitimately improve upon bitcoin.

[Byte-Gox]

Enough said.

[Walter Rothbard]

Unwittingly, or intentionally?

now if we accept for the sake of discussion that multiple blockchains are infact the better option than i say why not simply make carbon copies of bitcoin as it becomes necessary to do so?

I've been saying for awhile that this should be done.  One reason I've got behind Terracoin so firmly is that it is so similar to Bitcoin.  Until Bytecoin, Terracoin fit the "alternative blockchain" role the best.

I think a new blockchain started at every reward halving would be ideal.  This potentially solves a lot of problems, including scalability and divisibility.  The best answer to "how do you subdivide a Satoshi?" may very well be "Exchange it for coins on a newer blockchain."

[Anon136]

Unwittingly, or intentionally?

now if we accept for the sake of discussion that multiple blockchains are infact the better option than i say why not simply make carbon copies of bitcoin as it becomes necessary to do so?

I've been saying for awhile that this should be done.  One reason I've got behind Terracoin so firmly is that it is so similar to Bitcoin.  Until Bytecoin, Terracoin fit the "alternative blockchain" role the best.

I think a new blockchain started at every reward halving would be ideal.  This potentially solves a lot of problems, including scalability and divisibility.  The best answer to "how do you subdivide a Satoshi?" may very well be "Exchange it for coins on a newer blockchain."

thanks murray block. im glad to see that im not the only person thinking along these lines. Now we just have to fight to make sure this thing doesn't die in the next 2 weeks!

[Walter Rothbard]

Unwittingly, or intentionally?

now if we accept for the sake of discussion that multiple blockchains are infact the better option than i say why not simply make carbon copies of bitcoin as it becomes necessary to do so?

I've been saying for awhile that this should be done.  One reason I've got behind Terracoin so firmly is that it is so similar to Bitcoin.  Until Bytecoin, Terracoin fit the "alternative blockchain" role the best.

I think a new blockchain started at every reward halving would be ideal.  This potentially solves a lot of problems, including scalability and divisibility.  The best answer to "how do you subdivide a Satoshi?" may very well be "Exchange it for coins on a newer blockchain."

thanks murray block.

I think I see what you did there.

[Barnacle_Ed]

Copy/paste from a discussion between Anon136 and I in the Bytecoin thread:

"why not tackle a few issues" the way i see it the scalability problem is bitcoins only issue. And yes there is a scalability problem, right now bitcoin users store every bitcoin transaction in the world on their computers, if 7 billion people were using bitcoin we couldnt be expected to record every time anyone anywhere in the world purchased a couple of bananas or a pack of gum.

Which is a design issue that could be fixed in a much cleaner way than "Hey I got an idea, let's just copy and paste the whole source tree!"


The fallacy here, in my mind, is that Bitcoin (and BillyBobCoin and InsertPersonsNameHereCoin and TotallyDifferentFromBitcoinCoin and whatever other name Bitcoin carbon copies will have) all share the same flaw. And your proposed solution to fix this - as far as I can infer - is to start completely anew, rather than solve the problem properly. It doesn't sit well in my mind and there has to be a more elegant solution.


My apologies in advance if I've misinterpreted anything, by the way.

oh no i agree it would be very nice if we could just solve that problem. Just no one has been able to figure that one out, atleast that is without resorting to increased centralization. Perhaps someone could invent a cryptocurrency where users are responsible for storing all of the data about their own transactions and the blockchain simply used to store a means for proving that your record of your own transactions is accurate.

technically speaking i have NO idea how or if something like this could be done but i digress.

I'd hardly call BTE a proper "solution", but more of a "stepping stone" to get to a proper solution. Avoiding over-centralization is what makes this issue a complicated (and interesting) challenge.

[Anon136]

Copy/paste from a discussion in the Bytecoin thread:

"why not tackle a few issues" the way i see it the scalability problem is bitcoins only issue. And yes there is a scalability problem, right now bitcoin users store every bitcoin transaction in the world on their computers, if 7 billion people were using bitcoin we couldnt be expected to record every time anyone anywhere in the world purchased a couple of bananas or a pack of gum.

Which is a design issue that could be fixed in a much cleaner way than "Hey I got an idea, let's just copy and paste the whole source tree!"


The fallacy here, in my mind, is that Bitcoin (and BillyBobCoin and InsertPersonsNameHereCoin and TotallyDifferentFromBitcoinCoin and whatever other name Bitcoin carbon copies will have) all share the same flaw. And your proposed solution to fix this - as far as I can infer - is to start completely anew, rather than solve the problem properly. It doesn't sit well in my mind and there has to be a more elegant solution.


My apologies in advance if I've misinterpreted anything, by the way.

oh no i agree it would be very nice if we could just solve that problem. Just no one has been able to figure that one out, atleast that is without resorting to increased centralization. Perhaps someone could invent a cryptocurrency where users are responsible for storing all of the data about their own transactions and the blockchain simply used to store a means for proving that your record of your own transactions is accurate.

technically speaking i have NO idea how or if something like this could be done but i digress.

I'd hardly call BTE a proper "solution", but more of a "stepping stone" to get to a proper solution. Avoiding over-centralization is what makes this issue a complicated (and interesting) challenge.

+1

[Come-from-Beyond]

is trollcoin (bytecoin) unwittingly the solution to bitcoins scalability issue?

Bitcoin devs failed to solve the scalability issue. Maybe Bytecoin is not a brilliant solution but it's, at least, a quite good one.

[TheBigYak]

This is an interesting idea, however, if we agree that the solution to the scalability issue is multiple chains, would it not be more useful to manage all of those out of a single client?  Could the chains be established differently enough that you could force people to choose which chain (if any) to mine on?

Thinking the same way my wallet today can hold ones, fives, tens, twenties, and (rarely) hundreds.  It seems a more useful resolution would be to extend the Bitcoin client to support perhaps spinning up a new chain every N months (basically, we plan to create new, lower denominations which are fractional in value to the existing one).

[crazy_rabbit]

So the logic goes something like this: A single blockchain can not be expected to service the needs of 7 billion consumers. We can not possibly be expected to store every transaction every time some random guy anywhere in the world buys a couple of bannanas or a pack of gum.

That's why bitcoin has implemented ultra-prune. Problem solved. Besides, bitcoin won't be used by all 7 billion, just like the USD isn't even used by all 7 billion.

As for the pack of gum- the whole point is to store every transaction. If you don't then there's no point anyway. Bitcoin will handle it just fine.

One option is centralization. Essentially instead of using bitcoin clients ourselves we would all have accounts with banking institutions that store huge amounts of bitcoin and when we make a transaction between two banks it would be recorded off blockchain. The blockchain in this scenario would be used like a clearing house to clear debts between these banking institutions once they become large enough. This could work but i dont think i need to point out the drawbacks.

Alternatively we could embrace multiple blockchains. This would maintain that precious decentralization at the cost of de-homoginization. In my mind the recent ddos attacks on mtgox demonstrate that decentralization is more important than homogeneity and so in my mind multiple blockchains is the better of the two options.

now if we accept for the sake of discussion that multiple blockchains are infact the better option than i say why not simply make carbon copies of bitcoin as it becomes necessary to do so? Sure some might argue, why not atleast ATTEMPT to innovate but attempting to innovate for the sake of it and not because you have a legitimately great idea on how to improve bitcoin (yes im talking about all existing alt coins) than really you are just opening yourself up to a world of possible bugs and problems for very little advantage. Not only that but you need a separate development team for each blockchain. Bitcoin is familiar it, it has been vetted, it works great, i say dont mess with a good thing unless you have a really good reason to do so, which i don't see as being the case.

So what do you guys think? I know this may sound like a bit of a false dichotomy fallacy because there are some other proposals out there such as chaum banks but again the centralization opens them up to attack. I have not yet seen any other way to solve the scalability problem with out resorting to centralization other than multiple blockchains. If it is the case that multiple blockchains is the best solution than do you guys see any reason why the second and third blockchain shouldnt be carbon copies? atleast until someone thinks of some way to legitimately improve upon bitcoin.

[Anon136]

This is an interesting idea, however, if we agree that the solution to the scalability issue is multiple chains, would it not be more useful to manage all of those out of a single client?  Could the chains be established differently enough that you could force people to choose which chain (if any) to mine on?

Thinking the same way my wallet today can hold ones, fives, tens, twenties, and (rarely) hundreds.  It seems a more useful resolution would be to extend the Bitcoin client to support perhaps spinning up a new chain every N months (basically, we plan to create new, lower denominations which are fractional in value to the existing one).

It certainly could be done. although most people would not have the ability to download and audit multiple chains at the same time (if they could than we wouldnt need multiple chains). What you could do is have options in the client to run a full node for your preferred chain, and multiple litenodes for the other chains, or you could chose to run all lite nodes. Or you could use something like a hybrid between bitcoin-qt and blockchain app for smartphones where you run a full node on your preferred chain and use a service like blockchain to manage the rest, but it would all be integrated into one client.

As far as planning for new chains every n months, i think it would be better just to let the market decide when it is time to adopt a new chain. Basically every once in a while someone would attempt to publish a new chain, if the market felt it was time than it would be adopted, if the market felt it was premature than that chain would die.

[Anon136]

So the logic goes something like this: A single blockchain can not be expected to service the needs of 7 billion consumers. We can not possibly be expected to store every transaction every time some random guy anywhere in the world buys a couple of bannanas or a pack of gum.

That's why bitcoin has implemented ultra-prune. Problem solved. Besides, bitcoin won't be used by all 7 billion, just like the USD isn't even used by all 7 billion.

As for the pack of gum- the whole point is to store every transaction. If you don't then there's no point anyway. Bitcoin will handle it just fine.

One option is centralization. Essentially instead of using bitcoin clients ourselves we would all have accounts with banking institutions that store huge amounts of bitcoin and when we make a transaction between two banks it would be recorded off blockchain. The blockchain in this scenario would be used like a clearing house to clear debts between these banking institutions once they become large enough. This could work but i dont think i need to point out the drawbacks.

Alternatively we could embrace multiple blockchains. This would maintain that precious decentralization at the cost of de-homoginization. In my mind the recent ddos attacks on mtgox demonstrate that decentralization is more important than homogeneity and so in my mind multiple blockchains is the better of the two options.

now if we accept for the sake of discussion that multiple blockchains are infact the better option than i say why not simply make carbon copies of bitcoin as it becomes necessary to do so? Sure some might argue, why not atleast ATTEMPT to innovate but attempting to innovate for the sake of it and not because you have a legitimately great idea on how to improve bitcoin (yes im talking about all existing alt coins) than really you are just opening yourself up to a world of possible bugs and problems for very little advantage. Not only that but you need a separate development team for each blockchain. Bitcoin is familiar it, it has been vetted, it works great, i say dont mess with a good thing unless you have a really good reason to do so, which i don't see as being the case.

So what do you guys think? I know this may sound like a bit of a false dichotomy fallacy because there are some other proposals out there such as chaum banks but again the centralization opens them up to attack. I have not yet seen any other way to solve the scalability problem with out resorting to centralization other than multiple blockchains. If it is the case that multiple blockchains is the best solution than do you guys see any reason why the second and third blockchain shouldnt be carbon copies? atleast until someone thinks of some way to legitimately improve upon bitcoin.

its not storage thats the real problem, its the inability for miners to download transactions quickly enough to get them all included in their blocks. Even if they could this could only be acheved through a floating block size which would eliminate the transaction volume scarcity resulting in almost no subsidy for miners which would make bitcoin vunerable to attack.

my proposal preserves the natural market dynamic of bitcoiners competing for limited space in blockchains since there is pressure towards greater homogeneity which would only be overcome by greater pressure for lower transaction fees.

[Mike Christ]

The next argument would be:

"But litecoin already does what Bytecoin could do!  Litecoin also has improvements specifically for these issues!"

[Come-from-Beyond]

The next argument would be:

"But litecoin already does what Bytecoin could do!  Litecoin also has improvements specifically for these issues!"

Yup. Followed by counter-argument that Litecoin is centralized.

[Anon136]

The next argument would be:

"But litecoin already does what Bytecoin could do!  Litecoin also has improvements specifically for these issues!"

i think this is a very good argument. maybe what we see is actually litecoin becoming the primary alternative blockchain, then litecoin2 becoming the third chain ect...

Still i am no expert on litecoin but isnt bitcoin capable of storing, over all, more transactions per unit of time than litecoin? if so than i would say despite some of the advantages of litecoin bitcoin is still superior over all.

*edit*
also the fact that asics can be used on trollcoin but not on litecoin, while a disadvantage in some respects, is a very serious advantage in others.

[doobadoo]

Bitcoin devs failed to solve the scalability issue. Maybe Bytecoin is not a brilliant solution but it's, at least, a quite good one.

When did this happen?  Sure they haven't included pruning yet, but when they do i'm hoping disk seek work is greatly reduced.  The up front bottleneck is the ballooning size of the blockchain, and how long it takes to launch the client, and catch up for the first time.

I think the true solution is to include a hash of utxo in the block headers....think about it.

[Anon136]

Bitcoin devs failed to solve the scalability issue. Maybe Bytecoin is not a brilliant solution but it's, at least, a quite good one.

When did this happen?  Sure they haven't included pruning yet, but when they do i'm hoping disk seek work is greatly reduced.  The up front bottleneck is the ballooning size of the blockchain, and how long it takes to launch the client, and catch up for the first time.

I think the true solution is to include a hash of utxo in the block headers....think about it.

no its not the size of the blockchain thats the problem. Its communicating all of the transactions in the world to the miners so they can include them in the blocks. If a significant percentage of the population were using bitcoin no miner would have enough bandwidth to receive all transactions in real time.

[rampone]

Lol, first generate some coins, then try to discuss the more awesomeness to bitcoin,  if exchange opens: buy some yourself from yourself, create positive news, "say you are pumping it", chicken come, and buy your coins, do not sell too much, rubberband the price up. chicken are hungry.... if you feel chicken do not eat anymore because they do not want jump to high level, slam them to the ground.... until worthless..

TY, come again next blockchain...

hah, the joy of alt coin

[Anon136]

Lol, first generate some coins, then try to discuss the more awesomeness to bitcoin,  if exchange opens: buy some yourself from yourself, create positive news, "say you are pumping it", chicken come, and buy your coins, do not sell too much, rubberband the price up. chicken are hungry.... if you feel chicken do not eat anymore because they do not want jump to high level, slam them to the ground.... until worthless..

TY, come again next blockchain...

hah, the joy of alt coin

You are wrong, i legitimately think this thing has utility, i believe there is room in the market for one carbon copy of bitcoin (maybe more someday but only one right now), i am holding for the long term after i recoup just a little of my initial investment.

[Anon136]

i think of byte coins as an improvement of a revolution of money. We will learn things from byte coin that will be applied to the next generation of crypto money.

I have a 1 mega bit internet connection out in the country in the US. I call myself lucky,as alot of folks can only still get dial up i the country.

it took me a week to synch up with the bit coin network.
That's pathetic,especially when we're talking about a currency that the world will use.

African nations are lucky if they get dial up. It could take weeks if not months for an African to sync up with the bit coin.
That's one reason why I see that bit coin is doom to fail in the long run,which will cause it to be replaced.

this is most likely true, but only after it facilitates an unfathomable number of trades and makes the world a much better place