The Bitcoin has 'jumped the shark'

[DGulari]

It is over folks.  The Bitcoin has now 'jumped the shark'.  

Because the transaction fee is now >.40USD, bitcoin transactions are more expensive than Visa swipe fees.  

Core has successfully forced a fee market of very expensive transactions by preventing others from increasing transaction capacity via larger blocks.  Satoshi wanted big blocks.  Yet, core has wrestled control and forced an unnecessary limit to block size thus creating their fee market.  All this with the idea of later providing relief via an off chain fee to go into their pockets.  Lightning is years away and fees are only going up from here.

Bitcoin is finished.  

[franky1]

if people dont understand how.. this old post explains.
yea gmaxwell tweaked it in 0.13.2 to not work for latest average block in the hopes it adds some reactivity to pretend to alleviate it. but its still a problem

using 'averages' which dont make the fee's drop reactively when demand is low. but actually keeps fee's up. even when other blocks are low demand.
EG take a 25 block average.. imagine first 24 are 0.0001 and the 25th is 0.0025 then look at the 'average' after that.. even if demand was near 0 and no one was pushing the fee up.... the "average" itself pushes up

still not sure..
go open a spreadsheet document and run some averaging scenarios for yourself, see how easy it is to cause an upward rise even without demand being constant.

many pools are/have decided to avoid using cores built in average fee feature. but nodes will still end showing an average of fee's, if pools used it

[p_linz]

I don't know if Bitcoin is finished, but some time ago everybody was talking about the positive things Bitcoin brings. Very cheap transactions where a big point. It's not the case anymore. But at last we can handle many transactions per second. Oh i forgot, we can not. thank god we are decentralized....
All i see is talk about the price. People forget the technology. To bad.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Sure, IF bitcoin was being used as a currency, this might be a valid argument--but it still wouldn't have jumped the shark.  But it's not a great currency.  It's a great investment and a decent store of value.  For those two things it matters a hell of a lot less what the network fees are.  If you buy stocks, you end up paying a lot more than $0.40 to buy any amount.  That's how I see it anyway.

[achow101]

I don't know if Bitcoin is finished, but some time ago everybody was talking about the positive things Bitcoin brings. Very cheap transactions where a big point. It's not the case anymore.

Transaction fees can and are still cheaper than most fees for traditional money transfer services. The fee is also more predictable when you go to send unlike with other money transfers such as PayPal.

But at last we can handle many transactions per second. Oh i forgot, we can not. thank god we are decentralized....
All i see is talk about the price. People forget the technology. To bad.

If segwit is activated and used, then we can handle more transactions per second than we do now. Once layer 2 solutions such as the Lightning Network and sidechains get started then we will handle much much more tps than right now.

[QuestionAuthority]

Sure, IF bitcoin was being used as a currency, this might be a valid argument--but it still wouldn't have jumped the shark.  But it's not a great currency.  It's a great investment and a decent store of value.  For those two things it matters a hell of a lot less what the network fees are.  If you buy stocks, you end up paying a lot more than $0.40 to buy any amount.  That's how I see it anyway.

That's weird but true. If Bitcoin is nothing more than a speculators toy then it's massively successful. You're one of those "glass half full" kind of people, aren't you? LOL

[franky1]

I don't know if Bitcoin is finished, but some time ago everybody was talking about the positive things Bitcoin brings. Very cheap transactions where a big point. It's not the case anymore.

Transaction fees can and are still cheaper than most fees for traditional money transfer services. The fee is also more predictable when you go to send unlike with other money transfers such as PayPal.

But at last we can handle many transactions per second. Oh i forgot, we can not. thank god we are decentralized....
All i see is talk about the price. People forget the technology. To bad.

If segwit is activated and used, then we can handle more transactions per second than we do now. Once layer 2 solutions such as the Lightning Network and sidechains get started then we will handle much much more tps than right now.

fee's are cheaper for the western developed countries half of the time.. but expensive for developing countries all of the time
if segwit is activated no guarantee of extra tx count. infact even if 100% of people used segwit the tx count will still end up being 7tx/s (as oppose to 3tx/s now).. but in 2009-2013 the metric was about 7tx/s capability anyway..

as for cores promise of fee discount if segwit activated.. thats a fake discount. pushing the price up and then discounting only part of a transaction and only the transaction of their feature.. wont even bring average prices down to levels of pre 2016

as for LN.. thats just a side service for those that want/need it. dont be stupid to think everyone needs it and dont expect it to be bitcoins end goal.

as for sidechains.. be honest and call it what it really is.. an altcoin! .. then try not to be so happy about coaxing people to think altcoins are better and stick to thinking about bitcoins network

we should not be driving users down a one way road into permissioned services by pushing up the permissionless system

[Holliday]

I didn't realize VISA is now offering censorship-proof transactions and a store of value which, done correctly, can not be seized.

Oh, that's right, VISA doesn't offer those things and that's why a comparison between VISA and Bitcoin is ridiculous.

Those screaming for on-chain scaling think they need censorship-proof transactions when purchasing a coffee and a doughnut.

Governments around the world continue to implement increasingly strict capital controls and the reason Bitcoin has value is because people can use it to avoid those controls. Confirmation speed and fees are inconsequential in the face of that utility.

[franky1]

I didn't realize VISA is now offering censorship-proof transactions and a store of value which, done correctly, can not be seized.

Oh, that's right, VISA doesn't offer those things and that's why a comparison between VISA and Bitcoin is ridiculous.

Those screaming for on-chain scaling think they need censorship-proof transactions when purchasing a coffee and a doughnut.

Governments around the world continue to implement increasingly strict capital controls and the reason Bitcoin has value is because people can use it to avoid those controls. Confirmation speed and fees are inconsequential in the face of that utility.

nothing against LN for a small niche side service that is optional for small regular spenders like gamblers, adsense and faucet raiders.. but dont scream that LN is the end goal and solution to bitcoin scaling

[QuestionAuthority]

I didn't realize VISA is now offering censorship-proof transactions and a store of value which, done correctly, can not be seized.

Oh, that's right, VISA doesn't offer those things and that's why a comparison between VISA and Bitcoin is ridiculous.

Those screaming for on-chain scaling think they need censorship-proof transactions when purchasing a coffee and a doughnut.

Governments around the world continue to implement increasingly strict capital controls and the reason Bitcoin has value is because people can use it to avoid those controls. Confirmation speed and fees are inconsequential in the face of that utility.

Dude, you realize those things were the rallying cry of forum members when we first came here. These people now all want free money, profit, rape and pillage the neighboring town, gamble, sig campaign and sell for drug money, premine altcoins and rape-pillage-profit. That hippie shit is long gone at this point.

[alyssa85]

If the fee continues to climb, all that will happen is that people start using an alt to store and move money. Ether has rather blotted it's copybook, but at some point an alt will emerge that will solve most of bitcoins problems.

It only takes one alt to make the breakthrough...

The question is, which one?

[European Central Bank]

If the fee continues to climb, all that will happen is that people start using an alt to store and move money. Ether has rather blotted it's copybook, but at some point an alt will emerge that will solve most of bitcoins problems.

it's kind of obvious - ltc. but no one seems to want to use it. features don't matter compared to trust and bitcoin has the trust. however i've already pretty much given up buying stuff with it because of the expense and if i do continue to buy with crypto then i'll be looking for other options.

[franky1]

If the fee continues to climb, all that will happen is that people start using an alt to store and move money. Ether has rather blotted it's copybook, but at some point an alt will emerge that will solve most of bitcoins problems.

it's kind of obvious - ltc. but no one seems to want to use it. features don't matter compared to trust and bitcoin has the trust. however i've already pretty much given up buying stuff with it because of the expense and if i do continue to buy with crypto then i'll be looking for other options.

its kind of more obvious.. Gmaxwell loves his monero.. just wish he stopped negatively messing with bitcoin and calling it a fake positive

[coolcoinz]

Sure, IF bitcoin was being used as a currency, this might be a valid argument--but it still wouldn't have jumped the shark.  But it's not a great currency.  It's a great investment and a decent store of value.  For those two things it matters a hell of a lot less what the network fees are.  If you buy stocks, you end up paying a lot more than $0.40 to buy any amount.  That's how I see it anyway.

That's weird but true. If Bitcoin is nothing more than a speculators toy then it's massively successful. You're one of those "glass half full" kind of people, aren't you? LOL

He also mentioned a store of value. If I were made to choose now, I'd would prefer to have Bitcoins than any currency, especially Euro. Bitcoin is unstable, but trouble in the euro land will undoubtedly bring investors in. People want to leave some doors open, they still are paid in fiat and want to keep using it, but they also want some Bitcoins and gold/silver just in case.

[kiklo]

Sure, IF bitcoin was being used as a currency, this might be a valid argument--but it still wouldn't have jumped the shark.  But it's not a great currency.  It's a great investment and a decent store of value.  For those two things it matters a hell of a lot less what the network fees are.  If you buy stocks, you end up paying a lot more than $0.40 to buy any amount.  That's how I see it anyway.

That's weird but true. If Bitcoin is nothing more than a speculators toy then it's massively successful. You're one of those "glass half full" kind of people, aren't you? LOL

He also mentioned a store of value. If I were made to choose now, I'd would prefer to have Bitcoins than any currency, especially Euro. Bitcoin is unstable, but trouble in the euro land will undoubtedly bring investors in. People want to leave some doors open, they still are paid in fiat and want to keep using it, but they also want some Bitcoins and gold/silver just in case.

U$ Dollar is the place to be for the next few years,

Chinese will cash out of BTC to prop up the Yuan trying to compete with the ever soaring U$ Dollar.
The recent BTC dump was just the beginning.
We are looking at least 4 years of this new environment, maybe 8 years, if Trump is reelected.
http://in.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets-bitcoin-idINKBN14P1ID


 

FYI:
Simple Fix to BTC Fee problem, use Altcoins instead.
Litecoin & Dogecoin are both PoW and both dominated by the China, just like BTC,
LTC & Doge are faster and cheaper to send.

[iTradeChips]

yeah i have been thinking about this too. if fees are going high and transactions are slow how can mass adoption happen? i like bitcoin but it would really be naive to think that there can be no better altcoin out there. there are so many ways to design coin features suited for different purposes

[lumeire]

yeah i have been thinking about this too. if fees are going high and transactions are slow how can mass adoption happen? i like bitcoin but it would really be naive to think that there can be no better altcoin out there. there are so many ways to design coin features suited for different purposes

If this continues to happen the market of micro-transactions is gonna die completely. Maybe another coin could fill that purpose.

[ACAB]

Id pay more the visa anyday to be able to use my btc. Does not bother me one bit.

[alyssa85]

yeah i have been thinking about this too. if fees are going high and transactions are slow how can mass adoption happen? i like bitcoin but it would really be naive to think that there can be no better altcoin out there. there are so many ways to design coin features suited for different purposes

If this continues to happen the market of micro-transactions is gonna die completely. Maybe another coin could fill that purpose.

Both Doge and steem work great for microtransactions (because 1 doge fee in the case of doge and no fee in the case of steem). But people seem to want a coin that has low fees, handles microtransactions AND is a store of value. It's the last bit (store of value) that is the problem.

[uneng]

yeah i have been thinking about this too. if fees are going high and transactions are slow how can mass adoption happen? i like bitcoin but it would really be naive to think that there can be no better altcoin out there. there are so many ways to design coin features suited for different purposes

If it continues with high fees and slow transactions bitcoin will never left the speculation and investment currency status. Investors will continue using it, because it's profitable, but the stores won't accept it and most persons won't want use bitcoins.
Bitcoin goal is to be a currency used in daily life, but it's too far to happen, unfortunately as there are some problems with the transactions facility.