Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[marcus_of_augustus]

We are nowhere close to "everything will suck soon" ^tm. You guys have been saying that for a year now btw.

Actually several years. We've been repeatedly pointing at the same stupid, unnecessary hard ceiling, and pointing out that the inexorable trend of increasing transactions has us on a clear intersect.

In the meantime, we have recently gone from things never sucking in regards to capacity, to things sucking for brief flashes of time. The issue is not how much one needs to pay to get a transaction through, the issue is that with the current block size, no more than about 350,000 transactions can be processed in a day. Period. No matter how much money is thrown at the transactions.

Actually, it's more like 230,000 per day. Source: https://oxt.me/charts (Look at the maximum tx volumes in December and January).

Actually, it's more like 500,000 per day after segwit is implemented in April.

And how many transactions are low value (uneconomic elastic demand) that will drop off when the spam limit comes into effect? http://rusty.ozlabs.org/?p=500

And how many are actually responding to the nascent fee market? http://rusty.ozlabs.org/?p=564

And not as many transactions are actually "stuck" because of block limits but rather bad wallet software not broadcasting correctly ... http://rusty.ozlabs.org/?p=573

Edit: let's keep our numbers fact based shall we? Pulling magic constants out of bottoms is bad engineering, but maybe good politics.

[blunderer]

Using the 1MB limit to prevent centralization is like mangling your daughter's face to prevent her from being raped. It's an extremely high price to pay and it doesn't even work that well.

Nope, the 1MB limit is more like teaching your daughter to use self-discipline and situational awareness to avoid dangerous situations, and martial arts/marksmanship should an attempt be made.

Setting a huge block size and expecting spam tx to just go away is like dressing up in slutwear, blacking out drunk at a ghetto frat party, and hoping for the best.

You're both wrong -- it's like fitting your daughter with a chastity belt that has a thumb-size hole in it, thus assuring that ...oh, you can figure it out.

[Andre#]

Accordingly, I still have troubles understanding when the blocksize and/or scaling issues are presented as "an emergency."

Do you understand the principle of non-parallel lines in a two-dimensional cartesian coordinate system?

No.  I don't understand:  "non-parallel lines in a two-dimensional cartesian coordinate system."

It's may sound fancy, but it's very simple. This is a (logarithmic) graph of the number of Bitcoin transactions over time:



The interactive version is here: https://oxt.me/charts

The blue line is the number of transactions in a given month. In December and January there were 6 million transactions per month. The maximum per day that can be processed is about 250,000, so that's 7.5 million per month. To visualize that maximum, you could draw a horizontal line in the graph at 7,500,000. As you can see, the growth in transactions is pretty steady, in this logarithmic graph it's almost a straight line (so the growth is actually exponential). If you extrapolate that line to the future, it will cross the horizontal line at 7,500,000 tx at some point. In fact, if two lines don't run parallel, you know for sure they will cross each other sometime.

I haven't felt any significant delay because usually the transaction will show up with zero confirmations within 5 minutes or so then I can rest assured that it is coming to me.

When blocks become persistently full, you will never be able to safely assume that a zero-conf transaction will ever get included in a block.

And that is a fact.

O.k.  I will accept your representation.  Currently, we seem to be a long ways away from the "fact" that you are asserting to be coming about, and from my understanding, there are several potential bandaid solutions in place until a possible more permanent solution is agreed upon or implemented by coup de at... 

It will only take a few more months before the lines will cross. I wouldn't call that a long way off. And rolling out a hard fork takes time. So yes, time is running out fast.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[JayJuanGee]

We are nowhere close to "everything will suck soon" ^tm. You guys have been saying that for a year now btw.

Actually several years. We've been repeatedly pointing at the same stupid, unnecessary hard ceiling, and pointing out that the inexorable trend of increasing transactions has us on a clear intersect.

In the meantime, we have recently gone from things never sucking in regards to capacity, to things sucking for brief flashes of time. The issue is not how much one needs to pay to get a transaction through, the issue is that with the current block size, no more than about 350,000 transactions can be processed in a day. Period. No matter how much money is thrown at the transactions.

There have been times when I had to wait for multiple full blocks before my transactions got included in one. The time from sending the transactions to getting six confirmations was hours, not an hour like it's supposed to take. At other times when the blocks weren't full and if I got lucky getting included in a block and getting six confirmations took less than an hour. The problem's already manifesting itself, but intermittently.

I recall in the past, I had to wait for six confirmations to be able to use my coins; however, I believe that these days, I have only been needing to receive 3 confirmations before I am able to access my coins.  Maybe I need to look more closely at this as well in order to verify my own access thresholds?    Yet, so far in my bitcoin experiences, I have not really been rushed to have to move my coins a second time, once I've already moved them.  On the other hand, I understand that some other people can become more anxious, and possibly slightly less than half of the instances in which my transactions are being confirmed on the blockchain, I am sending the coins to someone else (rather than sending to myself or receiving the coins from someone else).

[orpington]

Accordingly, I still have troubles understanding when the blocksize and/or scaling issues are presented as "an emergency."

Do you understand the principle of non-parallel lines in a two-dimensional cartesian coordinate system?

No.  I don't understand:  "non-parallel lines in a two-dimensional cartesian coordinate system."

It's may sound fancy, but it's very simple. This is a (logarithmic) graph of the number of Bitcoin transactions over time:



The interactive version is here: https://oxt.me/charts

The blue line is the number of transactions in a given month. In December and January there were 6 million transactions per month. The maximum per day that can be processed is about 250,000, so that's 7.5 million per month. To visualize that maximum, you could draw a horizontal line in the graph at 7,500,000. As you can see, the growth in transactions is pretty steady, in this logarithmic graph it's almost a straight line (so the growth is actually exponential). If you extrapolate that line to the future, it will cross the horizontal line at 7,500,000 tx at some point. In fact, if two lines don't run parallel, you know for sure they will cross each other sometime.

I haven't felt any significant delay because usually the transaction will show up with zero confirmations within 5 minutes or so then I can rest assured that it is coming to me.

When blocks become persistently full, you will never be able to safely assume that a zero-conf transaction will ever get included in a block.

And that is a fact.

O.k.  I will accept your representation.  Currently, we seem to be a long ways away from the "fact" that you are asserting to be coming about, and from my understanding, there are several potential bandaid solutions in place until a possible more permanent solution is agreed upon or implemented by coup de at... 

It will only take a few more months before the lines will cross. I wouldn't call that a long way off. And rolling out a hard fork takes time. So yes, time is running out fast.

Andre#, have you developed a sense of humor yet or are you just as "spot on" as ever? 

[marcus_of_augustus]

Accordingly, I still have troubles understanding when the blocksize and/or scaling issues are presented as "an emergency."

Do you understand the principle of non-parallel lines in a two-dimensional cartesian coordinate system?

No.  I don't understand:  "non-parallel lines in a two-dimensional cartesian coordinate system."

It will only take a few more months before the lines will cross. I wouldn't call that a long way off. And rolling out a hard fork takes time. So yes, time is running out fast.

The lines will not cross because it is a hard limit so that is mathematically impossible. The bottom line will curve and asymptote up to the top line as elastic demand is forced off the network. It may at best become tangent to it.

"The lines cross and omg! catastrophe happens" is the sophisticated wrapper around the bullshit argument "nobody goes there any more because it is too popular".

[Fatman3001]

[blunderer]

...
"The lines cross and omg! catastrophe happens" is the sophisticated wrapper around the bullshit argument "nobody goes there any more because it is too popular".

Bitcoin is like brewer's yeast: by the time network stops growing it starts choking on its own piss, it's too late -- everything dies

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

I literally have no idea what you people are talking about.

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

"The lines cross and omg! catastrophe happens" is the sophisticated wrapper around the bullshit argument "nobody goes there any more because it is too popular".

[Fatman3001]

I literally have no idea what you people are talking about.

me neither

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

I literally have no idea what you people are talking about.

me neither

That's a relief.

[Andre#]

"The lines cross and omg! catastrophe happens" is the sophisticated wrapper around the bullshit argument "nobody goes there any more because it is too popular".

ROTFL!

[jbreher]

"The lines cross and omg! catastrophe happens" is the sophisticated wrapper around the bullshit argument "nobody goes there any more because it is too popular".

If you think the world has enough Bitcoin users as things stand today, you have a point. If you think that use of Bitcoin growing by a factor of more than several dozen percent is desirable, then your point is ridiculous.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[marcus_of_augustus]

"The lines cross and omg! catastrophe happens" is the sophisticated wrapper around the bullshit argument "nobody goes there any more because it is too popular".

If you think the world has enough Bitcoin users as things stand today, you have a point. If you think that use of Bitcoin growing by a factor of more than several dozen percent is desirable, then your point is ridiculous.

I don't think either of those things, you have just presented a false dichotomy, albeit shoddily constructed, that advances the debate by zero percent.

I was just pointing out the totally false and misleading argumentation of this whole "the lines cross omg! catastrophe" bullshit that your best friend Mike Hearn started. You know that guy that did famously well out of bitcoin, made him wealthy, got him out of a failed marriage and landed a cushy gig advising mega-banks and stabbed bitcoiners in the back without a thought of gratitude.

[ahpku]

... You know that guy that did famously well out of bitcoin, made him wealthy, got him out of a failed marriage and landed a cushy gig advising mega-banks ...

And all you got is this lousy T-shirt?
Feel u, brah.

[Fatman3001]

"The lines cross and omg! catastrophe happens" is the sophisticated wrapper around the bullshit argument "nobody goes there any more because it is too popular".

If you think the world has enough Bitcoin users as things stand today, you have a point. If you think that use of Bitcoin growing by a factor of more than several dozen percent is desirable, then your point is ridiculous.

I don't think either of those things, you have just presented a false dichotomy, albeit shoddily constructed, that advances the debate by zero percent.

I was just pointing out the totally false and misleading argumentation of this whole "the lines cross omg! catastrophe" bullshit that your best friend Mike Hearn started. You know that guy that did famously well out of bitcoin, made him wealthy, got him out of a failed marriage and landed a cushy gig advising mega-banks and stabbed bitcoiners in the back without a thought of gratitude.

u r mad

The guy tried his best to help fix a problem and was treated as shit for it. So he spoke his mind, made a clean cut and moved out of Bitcoin. I think it's best not to think of who stabbed who in the back.

(cushy job? the dude came from Google. not exactly IT backwaters)

[marcus_of_augustus]

... let the DDOSing begin now that techignorati who use binaries because they can't build from source are wandering stupidly into the badlands. tally-ho