Ahh, I don't know how to say this, but I have to say the truth. Bitcoin is over. The 8 year experiment that was meant to change the world for the better and to emancipate the human population, has turned into an echochamber of trolls who yell at eachother, while the system is slowly collapsing, and being replaced by other altcoins.
I am in Bitcoin since 2013-2014, I have seen all of it, and mostly the inability of it to evolve. It wasn't as bad until 2015, and throughout 2016 I was silent, but now it's 2017, and things are getting worse. Only a fool will deny that.
If this continues, then Bitcoin will be over. I don't want that, since I have obviously invested a lot of time and effort into this. But I fear that there is no other option now, as I am seeing the inability of the community to resolve issues.
I have sent a transaction 2 days ago, and guess how much fee I had to pay?
70,000 satoshi.Yes 70,000 satoshi for an average size transaction, with 1 input and 1 output, in order to be confirmed within 2 blocks.
I remember the time when back in 2014 I used to work 3 hours doing stupid faucets for 70,000 satoshi, and now it's all gone in 1 transaction?
Now I have heard the dumbasses saying that we can't have faster than 10 min confirm time because it will create orphans (strangely other cryptocoins don't have this issue). So I can put up with a 10 min confirmation time, just for the sake of this argument.
But to pay 70,000 satoshi in order to have 20 min confirmation, is just ridiculous. I might as well just switch to Paypal, what is the difference at this point?
The alternative of course was to wait 30-40 blocks with a 12000 satoshi fee.
Now is Bitcoin "A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" like satoshi wanted, with 70,000 satoshi fee OR 40 block wait time?
Or is Bitcoin just a Frankenstein monster, that has obvious flaws (this, miner centralization, nodes are not incentivized, etc) that will slowly die off once better alternatives come in?
And the community reaction is also deplorable. Most people call me troll or shill, just for pointing out legitimate criticisms? What you can't criticize Bitcoin now? Is Bitcoin just an echochamber of fanatics and fanboys? Because without criticism, you can't solve issues.
Given the fact that most new Bitcoiners are from 3rd world countries, where high transaction fee is unacceptable. And given the fact that most people in the world like simple & elegant solutions (like how Apple conquered the marketplace with this method).
People want simple solutions:
- Pronouncable addresses instead of long hash text
- Instant confirmation times (yes it's possible)
- Low or no fees (yes it's possible)
- Unlimited transactions (yes it's possible)
- Simple wallet GUI (ok, this one bitcoin does have through mobile apps)
So out of these 5 critical marketing poinst, bitcoin can only deliver 1, which is a very poor performance. And there are of course other security related issues, but they are not necessarly cared by Average Joe.
So it seems to me that 3rd worlders have absolutely no incentive to use Bitcoin. They will just use another cryptocurrency that can deliver these promises.
Segwit will probably not pass, and then we will be stuck another 2 years bitching and moaning at eachother and trying to find scapegoats.
And in that time, Bitcoin will be replaced by a better alternative, once the majority of people realize that it's pointless to argue with trolls.
So after 4 years of being in this community, I'm afraid I have to leave it now. I don't see any hope for Bitcoin in the long run. It was a good prototype, and it definitely taught us a lot of good technical things, but also a lot of game theory/ sociology things, where it has been proven in my opinion, that consensus can't be made without a clear voting platform.
So yes, Bitcoin was the first, we thank satoshi for his work. But Bitcoin isn't "THE ONE". It's just a failed prototype with many bugs. And out of this failure a better and stronger coin will arise.
