What will happen with Bitcoin if it never scales?

[Xester]

What do you think that might happen with Bitcoin if no scalable solution becomes accepted?

Will it remain as a store of value, while other altcoins take the lead for everyday transactions? Or will another cryptocurrency take its place as the top in marketcap?

I would like to know your thoughts about this, as the ongoing scaling debate will further limit Bitcoin from reaching new heights. As for me, I believe that the Bitcoin community would come up at a resolution somehow to put an end to this issue, and make the pioneer cryptocurrency great again. What do you think? 

If there are no scalable solution then we are left with one solution and that is to change POW to proof of stake or POW. That way all bitcoin holders can participate as long as they have a desktop wallet. If this will be implemented we will no longer rely on the big miners rather all of us will become stakers and bitcoin will become more stable than it ever has.

[1714609315]

1714609315

[1714609315]

1714609315

[xypos]

What do you think that might happen with Bitcoin if no scalable solution becomes accepted?

Will it remain as a store of value, while other altcoins take the lead for everyday transactions? Or will another cryptocurrency take its place as the top in marketcap?

I would like to know your thoughts about this, as the ongoing scaling debate will further limit Bitcoin from reaching new heights. As for me, I believe that the Bitcoin community would come up at a resolution somehow to put an end to this issue, and make the pioneer cryptocurrency great again. What do you think? 

I don't think that it'll necessarily affect bitcoin's status as a store of value.

The reasoning behind this is that you don't need something to be a functional currency to be a store of value. For example gold and silver, are they divisible? No. Are they interchangeable? Not really, as you have to go to such trouble to verify each bar's purity.

But yet, mankind still perceives gold and silver as the ultimate store of value.

The same with bitcoin in my opinion, even if it doesn't scale, it'll be digital gold.

[Ucy]

" Something that ceased to update/upgrade will never be valuable in technology, they will become obsolete and forgotten."

I agree

[dinofelis]

If Satoshi's prediction is correct, there are only two possible outcome: (1) zero volume (death) of bitcoin and (2) large volume (mainstream), in 20 years' time (by 2028?). If bitcoin never scales and the volume can't go up, it will die.

I think even there he was wrong, unless of course in a trivial way: EVERY monetary asset ultimately fades away.  The only question is: over what time scale ?  10 years ?  50 years ?  500 years ?  The only monetary assets that have a millennia-long history of store of value are gold and to a lesser extend, silver, and some precious stones.  But even precious stones are not eternal.  Obsidian used to be one of the most valuable precious stones in early civilisations, for millennia.  Now, it is very secondary.  Diamonds are now considered precious.  1000 years ago, they weren't.

But no human-created monetary belief system beyond these have ever stood the test of time.  So ultimately, bitcoin will be worthless.  The question is only: when ?  10 years from now ?  50 years from now ?  500 years from now ?

Before that time, bitcoin will be worth something.  And no, it will NEVER be the "money of the world".  Nothing ever is.  Even the dollar is not "the money of the world" although it came close during a few decades after WW II.   The dollar is NOT backing China's economy, Europe's economy.  It is essentially the currency of petrol.

So, apart from the obvious "sooner or later bitcoin will go to 0", bitcoin will not be zero, nor everything.  It will find its niche, until it is replaced, which can take quite some time.  Like all money.

Of course, at a future point in time, one may ask whether some or other cryptomonetary system that has some roots in bitcoin and is more successful, "is" bitcoin, even if one wouldn't recognize it as such. 

[Monnt]

We are at the point where scaling needs to be solved in the next few years.
Bitcoin will stay king for now, but another coin with faster transaction times and better optimized blockchain could definitely take over.

Confirmation time and sending fees are probably the two biggest obstacles for a crypto coin that aims for mass adoption.
(Aside from security and privacy obviously.)

I agree, the biggest problem that is driving people away from bitcoin is  the transactions and fee, bitcoin has been for a long time the leader of the cryptocurrency and it will stay that way, but with these problems that it is facing today the alt coins are trying to catch up to it, although they are not as popular as bitcoin, but bitcoin is not accepted in all online shops, but there are many investments in it like debit cards which allows us to use it like regular money.

[jonald_fyookball]

But have they forgotten that the one who controls bitcoin is the users itself,  now the miners, community are really mess up bcoz of BU and Cores power grab methods and affecting us normal users.

Can you teach me how am I (a user) actually control Bitcoin?

Because as far as I know, the only "control" I have in Bitcoin is just to buy and sell it and nothing more.

that is your power.

If there's a network split you can dump the version you don't like and trade it for the version you see value in.

[Clement Kaliyar]

I agree, the biggest problem that is driving people away from bitcoin is  the transactions and fee, bitcoin has been for a long time the leader of the cryptocurrency and it will stay that way, but with these problems that it is facing today the alt coins are trying to catch up to it, although they are not as popular as bitcoin, but bitcoin is not accepted in all online shops, but there are many investments in it like debit cards which allows us to use it like regular money.

Bitcoin will be the leader and will rule the crypto currency sphere in the future,scaling is a big issue and it has to be rectified with the amount of users and transaction growing with time you have to stay upto date to accomodate everyone,alt coin has its market penetration and we have a ton of currencies and it is hard to follow everything,i do like to see bitcoin as an asset than a currency and so i am not worried about online shops accepting bitcoins.

[Powerman001]

We are at the point where scaling needs to be solved in the next few years.
Bitcoin will stay king for now, but another coin with faster transaction times and better optimized blockchain could definitely take over.

Confirmation time and sending fees are probably the two biggest obstacles for a crypto coin that aims for mass adoption.
(Aside from security and privacy obviously.)

I agree, the biggest problem that is driving people away from bitcoin is  the transactions and fee, bitcoin has been for a long time the leader of the cryptocurrency and it will stay that way, but with these problems that it is facing today the alt coins are trying to catch up to it, although they are not as popular as bitcoin, but bitcoin is not accepted in all online shops, but there are many investments in it like debit cards which allows us to use it like regular money.

But in my opinion although bitcoin currently has a transaction fee which is expensive compared to altcoin it is not a significant problem. Due to the current bitcoin fee not displace the bitcoin above all altcoin. I think today bitcoin is more believable  for investment than any other coin. Because the price is relatively stable compare. Thank you

[bamboylee]

It will eventually die if it fails to scale. The fees will grow very high as more user come in. Scaling is a very big issue and if bitcoin fails to address it, I think it is time to switch to an alt-coin which have a better take on scaling issues.

[Abiky]

Bitcoin will be forgotten.  That will probably will happen if Bitcoin never scales.  No one will use an obsolete currency specially the kind of currency where bitcoin belongs depends on the technology and scalability. 

Something that ceased to update/upgrade will never be valuable in technology, they will become obsolete and forgotten.

It may happen that way. However, there could exist the possibility of the cryptocurrency to remain alive, even if it doesn't scale. By then, it will only be used as a store of value, but not as a payment processor to handle everyday transactions. Maybe if this happens, another cryptocurrency will take the lead and become the number one in market cap. It would probably be Dash or Ethereum which will take Bitcoin's place.

If you read Core's road map they want it to be able to scale both on chain and off when necessary. They just want it done slowly and safely as possible.

Yeah. That is one of the good things that the Core team has. They carefully revise the code for any security issues to make Bitcoin as safe as possible. Even though they've been slow on implementing upgrades to the network, at least they've been trying to make them as reliable as possible.

The recent bugs that were encountered on Bitcoin Unlimited, shows the lack of development to carefully revise the code for any issues before releasing it to the public. However, if BU would put security and reliability first, then it would become a recognizable alternative that might overcome Core. Just my thoughts. 

[cellard]

What do you think that might happen with Bitcoin if no scalable solution becomes accepted?

Will it remain as a store of value, while other altcoins take the lead for everyday transactions? Or will another cryptocurrency take its place as the top in marketcap?

I would like to know your thoughts about this, as the ongoing scaling debate will further limit Bitcoin from reaching new heights. As for me, I believe that the Bitcoin community would come up at a resolution somehow to put an end to this issue, and make the pioneer cryptocurrency great again. What do you think? 

It will remain just as digital gold: A hodling coin to hedge against the system instability.

Other coins could take the lead to be fast low value transactions. Maybe LTC if it ever manages to get segwit deployed, which would lead to Lightning Network. Segwit makes Lightning Network better and BTC will never have segwit at this point.

[bitbob82]

I agree, the biggest problem that is driving people away from bitcoin is  the transactions and fee, bitcoin has been for a long time the leader of the cryptocurrency and it will stay that way, but with these problems that it is facing today the alt coins are trying to catch up to it, although they are not as popular as bitcoin, but bitcoin is not accepted in all online shops, but there are many investments in it like debit cards which allows us to use it like regular money.

Bitcoin will be the leader and will rule the crypto currency sphere in the future,scaling is a big issue and it has to be rectified with the amount of users and transaction growing with time you have to stay upto date to accomodate everyone,alt coin has its market penetration and we have a ton of currencies and it is hard to follow everything,i do like to see bitcoin as an asset than a currency and so i am not worried about online shops accepting bitcoins.

yes that is very true bitcoin is already one of the best crypto currency and hope that it will remain as number one currency for ever, i do not think that there can be any currency that can compete with bitcoin. bitcoin is already number one currency of the world and will always remain as number one crypto currency.

[jonald_fyookball]

. Segwit makes Lightning Network better and BTC will never have segwit at this point.

Makes it better how?

[Abiky]

It will remain just as digital gold: A hodling coin to hedge against the system instability.

Other coins could take the lead to be fast low value transactions. Maybe LTC if it ever manages to get segwit deployed, which would lead to Lightning Network. Segwit makes Lightning Network better and BTC will never have segwit at this point.

That would probably happen, as other altcoins take the lead and become used primarily for everyday transactions. Bitcoin will remain as digital gold, where it is scarce, and it would be limited by a few people to be able to transact in it, but will not serve its purpose to send money quickly to anyone in the world.

Honestly, I think that it is better for people to become interested into other altcoins, as it would greatly benefit Bitcoin from ever being congested by high transaction throughput. Thus, the more users migrate from Bitcoin, the better as there would be less unconfirmed transactions on the network.

Nevertheless, if Litecoin takes the lead by getting the approval of SegWit, then it would be ultra-fast, as well as have higher capacity than Bitcoin to handle more transaction throughput, making it used in the mainstream world. Just my opinion. 

[shinratensei_]

What do you think that might happen with Bitcoin if no scalable solution becomes accepted?

Will it remain as a store of value, while other altcoins take the lead for everyday transactions? Or will another cryptocurrency take its place as the top in marketcap?

I would like to know your thoughts about this, as the ongoing scaling debate will further limit Bitcoin from reaching new heights. As for me, I believe that the Bitcoin community would come up at a resolution somehow to put an end to this issue, and make the pioneer cryptocurrency great again. What do you think? 

It will remain just as digital gold: A hodling coin to hedge against the system instability.

Other coins could take the lead to be fast low value transactions. Maybe LTC if it ever manages to get segwit deployed, which would lead to Lightning Network. Segwit makes Lightning Network better and BTC will never have segwit at this point.

Although we can still run the LN without SegWit but looks like it will be less on the advantages.

https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/
SegWit gives a lot of benefits. Thus LN effectivity and efficiency less without SegWit. LN will lame without SegWit.

Looks like Syscoin will be the first to implemented the SegWit and LN activation.

[iamTom123]

I am sure people whom we trust dealing with Bitcoin are also thinking of the same question right now. In fact, this is at the heart of the ongoing debate right now on how to scale Bitcoin most especially when looking forward to the future. I am sure though that the whole Bitcoin community can be able to find an accepted solution for this scale challenge. At the end, Bitcoin will continue to rule and be the leader of the cryptocurrency world. I am so positive about that. All other coins will just follow along though they can have a good slice of the pie too.

[Killerpotleaf]

Segwit makes Lightning Network better and BTC will never have segwit at this point.

It's the TX_ID fix that makes  Lightning Network better.
and i guarantee you no matter what happens, no matter who "wins".
a TX_ID fix will come to bitcoin in less than a year

[_nur]

alt will take over

[Dmitry.Vastov]

Definitely there will be no sense to use bitcoin anymore. Its hard to think but that's a possible scenario if ever bitcoin will never scale. If that happens (hope not), bitcoin community will split and switch to altcoins. So altcoin will take over the market. Maybe DASH, ETH, XMR will possibly take over because these are top contenders.

[centralbanksequalsbombs]

I am sure people whom we trust dealing with Bitcoin are also thinking of the same question right now. In fact, this is at the heart of the ongoing debate right now on how to scale Bitcoin most especially when looking forward to the future. I am sure though that the whole Bitcoin community can be able to find an accepted solution for this scale challenge. At the end, Bitcoin will continue to rule and be the leader of the cryptocurrency world. I am so positive about that. All other coins will just follow along though they can have a good slice of the pie too.

There is no debate except for FUD. Bitcoin will never scaled directly and thus it will remain KING of crypto and all financial assets for that matter.

Detail on post titled "Hacks & puppets & forks - how to destroy bitcoin": https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1834310.0