What will happen with Bitcoin if it never scales?

[bncbnc]

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.

but i do not think that such situation will every happen, i am hopeful that bitcoin will continue as an active currency and hope that it will continue as number one currency of the world.

[Kevin77]

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.

I think that if bitcoin becomes non scalable which is by nature is not going to happen, is that bitcoin becomes more of a collectible rather than a currency, it will become more of a diamond than a gold, the reason why bitcoin will always be scalable is because as time goes by the price is going to increase and this leads to us changing the values that we use it with, so we don’t have to worry about this and worry about altcoins taking over the exchange market.

[jovs]

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.)

Scaling bitcoin is just a small issue right now. Because we all know that the main reason of the sudden changes of its value is depends on the support of the community of bitcoin. So the bigger problem is how bitcoin will be well-known as a crypto currency of all country. Because if it happened the demand of bitcoin will increase resulting on the improvement on the value or stock of exchange of bitcoin. And that is the time people we see the scale and the possibilities of bitcoin through the future. Some says that if bitcoin never scales it will become obsolete, yes it is right but for me that is impossible to happen for now to bitcoin. Because to future of bitcoin is just starting for now.

[Abiky]

I think that if bitcoin becomes non scalable which is by nature is not going to happen, is that bitcoin becomes more of a collectible rather than a currency, it will become more of a diamond than a gold, the reason why bitcoin will always be scalable is because as time goes by the price is going to increase and this leads to us changing the values that we use it with, so we don’t have to worry about this and worry about altcoins taking over the exchange market.

Well, only time will tell what would be the use case of Bitcoin at some point in the future, as the same is uncertain. If it never scales, then it would be rather used only as a store of value, and more as of a rare asset with similarities to Gold, but not meant to be used to handle your average everyday transactions. Bitcoin would be more of like a reserve currency against other cryptocurrencies in existence (just like the USD in the fiat world).

While it may continue to remain in the top spot at market cap ratings, other altcoins may take the lead into becoming mainstream as they prove to provide better features than Bitcoin, and faster confirmation times.

Big corporations, businesses, and banks alike would use Ethereum and Ripple to handle all the world's transactions in the future. Since they have blazing fast speeds and can scale exponentially, they would become the standard towards making digital currency payments. Just my thoughts. 

[zimmah]

You don;t have to imagine, you can already see that altcoins will take over.

Bitcoin has already failed to scale and the longer it continues to fail to scale the more altcoins will take over.

If it takes much longer, the damage will be irreversible, assuming it is not already too late.

[ashuawei]

i've been reading so much about bitcoin and i always encounter this scalable term..

can anyone explain this to me on the most simplest way?

[wck]

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.

Huh? This is what you are calling a roadmap?  https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-December/011865.html

[Wind_FURY]

You don;t have to imagine, you can already see that altcoins will take over.

Bitcoin has already failed to scale and the longer it continues to fail to scale the more altcoins will take over.

If it takes much longer, the damage will be irreversible, assuming it is not already too late.

That is one possible scenario. But it does not mean Bitcoin will die. It will always be there as a store of value. A kind of "digital gold" which is something how, most of the people who are hoarding it, see it anyway.

[TIDOVEE]

Bitcoin scalability has been one of the attracting motivations for its users among others.how can one imagine the value becoming imbalance especially negatively?
im sure it will be abandoned in that condition and will surely become obsolete.

[asuryan180]

Hmm,I guess it will still be in use and have fairly large volume but it won't be the success that it could have been and not so much people will be using it.Then other cryptos may  use BTC's popularity and take over

[Abiky]

That is one possible scenario. But it does not mean Bitcoin will die. It will always be there as a store of value. A kind of "digital gold" which is something how, most of the people who are hoarding it, see it anyway.

Agree. Even if Bitcoin doesn't get to scale, it will always be in the eyes of investors and everyday people, to be used as digital gold. Due to its limited supply, and deflationary nature, it may continue to rise in value the scarcer it gets.

Thus, Bitcoin would be used as a reserve currency for other cryptocurrencies, while altcoins take the lead in handling everyday transactions. We've already seen alternatives like like Bitshares and Ripple, which can handle more transaction throughput. It would only be a matter of time before people start using them more than Bitcoin itself for their daily transactions.

However, if Bitcoin comes at a consensus level among the miner's hashrate, then we could see a bright future for it. There are many proposed solutions to make Bitcoin scale, but only one shall prevail. When that time comes in, expect for BTC's value to increase exponentially. Just my opinion. 

[Hydrogen]

One possibility is someone eventually developing a crypto coin which isn't a pre-mined cash grab that is good for everything bitcoin is not.

That could alleviate pressure off btc being a jack of all trades when it was designed to be a master of none.

It makes more sense for an alt coin designed for loans and high speed transactions being used for those purposes, rather than reinventing bitcoin into something it was never designed to be.

[Abiky]

One possibility is someone eventually developing a crypto coin which isn't a pre-mined cash grab that is good for everything bitcoin is not.

That could alleviate pressure off btc being a jack of all trades when it was designed to be a master of none.

It makes more sense for an alt coin designed for loans and high speed transactions being used for those purposes, rather than reinventing bitcoin into something it was never designed to be.

Yeah. That could happen at some point in the future, where a new alternative cryptocurrency would become designed with innovative features, and most of all, overcoming Bitcoin's current issues which are scalability and fungibility. If this new coin, would implement SegWit into its code when launched, have a limited supply like Bitcoin (or probably even less), and becomes fungible with anon features like ZK-SNARKs, then it may overcome Bitcoin in market cap ratings and popularity as it will be the most valuable cryptocurrency available on the markets.

Thus, having speed efficiency in processing transactions, implementing privacy over transactions, and having the ability to scale over time, is key towards having a successful cryptocurrency that would become used by the masses in the mainstream world.

Nevertheless, I'm hoping to see Bitcoin evolve and take a step further into becoming scalable, but if it doesn't, expect to see another altcoin which will take Bitcoin's lead. Just my opinion. 

[ashuawei]

can anyone expalin what scaling means plaese. thank you.

[David Rabahy]

Folks have at least two views of scaling.

The one I am use to is where a function is measured to get work done at some rate and then after some change/improvement the function can then get more work done at a higher rate.  For example, a truck might be able to haul so many tons then some bright person gets the idea to hook a second trailer behind the first and double the rate.  Scaling like this comes at a price, e.g. miles per gallon, etc.  Scaling like this will have some physical limit, e.g. it may become dangerous to keep on attaching more and more trailers, etc.

Another view of scaling involves making a more subtle sort of change/improvement.  Instead of just increasing the capacity, the idea is to arrange to do the work with less effort.  Using our example, some bright person reengineers the things being hauled to be much smaller and lighter and so many more fit into the first trailer.

Nothing precludes taking advantage of both kinds of scaling.

I have seen occasions where folks dismiss the first sort of scaling although I have yet to find out what they term it.

[sportis]

You don;t have to imagine, you can already see that altcoins will take over.

Bitcoin has already failed to scale and the longer it continues to fail to scale the more altcoins will take over.

If it takes much longer, the damage will be irreversible, assuming it is not already too late.

That is one possible scenario. But it does not mean Bitcoin will die. It will always be there as a store of value. A kind of "digital gold" which is something how, most of the people who are hoarding it, see it anyway.

I completely agree. Bitcoin will never die because has network effect. That means has a big user base because people want it. Therefore, maybe people use some altcoins for everyday micro payments like as litecoin but most of their funds will be stored in bitcoin.

[dinofelis]

can anyone expalin what scaling means plaese. thank you.

David Rabahy already gave an answer, but I'll try mine.  In general, "scaling" has to do with a relationship between a "cost", C and a "scale" or "scope", S, which we can write as a function: C = f(S).  S can be "the number of customers", and C can be "the cost of the store handling them".  S can be "the number of bits of a secret key", and C can be "the amount of computing needed to crack the key".  S can be "the number of nodes in a network" and C can be "the cost of the network".  But it can also be "the average time it takes to connect two nodes".

The function "f" is determined by the type of solution one presents.  If one uses another technology, this function f changes.  
What matters in "scaling considerations" is the overall large scale dependence of f on S.  For instance, it can be "proportional", "quadratic", "exponential", "logarithmic", "sub-linear" ...

In bitcoin's example, the scope S can be the number of users, but usually, it is more the number of transactions ; C is the "cost" in terms of network bandwidth, block chain size, and so on.  Usual on-chain scaling is about linear.  That is, for twice as much transactions, you need twice as much bandwidth, block chain size, etc....

In fact, "linear scaling" is not dramatic at first sight.  

But in fact, if we think more about it, it is not really linear.  It is linear when seen from a single user.  But when seen from the total size of the network, in fact, the scaling is rather quadratic.  If we have N users, then we have most probably N/K full nodes, which, each of them, must carry a block chain and a network burden proportional to the chain, which is, itself, proportional to the number of transactions.  So the total cost of "more users and more transactions" is actually quadratic.  As it has to be carried by more users, the cost per user is linear.   But this is nevertheless a problem: the more bitcoin has adoption, the more expensive it is per user.  That's not the idea.  As such, people look for solutions where the cost of adoption is not quadratic for the whole network.

It seems that as such, decentralized block chain technology is capping itself to a certain adoption size, above which, it becomes too expensive to be used, or needs to decrease its network nodes to just a few who take all the burden (and can take all the decisions) -> centralization.

[wck]

You don;t have to imagine, you can already see that altcoins will take over.

Bitcoin has already failed to scale and the longer it continues to fail to scale the more altcoins will take over.

If it takes much longer, the damage will be irreversible, assuming it is not already too late.

That is one possible scenario. But it does not mean Bitcoin will die. It will always be there as a store of value. A kind of "digital gold" which is something how, most of the people who are hoarding it, see it anyway.

I completely agree. Bitcoin will never die because has network effect. That means has a big user base because people want it. Therefore, maybe people use some altcoins for everyday micro payments like as litecoin but most of their funds will be stored in bitcoin.

I don't know, I just had a transaction for only 0.03 BTC that cost me 89000 sats in fees.    The problem is I have a lot of small transactions in my wallet and even small transfers take lots of bytes!   This is the kind of thing that could kill bitcoin!

[CraigWrightBTC]

Bitcoin will be adopted by all of people and the most important bitcoin will be considered as currency
many people use bitcoin for payment method because of there are not fees must be paid on every transaction
also there are not debate in all of comunity bitcoin because of block size problem.

[RoommateAgreement]

Bitcoin will be adopted by all of people and the most important bitcoin will be considered as currency
many people use bitcoin for payment method because of there are not fees must be paid on every transaction
also there are not debate in all of comunity bitcoin because of block size problem.

your comment does not make any sense at all!
if there is no scaling, and a lot of people adopt bitcoin "as a currency" they can not use it because there is simply no room for their transactions in a block. and the fees will continue to rise exactly because of this so your second statement is also wrong because there is a fee and that fee will continue to rise with more adoption and more competition for a place in a block!