What will happen with Bitcoin if it never scales?

[dinofelis]

I don't think that LN is so different that it can't be used over the current Bitcoin blockchain. But since it can, then you can't possibly claim that all confidence and trust that Bitcoin acquired during these years goes down the drain or out the window (you choose which way you are wrong). Otherwise I could claim that any update would effectively make Bitcoin into an altcoin

Technically, of course it can be used.  But bitcoin's "trust model" was essentially that, if you were the owner of a coin, you could transact it to just any other user, that did not have to be a "declared user" or "have an account in a bank somewhere" or anything like that ; that the P2P network would propagate your transaction to a miner, just ANY miner, and that it was sufficient that ONE of the miners included your transaction in a bloc, and that was it: your transaction was done and valid.  In other words, the only way that bitcoin can censor your transaction, is by having ALL miners reject your transaction, or by a majority of miners *forbidding* you to transact (soft fork against your transaction).  Other than that, you have a permission-less system.

In the LN network, this is totally different.  You have to be on the network with a GIVEN PARTNER of which you cannot change  because you locked in your coins with him (*) and you only can transact with someone who *is already a customer on the network*, and you are totally dependent on the approval of your transaction by all the intermediate partners (of your partner, of your partner's partners / etc...).  In the LN, you cannot just see that A is not transmitting your transaction, and then switch to B.  If you have your funds locked up with A, then B is of no use to you (*).

(*) yes, of course you can eventually try to settle on-chain.  But the whole point of the LN is that there's by far (orders of magnitude) not enough room on chain to do all transactions.  So while *exceptionally* you can try to settle on chain, for MOST if not ALL of your transactions, you are dependent on your partner.

This is a totally different trust model of "transacting".  I'm not saying that it cannot work out somehow.  But it is much more involved, with much more complicated power games possible, than the simple "bitcoin way".  This is why I say that it is radically different, as a NOTION OF TRANSACTING COINS, to be forced on the LN or to do things "on chain".   BTW, the LN makes only sense when you are forced onto it of course (in other words, when the block chain is mostly unavailable/too costly).  Because if you can do a transaction on chain, there's no reason to go through all  the hassle of the LN.  It is only when the block chain is totally congested and way too expensive to use, that you are going to consider the LN, so you have to see its "power model" in that frame: "essentially no possibility (or way too expensive) to do on chain transactions, or to settle".  In that light, the LN *is* a radically different way of doing transactions than bitcoin's standard way of doing so.

[classicsucks]

Well, I think that, because Core has some smart guys in there, they are *realizing* the problem that was pointed out to Satoshi way back, that his solution to make a world currency, fancy, smart and successful as it seemed, simply didn't cut it.  These are hard words and of course, coming from me, insignificant being as compared to God Satoshi, who am I to speak such blasphemy, but it was almost IMMEDIATELY pointed out to Satoshi that his system, where ALL users need to know in principle ALL transactions EVERYWHERE, and EVER, was going to have a scaling problem, and Satoshi uttered something like that a few big data centres could take care of that, essentially admitting that his solution could only work when centralized again.

In a certain way, Core has been working on a *totally different kind of payment system*, namely the LN.  But, *it is a totally different payment system*.  It simply isn't bitcoin.  Even if it is using bitcoin as an underlying system, it is a totally different way of transmitting payments, the concepts are totally different, and the trust relations and the power structures are totally different.   One could almost say that LN and bitcoin are about as different, in their concepts, as was Schaum's e-cash and bitcoin.  So all preciously gained confidence and trust of bitcoin is going out of the window with LN.  This doesn't mean that LN is bad, but it is SO DIFFERENT in its approach to transactions, that most alt coins look more like bitcoin as it is now, than the LN looks like bitcoin.

And, again, people have raised some fundamental issues of the LN idea.  Like people told Satoshi he had a problem with scaling and Satoshi replied with centralization as a solution (without calling it that way), people are telling the LN proponents it has scaling problems leading to centralization, and that is also brushed under the carpet.

And finally, all of this is in the idea that one day, bitcoin would scale "to VISA levels".  But the *economic model* of bitcoin and many alt coins doesn't look AT ALL like most fiat currency economic models.  Most of these systems have economic models that look like highly speculative assets, not like currencies.

So it might very well be that bitcoin, nor most altcoins, ever NEED these big volumes, because as speculative assets and not currencies, they don't need VISA level scaling, as "the masses" will never buy coffee (on chain or off chain) with speculative assets that aren't reliable units of account (= with relatively stable predictable values).

It wasn't that hard to anticipate that blockchains would become bloated and the network would get congested - people have made jokes for years about "write-only databases" and other such broken constructs. Even a child will tell you that if you have to keep adding pages to a book forever, after awhile you won't be able to read the book or even lift it off the (broken) table. I always laugh when some corporate doofus yaps on about the "genius of blockchain", since it's actually a fairly flawed concept. Unfortunately pruning hasn't solved the bloat problem.

Of course, the consensus algorithms and novel use of cryptography in bitcoin are strokes of Satoshi genius, and they are what made the whole thing work. Ironic that we would be embroiled in a 3 year fight about this very subject, with certain Core devs going so far as to edit Satoshi's original whitepaper.

As far as the Lightning Network goes, first off, it doesn't exist. Second, as you point out, people's trust in it will need to be earned. Finally, starting people off on LN with "you now must use this because Bitcoin has been artificially limited based on intangible threats" is really not a good beginning. Personally, I became intuitively skeptical of the concepts the minute I heard those words...

I absolutely agree that the crypto space as a whole could easily approach VISA levels, or even pass them. Trying to reach VISA transaction volume with bitcoin is a mistake in so many ways.

deisik: I think it's time to open your heart and your mind to the world of ideas out there. You seem emotional and distressed. If something you believe ends up being wrong, you can just change your mind.

[dinofelis]

If bitcoin never grows it would just be used for large amounts where the large hash power security is needed, so large transactions only where people are willing to pay large fees if the blocks are full, $5+, people like to say people would stop using it but obviously not if the blocks would be full. The whole thing is almost a paradox, people claim no one would use it due to high fees, if no one uses it there are no high fees, if there are no high fees then people will use it, so on and so fourth.

Indeed, bitcoin can very well stay what it is ; there will be a natural market limiting transactions to those that are worth it within the space that is allocated on its block chain.  The only thing that this is harming, is the fundamental belief system that needs to propagate the myth that bitcoin is going to be "the world's currency".  As long as people are somehow *believing* that, they can make silly projections of like "hell, if all fiat is going to be in bitcoin, and I'm holding 20 bitcoin, I'm holding a millionth's worth of the world's cash !".

So there needs to be sufficient technobabble that can make it *credible* that bitcoin is going to be the world's cash even though it won't ever.  There needs to be a technological projection that bitcoin COULD eventually handle the world's transactions, if that is needed to have sufficient belief in it to keep the *speculation* coming ; even if the true usage of bitcoin is speculation, and that this speculation needs only a few MB of transaction bloc size ; the technological adaptation to the real usage (shifting coins between speculator clearing houses: exchanges) would kill the myth that keeps the speculation going.   My stake is that that is what the LN is about.

As to the question on whether it makes sense for bitcoin to be a "sleazy big business reserve currency", I have to say I don't know.  This would be the case if bitcoin were the absolute monopolist in cryptoland, which it has been for 8 years, but which is seriously put in doubt with the recent fall in market share - although this has to be confirmed long term.  In speculation land, I don't see how one asset can be the obvious undisputed monopolist leader, because that would be in contradiction with the efficient market hypothesis.

[deisik]

I don't think that LN is so different that it can't be used over the current Bitcoin blockchain. But since it can, then you can't possibly claim that all confidence and trust that Bitcoin acquired during these years goes down the drain or out the window (you choose which way you are wrong). Otherwise I could claim that any update would effectively make Bitcoin into an altcoin

Technically, of course it can be used.  But bitcoin's "trust model" was essentially that, if you were the owner of a coin, you could transact it to just any other user, that did not have to be a "declared user" or "have an account in a bank somewhere" or anything like that ; that the P2P network would propagate your transaction to a miner, just ANY miner, and that it was sufficient that ONE of the miners included your transaction in a bloc, and that was it: your transaction was done and valid.  In other words, the only way that bitcoin can censor your transaction, is by having ALL miners reject your transaction, or by a majority of miners *forbidding* you to transact (soft fork against your transaction).  Other than that, you have a permission-less system.

In the LN network, this is totally different

As long as you can still transact in the old mode, all the differences you were going to mention after that are irrelevant (I didn't read past that since it was an evident red flag where to stop). That's the basic point which you should address first. If people can transact in the "old-fashioned" way, they will continue to trust Bitcoin. Indeed, some of them may not quite like that (i.e. payment channels via LN), but since Bitcoin is essentially an open source project, it all comes down to just personal likes or dislikes

You may finally want to learn how to explain things in a concise and predictable way

[dinofelis]

As long as you can still transact in the old mode, all the differences you were going to mention after that are irrelevant (I didn't read past that since it was an evident red flag where to stop). That's the basic point which you should address first. If people can transact in the "old-fashioned" way, they will continue to trust Bitcoin.

Well, if you can still easily transact in the old mode, then the LN doesn't make sense.  The LN only makes sense if it carries orders of magnitude more transactions than "the old mode" CAN sustain ; and if it carries orders of magnitude more transactions than the old mode can handle, the old mode is simply not available any more, because of full blocks, high fees, and maybe monopoly agreements with miners selling their exclusive bloc space only to big LN hubs to settle.

In other words, as long as there is room on the block, nobody will use the LN.  It is only when you are FORCED on the LN, that you will use it.  And if you are forced onto the LN, it means that the old mode is simply almost not available (difficult, expensive, rare).

[dinofelis]

You may finally want to learn how to explain things in a concise and predictable way

You explained perfectly well the deflationary spiral, and the fact that it ends all economic activity.  Until everyone is sitting on his stash of deflationary money, and has no bowl of rice to eat.  Because he sold it to get more deflationary money.

[deisik]

As long as you can still transact in the old mode, all the differences you were going to mention after that are irrelevant (I didn't read past that since it was an evident red flag where to stop). That's the basic point which you should address first. If people can transact in the "old-fashioned" way, they will continue to trust Bitcoin.

Well, if you can still easily transact in the old mode, then the LN doesn't make sense.  The LN only makes sense if it carries orders of magnitude more transactions than "the old mode" CAN sustain ; and if it carries orders of magnitude more transactions than the old mode can handle, the old mode is simply not available any more, because of full blocks, high fees, and maybe monopoly agreements with miners selling their exclusive bloc space only to big LN hubs to settle.

In other words, as long as there is room on the block, nobody will use the LN.  It is only when you are FORCED on the LN, that you will use it.  And if you are forced onto the LN, it means that the old mode is simply almost not available (difficult, expensive, rare)

I don't really know

I don't really know whether you are deliberately confusing different notions you refer to here or due to the lack of proper understanding of the differences between them. Basically, you are trying to sell the idea of should (in the sense of having to do something in the prescribed way only) for the idea of may (when you would be better off if you do something this way). In other words, with LN you may still transact in the old way if you choose so but you might not want to transact that way. This distinction is important in questions of trust. In the first case (when you have no choice), the trust goes out the window, while in the second it remains. Obviously, LN is about the second option

You may finally want to learn how to explain things in a concise and predictable way

You explained perfectly well the deflationary spiral, and the fact that it ends all economic activity.  Until everyone is sitting on his stash of deflationary money, and has no bowl of rice to eat.  Because he sold it to get more deflationary money

You should keep your posts as short, simple and comprehensible as this one. You would fare a lot better here (otherwise, I see no reason in your posting across the forum)

[classicsucks]

Well, if you can still easily transact in the old mode, then the LN doesn't make sense.  The LN only makes sense if it carries orders of magnitude more transactions than "the old mode" CAN sustain ; and if it carries orders of magnitude more transactions than the old mode can handle, the old mode is simply not available any more, because of full blocks, high fees, and maybe monopoly agreements with miners selling their exclusive bloc space only to big LN hubs to settle.

In other words, as long as there is room on the block, nobody will use the LN.  It is only when you are FORCED on the LN, that you will use it.  And if you are forced onto the LN, it means that the old mode is simply almost not available (difficult, expensive, rare).

Bingo. You just described Blockstream's $75 million business plan: Restricting the bitcoin blocksize artficially and then scaring people about quadratic hashing and capacity ceilings being reached. It should've convinced people that LN is inevitable. Unfortunately there has been a hitch: people aren't drinking the Segwit Koolaid, so Blockstream can't move forward with LN over BTC as only a settlement layer. Since there is no opinion leader other than Greg Maxwell (a bit of a troll for a CTO), they really aren't able to lead more than the "tech-lemmings" to LN.

Also, there is the slight problem that a functioning LN doesn't exist yet. I'm happy to try it if it works over Litecoin. A perfect little sandbox. They just activated a few hours ago...

[dinofelis]

You should keep your posts as short, simple and comprehensible as this one. You would fare a lot better here (otherwise, I see no reason in your posting across the forum)

You should stop telling people what they should do.  Like it, or don't like it.  Answer, or don't answer.  Read, or don't read.
As I told you, writing concise, well-worked texts is much more work than I'm willing to spend here.

[dinofelis]

Well, if you can still easily transact in the old mode, then the LN doesn't make sense.  The LN only makes sense if it carries orders of magnitude more transactions than "the old mode" CAN sustain ; and if it carries orders of magnitude more transactions than the old mode can handle, the old mode is simply not available any more, because of full blocks, high fees, and maybe monopoly agreements with miners selling their exclusive bloc space only to big LN hubs to settle.

In other words, as long as there is room on the block, nobody will use the LN.  It is only when you are FORCED on the LN, that you will use it.  And if you are forced onto the LN, it means that the old mode is simply almost not available (difficult, expensive, rare).

Bingo. You just described Blockstream's $75 million business plan: Restricting the bitcoin blocksize artficially and then scaring people about quadratic hashing and capacity ceilings being reached. It should've convinced people that LN is inevitable. Unfortunately there has been a hitch: people aren't drinking the Segwit Koolaid, so Blockstream can't move forward with LN over BTC as only a settlement layer. Since there is no opinion leader other than Greg Maxwell (a bit of a troll for a CTO), they really aren't able to lead more than the "tech-lemmings" to LN.

Also, there is the slight problem that a functioning LN doesn't exist yet. I'm happy to try it if it works over Litecoin. A perfect little sandbox. They just activated a few hours ago...

Point is, apart from some *technical* tests, the geeky fun of it, and the buzz for a while, I don't see why anyone would use it on litecoin, as long as normal transactions on LTC work very well (and LTC has 4 times more room than bitcoin, and is much less used right now).
Why would one lock one-self in with "a guy on the internet", if one can send the transaction directly to destiny ?
Because if the "guy on the internet" decides to settle, your funds are locked for a certain time in any case.  If the "guy on the internet" decides not to transmit your LN transaction (because his PC is down), you cannot use your funds for a certain time either.  Why go through all these inconveniences when you can send your transaction directly ?
(apart for the geeky fun ?)

[deisik]

You should keep your posts as short, simple and comprehensible as this one. You would fare a lot better here (otherwise, I see no reason in your posting across the forum)

You should stop telling people what they should do.  Like it, or don't like it.  Answer, or don't answer.  Read, or don't read.
As I told you, writing concise, well-worked texts is much more work than I'm willing to spend here

Isn't this equally applicable to you?

In other words, don't tell me what I should not tell you, okay? In fact, by telling this you have just revealed what is behind your posting here (you can think that I was specifically interested in revealing that, apart from a host of other reasons). You are here to boost and rub your ego, now that's as clear as day. Obviously, you aren't interested in actually explaining things to other people (unlike me), you are here to make an impression on them. You want to shine but you don't care to shed light on anything. That's why you feel so hurt and pissed off when someone pokes (a shit end of) a stick in your inflated ego

[vatived22]

i think bitcoin is the face of digital currency. when you meet someone and you want to tell them about digital currency you must first mention bitcoin. you cannot mention all coins, but atleast the history will be traced to bitcoin. so even if it never scales it will be a great store of value, people will buy it then exchange it with other crypto particularly ethereum or dash that is if they want a faster transaction. But i dont see bitcoin ever dieing,

[dinofelis]

In other words, don't tell me what I should not tell you, okay? In fact, by telling this you have just revealed what is behind your posting here (you can think that I was specifically interested in revealing that, apart from a host of other reasons). You are here to boost and rub your ego, now that's as clear as day. Obviously, you aren't interested in actually explaining things to other people (unlike me), you are here to make an impression on them. You want to shine but you don't care to shed light on anything. That's why you feel so hurt and pissed off when someone pokes (a shit end of) a stick in your inflated ego

And you like replying to people that are only here to rub their ego

No, really, I'm only here to provoke answers from which I can learn something.  I don't care at all what others might get out of what I'm posting.  I want to test my own ideas and see what reactions they bring, because these reactions may tell me something about my ideas, which is what matters for me.  No, I don't want to help anyone, no I don't want to impress (how can an anonymous pseudo on a forum "impress" what so ever ?), no I don't want to teach anything to anyone.  But sometimes, this can be a side effect of me trying out my ideas.  I couldn't care less about what others gain or what others think of a pseudo on a forum, not knowing who I am for real.

Take a step back, and think of what we are doing here.  We are just writing stuff on a forum, and we are anonymous to one another.  What counts is what is written, not the identifier under which it is written, which only serves to link posts together in order to understand lines of reasoning.  We could just as well all use "anonymous" as identifier ; it would simply be somewhat harder to have exchanges of arguments because one would have to quote all the elements to which one is replying.

Maybe I should abandon my pseudo here and create a new one, so that no "personality" is linked to it.

You are one of these people that cannot distinguish an argument from its author.  That's not a way of having logical arguments.  It is quite useless as a pass-time, especially if the author is a pseudonymous identifier on a forum.  You could just as well argue with a bitcoin address about its personality traits.

[deisik]

In other words, don't tell me what I should not tell you, okay? In fact, by telling this you have just revealed what is behind your posting here (you can think that I was specifically interested in revealing that, apart from a host of other reasons). You are here to boost and rub your ego, now that's as clear as day. Obviously, you aren't interested in actually explaining things to other people (unlike me), you are here to make an impression on them. You want to shine but you don't care to shed light on anything. That's why you feel so hurt and pissed off when someone pokes (a shit end of) a stick in your inflated ego

And you like replying to people that are only here to rub their ego

You can say that I like to poke a stick in their ego

If you don't like that (which is understandable), don't show it up. Regarding the bullshit you wrote after that, you are not the first who writes this stuff. In fact, everyone claims exactly that, but there is no use trying to deceive me (or anyone else, for the record) into thinking that you are really into something you pretend to be. I have seen it many times, and I have been there myself, though I was more sincere and honest and never claimed that trash ("I want to test my own ideas and see what reactions they bring"). If you were really looking for that, there are ways which are much more effective and efficient as well as places much more productive and fertile in this regard. But you will be quickly shut down there by the dudes who are genuinely above you (and which don't want to show off at that)

[Abiky]

Lean toward the second option it will remain a store of value but it may become dated and stagnate given long enough, that said the first mover ability is one that takes a while to be destroyed. It's similar to the facebook vs myspace which one retains usage in the long game is the utility.
We still have quite some time till that stage though but altcoins are already starting to see uses and conversions the main coin that people adopt first though remains Bitcoin and will likely remain so for some time yet.

Completely agree with you, mate. It's now the time where cryptocurrencies are proving their real use case in the real world. While the ever-increasing userbase in Bitcoin is inevitable, there should an emergent consensus to help Bitcoin scale before its too late.

If the scalability debate remains without any consensus from the miners and community as a whole, another altcoin will take the lead. So as you said earlier, it would be somewhat similar to MySpace vs Facebook where the latter has taken over as the top social network. Only time will tell if the same happens with BTC or not. Just my opinion.   

[stripykitteh]

Bitcoin is just a Digital Asset that most people that use it have no idea of what Bitcoin actually is. Bitcoin is not meant to get transferred every second of the hour because it has a transaction fee.

Bitcoin is a collector's item and once people begin to just figure that out then the price of Bitcoin would go up, it does not matter if there's people trying to build a larger Blocksize for Bitcoin because less people would spend it on junk.

[deisik]

Bitcoin is just a Digital Asset that most people that use it have no idea of what Bitcoin actually is. Bitcoin is not meant to get transferred every second of the hour because it has a transaction fee.

Bitcoin is a collector's item and once people begin to just figure that out then the price of Bitcoin would go up, it does not matter if there's people trying to build a larger Blocksize for Bitcoin because less people would spend it on junk.

I express my strong disagreement with this attitude

It seems to be a case where you are rationalizing in hindsight the Bitcoin failure as a genuine currency ("not meant to get transferred every second"). As to me, this is sheer nonsense (or just a dumb rationalization if you please). Bitcoin specifically was meant to be a currency (as per Satoshi), and the fact that you pay a hefty fee to transact with it nowadays confirms just that, i.e. that something is wrong with Bitcoin in respect to its transaction fees (technically, with Bitcoin mining, which is the case). It is not a collector's item by any means since its role is purely utilitarian (i.e. it is only a tool such as, for example, a sledgehammer or screwdriver)

[tosmartak]

It is possible other cryptocurrencies might want to take the lead. The thing is the fact that bitcoin got accepted today massively is as a result of the huge increase in value over time. Personally, I believe storing it for a long time would definitely make me a bigger boy later. A time will definitely come when we will stop seeing bitcoin as an asset instead of a means of transaction.
Nevertheless, the ease of transaction too is something but if another crypto currency decides to offer something better, people may want to give it a chance but I don't think that will stop bitcoin from still operating.

[ArticMine]

...

Exactly. I mean, it's not that difficult to create a coin that would surpass Bitcoin in market cap and adoption. All its needs it's to implement SegWit at launch, establish a very limited supply with no premine or ICO, and have active development to be able to surpass Bitcoin. By having a deflationary model and everything else just like Bitcoin, it would quickly gain traction. Especially by having SegWit within the first day of launch, which will be a huge booster for the new coin.

Also, there could exist a possibility of an existent altcoin to take over Bitcoin too. In my own opinion, both Ethereum and Dash look like the ideal candidates to become the top cryptocurrency in market cap. Just sharing my thoughts.  

That will not work. The main reason that Bitcoin core does not want to increase the blocksize is that they want to force the "fee market" that is supposed to replace block rewards as the means of securing the Bitcoin network, while there is still enough of a block reward left to secure the Bitcoin network.

My take is that any proof of work coin that has a fixed maximum number of coins, with the exception of demurrage see edit 2, will not be able to scale unless it gives up de-centralization.  In the top 10 coins  Monero is the only proof of work coin that has given up on the maximum number of coins in exchange for a 0.6 XMR minimum per block reward in perpetuity. It is this minimum block reward that has allowed Monero to have an adaptive blocksize limit and thereby scale on the main chain without have to be concerned about the need for a "fee market" to replace block rewards.

I have not included Ethereum since it is planning to move away from proof of work to proof of authority or proof of stake. Interestingly Ethereum Classic moved away from a minimum block reward to a fixed maximum number of coins when the Ethereum Classic community decided to stay with proof of work. In my opinion this was a terrible mistake.

Having worked closely with the Monero adaptive blocksize, it has become very clear to me that without a minimum block reward the Cryptonote adaptive blocksize limit will cause the total fees per block to go to zero at the same rate as the block reward. This will lead to no incentive for the miners to secure the Monero network. By analyzing the Monero adaptive blocksize and fee structure one can see why "solutions" such as Bitcoin unlimited will fail, since these type of solutions are in effect a much weaker version of what Monero already has. In the Bitcoin unlimited model for example net fees to the miner will fall to zero much faster than with a Cryptonote style quadratic penalty

Edit 1: Litecoin and Dash have fundamentally the same flaw as Bitcoin. In the case of Dash the situation is made even worse since the falling block reward not only has to support the miners but also the masternode network and project funding.

Edit 2: Demurrage as in Freicoin could be used to create a permanent block reward while maintaining a fixed number of coins.  

[dinofelis]

...

Exactly. I mean, it's not that difficult to create a coin that would surpass Bitcoin in market cap and adoption. All its needs it's to implement SegWit at launch, establish a very limited supply with no premine or ICO, and have active development to be able to surpass Bitcoin. By having a deflationary model and everything else just like Bitcoin, it would quickly gain traction. Especially by having SegWit within the first day of launch, which will be a huge booster for the new coin.

Also, there could exist a possibility of an existent altcoin to take over Bitcoin too. In my own opinion, both Ethereum and Dash look like the ideal candidates to become the top cryptocurrency in market cap. Just sharing my thoughts.  

That will not work. The main reason that Bitcoin core does not want to increase the blocksize is that they want to force the "fee market" that is supposed to replace block rewards as the means of securing the Bitcoin network, while there is still enough of a block reward left to secure the Bitcoin network.

My take is that any proof of work coin that has a fixed maximum number of coins, with the exception of demurrage see edit 2, will not be able to scale unless it gives up de-centralization.  In the top 10 coins  Monero is the only proof of work coin that has given up on the maximum number of coins in exchange for a 0.6 XMR minimum per block reward in perpetuity. It is this minimum block reward that has allowed Monero to have an adaptive blocksize limit and thereby scale on the main chain without have to be concerned about the need for a "fee market" to replace block rewards.

I have not included Ethereum since it is planning to move away from proof of work to proof of authority or proof of stake. Interestingly Ethereum Classic moved away from a minimum block reward to a fixed maximum number of coins when the Ethereum Classic community decided to stay with proof of work. In my opinion this was a terrible mistake.

Having worked closely with the Monero adaptive blocksize, it has become very clear to me that without a minimum block reward the Cryptonote adaptive blocksize limit will cause the total fees per block to go to zero at the same rate as the block reward. This will lead to no incentive for the miners to secure the Monero network. By analyzing the Monero adaptive blocksize and fee structure one can see why "solutions" such as Bitcoin unlimited will fail, since these type of solutions are in effect a much weaker version of what Monero already has. In the Bitcoin unlimited model for example net fees to the miner will fall to zero much faster than with a Cryptonote style quadratic penalty

Edit 1: Litecoin and Dash have fundamentally the same flaw as Bitcoin. In the case of Dash the situation is made even worse since the falling block reward not only has to support the miners but also the masternode network and project funding.

Edit 2: Demurrage as in Freicoin could be used to create a permanent block reward while maintaining a fixed number of coins.  

I 100% agree with you.

In any case, this "limited number of coins" is more a religious thing than anything else, to boost speculation.  A good currency has a mechanism built into it to regulate the value of the coin so that you don't have to check every day whether the sum that was going to buy you a car yesterday, is going to buy you a burger, or a house, tomorrow.

The problem with PoW is that even though it is not a bad idea to burn seigniorage, it is an awful idea as "cryptographic protection".  One should have distinguished PoW for coin creation, and another cryptographic mechanism to decide upon the consensus, and eventually yet another mechanism to secure the consensus (immutability).

In fact, we can see the whole of crypto as a very interesting experiment on how some naive ideas lead to the consequences that have been predicted in some cases (like the deflationary spiral).