Is any crypto truly scalable to a global scale? BTC, ETH, IOTA, DCR, PIVX...?

[zeroth]

A whole host of questions that I feel are important. Any insights would be appreciated!

1. Can blockchain-based currencies really work with billions of users?
2. Will it become a choice between impractically expensive fees or impractically slow transaction confirmations?
3. Are the proposed plans for BTC and ETH scalability just short-term fixes that will eventually run into the same problems later on?
4. Are DAGs the solution?
5. How much time will IOTA transactions take if each user has to process their own share of the "tangle"? Can tiny IOT devices even handle such processing requirements?
6. Others have suggested that currencies such as DCR, PIVX or BURST solve the problem in different ways. If so, how?
7. Are there any other solutions?

Thanks

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[Fuserleer]

A whole host of questions that I feel are important. Any insights would be appreciated!

1. Can blockchain-based currencies really work with billions of users?
2. Will it become a choice between impractically expensive fees or impractically slow transaction confirmations?
3. Are the proposed plans for BTC and ETH scalability just short-term fixes that will eventually run into the same problems later on?
4. Are DAGs the solution?
5. How much time will IOTA transactions take if each user has to process their own share of the "tangle"? Can tiny IOT devices even handle such processing requirements?
6. Others have suggested that currencies such as DCR, PIVX or BURST solve the problem in different ways. If so, how?
7. Are there any other solutions?

Thanks

1 = No.  Block chains can't scale enough, even with an "unlimited" block size they will still hit a limit.  Only solution to that limit then is semi / full centralization.
2 = There is no choice with block chains, they just can not scale enough.
3 = Yes, on both counts.
4 = DAGs are a better medium term solution, but these too will have their own set of different problems eventually.
5 = I don't know enough about IOTA specifically so I can't (and wouldn't like to) answer.
6 = If its block chain based and the project is claiming scalability in the 10,000+ then they are either a) lying  b) semi / fully centralized c) both
7 = Yes...There are a couple of technologies being developed but they aren't ready yet.  You should start to see these 3.0 platforms in 6-18 months

[monsanto]

A whole host of questions that I feel are important. Any insights would be appreciated!

1. Can blockchain-based currencies really work with billions of users?
2. Will it become a choice between impractically expensive fees or impractically slow transaction confirmations?
3. Are the proposed plans for BTC and ETH scalability just short-term fixes that will eventually run into the same problems later on?
4. Are DAGs the solution?
5. How much time will IOTA transactions take if each user has to process their own share of the "tangle"? Can tiny IOT devices even handle such processing requirements?
6. Others have suggested that currencies such as DCR, PIVX or BURST solve the problem in different ways. If so, how?
7. Are there any other solutions?

Thanks

Good questions. I don't think anybody really knows yet, which is what makes it all such an interesting experiment.

I doubt we'll ever get to a sustained 2) type situation because competitor networks will take market share, if only because they will operate better due to less users.

I think this is related to 7) because a solution could come by connecting to an ecosystem of blockchain based coins. If payment systems had access to hundreds of blockchains they could choose which to use dynamically based on factors like current fees, confirmation times, network security, etc. This would kind of be the direct opposite of the "one coin to rule them all" philosophy, although I think btc maximalists envision doing something similar only with sidechains.

Of course there's also always the possibility that the next satoshi is out there and will come up with a scaling breakthrough analogous to solving the byzantine general's problem for btc.

[zeroth]

Thank you for your replies. These have led me to a few more questions that I'd be really interested in discussing more.

8. (Sorry if this is a stupid question) Stepping back a little, why isn't blockchain technology scalable? Let's say one person makes one transaction per day paying a fee of 1 unit which is enough to attract enough miners to process the transactions in a practical time period. Won't a billion people each making one transaction per day pay a billion units in fees? So why isn't there a proportional incentive for miners and hence the number of miners scaling up accordingly?

9. Why does centralisation improve scalability?

10. How does market sharing between competitor networks or sidechains actually help? Surely you still have the same problem with a limited amount of processing power for, say, 100 transactions per second on one network versus 50 transactions per second on each of two networks?

11. Do we know any more details about these 3.0 platforms that Fuserleer mentioned? How are they fundamentally different?

[Fuserleer]

Thank you for your replies. These have led me to a few more questions that I'd be really interested in discussing more.

8. (Sorry if this is a stupid question) Stepping back a little, why isn't blockchain technology scalable? Let's say one person makes one transaction per day paying a fee of 1 unit which is enough to attract enough miners to process the transactions in a practical time period. Won't a billion people each making one transaction per day pay a billion units in fees? So why isn't there a proportional incentive for miners and hence the number of miners scaling up accordingly?

9. Why does centralisation improve scalability?

10. How does market sharing between competitor networks or sidechains actually help? Surely you still have the same problem with a limited amount of processing power for, say, 100 transactions per second on one network versus 50 transactions per second on each of two networks?

11. Do we know any more details about these 3.0 platforms that Fuserleer mentioned? How are they fundamentally different?

8.  Miners don't have anything to do with scalability...they just produce the blocks.  The problem is the architecture of a block chain.   Mainly the issue is that when blocks get past a certain size (say 1GB for arguments sake) it takes longer than 10 minutes for that block to make its way to all nodes in the network.  By then ANOTHER block is produced, which also takes longer than 10 mins, then another, then another.  All the nodes just end up collecting blocks and (potentially) reorganizing the chain. At this point it all grinds to an almost halt.

9.  Say the Bitcoin network is 10,000 nodes, and another Bitcoin network is 10,000 nodes but has 100 master nodes.   Its MUCH easier to keep 100 nodes in sync with each other than 10,000, so bigger blocks could be used for more TPS.  The problem is that its also easier to attack 100 nodes and take them offline, or for 100 node operators to collude to abuse the network than it is for 10,000.

10.  Having many networks / side chains can help, but this also brings some problems.   First of all, you only have X amount of hashing power (or stake, or whatever).  If you then have 100 side networks / chains, in most cases you have to share X.  Each network then has the security equivalent to X/100 and its much easier for an attack to take control of that particular side network / side chain.

Another issue is that if you want to transact outside of your side network / chain, it is a complicated and slow process, so the benefits are only really seen if you are transacting with someone in the same network / chain as you.

11.  Most of the 3.0 tech being developed is really early stage (other than my own project Radix).  Theory mainly and little code hence the 18 month window.  I'm not even sure if they are announced publicly yet, just discussions I've had with people at events and meetups with ideas.  I'll check with the developers before I name them.

[r0ach]

11.  Most of the 3.0 tech being developed is really early stage (other than my own project Radix).  Theory mainly and little code hence the 18 month window.  I'm not even sure if they are announced publicly yet, just discussions I've had with people at events and meetups with ideas.  I'll check with the developers before I name them.

It is true, the new transaction technology called gold and silver solves virtually every problem with cryptocurrency, but nobody is sure where to find the developer for comment.

[zeroth]

Fuserleer, thank you once again for taking the time to provide highly informative responses. I've heard of Radix and I'll certainly take a closer look now. I'd be very interested if other developers are happy for you discuss to discuss their different theories.

So in summary the problem is information transfer rather than information processing? As a network becomes more decentralised the speed of information transfer between nodes becomes the limiting factor? I guess ever-increasing global bandwidth improves scalability over time, but just not at a fast enough rate?

I wish you the best of luck in your own project

[jlp]

11.  Most of the 3.0 tech being developed is really early stage (other than my own project Radix).  Theory mainly and little code hence the 18 month window.  I'm not even sure if they are announced publicly yet, just discussions I've had with people at events and meetups with ideas.  I'll check with the developers before I name them.

Am I correct to assume that your Radix is 3.0 and not early stage?

I noticed that you're going to have 500,000 transactions/second.  You rightfully pointed out the issues/limitation with side chains.  How do you plan to achieve 500,000 trx/sec?

EOS claims that they will process millions of transactions per second by doing parallel processing.  Parallel processing is difficult even when it is on a single computer.  It takes large teams of programmers to build this into an operating system.  I cannot see how it's easy or can be done on distributed nodes, especially by a small team at EOS.  Do you know if this is feasible?

[Fuserleer]

11.  Most of the 3.0 tech being developed is really early stage (other than my own project Radix).  Theory mainly and little code hence the 18 month window.  I'm not even sure if they are announced publicly yet, just discussions I've had with people at events and meetups with ideas.  I'll check with the developers before I name them.

Am I correct to assume that your Radix is 3.0 and not early stage?

I noticed that you're going to have 500,000 transactions/second.  You rightfully pointed out the issues/limitation with side chains.  How do you plan to achieve 500,000 trx/sec?

EOS claims that they will process millions of transactions per second by doing parallel processing.  Parallel processing is difficult even when it is on a single computer.  It takes large teams of programmers to build this into an operating system.  I cannot see how it's easy or can be done on distributed nodes, especially by a small team at EOS.  Do you know if this is feasible?

Radix is not early stage and there will be some news in July regarding its launch.

Yeah that 500,000 is a nice number to put on a graph and the website blurb based on how big we hope the network to be within about 12 months  In reality, the Radix tech scales linearly with network growth.  So of course, at launch with only a handful of nodes, 500,000 is not attainable...as the network grows the throughput capability increases without bound.  As a rule of thumb, every 10 nodes brings 1000 TPS, so with a network the size of Ethereum for example, throughput capability is in the millions.

I refuse to comment on EOS specifically, so let me just say this...

Parallel processing is indeed very difficult, and was one of the main scalability issues we've spent 4 years developing a solution for.  A block chain, of any form, can not do true parallel processing in a responsive and efficient manner...period.  

If it was possible with a vertical architecture such as a block chain, I'd argue we would have found a way to do so already.  Instead we realized quite early on that the solution was to ditch the block chain entirely and start fresh with a horizontal architecture designed for the job.

[StockBet.com]

Fuserleer:

If I'm reading you right, EOS will fail in enabling parallel processing and therefore fail in providing millions of transactions per second.  Radix will have a radically different structure, a horizontal structure for blocks, and this is the only way to provide millions of transactions per second?  Will you be doing parallel processing?

So, Radix is going to compete with Ethereum, EOS, Lisk, Ark and Iota and will be the only solution that can pull off millions of transactions per second in the long run for DApps and smart contracts.  Correct?

What about the other 3.0 projects that you mentioned?  How do they stack up against Radix?

Will each DApp have access to and use of a database on Radix?  If so, what kind of database?  SQL?

Will Radix (or any project) enable DApps to set up and run cron jobs?

EOS claims that "if you can build a website, you can build a DApp" on EOS.  Are you making the same claim?

There is a lot of criticism of Lisk using Javascript.  Have you resolved all of these criticisms with Scrypto?

[RandomEvent]

When the demand is really there the solution will be created. If I created a coin right now and all it could do is handle the transactions necessary for everyone to use it, would it become the #1 Coin? No it wouldn't because it needs to have other features to be able to compete. Once the demand is really there the coin will exist.

[zeroth]

Fuserleer, thanks again for the information. Are you able to provide any more details on how Radix works? The info on your website is pretty vague but are you deliberately keeping things secretive for now? If so, do you know when you'll start giving out more details?

[Anima]

There are some things that are currently underway, which postpones the Radix Whitepaper. Middle of July, two weeks, and much more details can be discussed.

[Fuserleer]

Fuserleer, thanks again for the information. Are you able to provide any more details on how Radix works? The info on your website is pretty vague but are you deliberately keeping things secretive for now? If so, do you know when you'll start giving out more details?

We're filing some patents on the tech for defensive measures and so that we can build a business model around the tech in the private space.

It's taken much longer than anticipated however as we've had to fully educate the patent lawyers on the tech which is a journey unto itself.  Whilst that is underway I can't say anything revealing about the tech in a public environment before the filing date as it would enable public disclosure and the patents couldn't be filed.

The filing now has a hard deadline of 13th July...after which I can reveal all about the ledger / consensus tech we have developed.

It's frustrating I know, but if we want to continue developing the technology for use in the public space and enable a organization/foundation to have a long term revenue stream from the private sector it was necessary.

[Fragbait]

8.  Miners don't have anything to do with scalability...they just produce the blocks.  The problem is the architecture of a block chain.   Mainly the issue is that when blocks get past a certain size (say 1GB for arguments sake) it takes longer than 10 minutes for that block to make its way to all nodes in the network.  By then ANOTHER block is produced, which also takes longer than 10 mins, then another, then another.  All the nodes just end up collecting blocks and (potentially) reorganizing the chain. At this point it all grinds to an almost halt.

When you say all nodes, do you mean solo miners and pools? Being a solo miner (that doesn't go bankrupt in the first week) in a coin that has enough transactions to require 1GB blocks is a multi-million (or perhaps even multi-billion) dollar business. They can afford faster internet connections. Pools can afford faster connections as well.

[Sharky444]

>1. Can blockchain-based currencies really work with billions of users?

No, they do barely work now.

>2. Will it become a choice between impractically expensive fees or impractically slow transaction confirmations?

Both has happened already.

>3. Are the proposed plans for BTC and ETH scalability just short-term fixes that will eventually run into the same problems later on?

Aye. At first they will increase block sizes. They may also reduce block time. But at some point network propagation will be a big problem.

The new buzzword is "Lighting Networks". This is why Litecoin was pumped to over 2 billion. Lighting networks means the introduction of banks as a part of a blockchain. The customers of a lighting bank, or lighting network as they call them, will be able to instantly exchange tokens with another customer of that bank. Just the same way like transfering BTC within the same BTC exchange. The bank will then at a later time generate blockchain TX if necessary.

>4. Are DAGs the solution?

To an extent. They can replace blockchains, but have their own problems.

>5. How much time will IOTA transactions take if each user has to process their own share of the "tangle"?

That depends on the number of users in the network. Fast transaction are only possible when there is a lot of activity in the DAG.

>Can tiny IOT devices even handle such processing requirements?

Currently they can't. From IOTA #tanglemath channel I've received an answer similar to this:

Tiny IOT devices like temperature sensors will connect to a proxy node and send the data. The proxy node will take the data and create a TX by doing the POW.
At a later time the sensors will be able to generate the POW themselves by using the JINN processor. This will be a trinary processor with extremely low power usage. Apparently they work since 2 years on that hardware, with CFB/BCNext as the chief architect.

>6. Others have suggested that currencies such as DCR, PIVX or BURST solve the problem in different ways. If so, how?

From these 3 I know only PIVX, which is Proof of Stake. It's nothing new, basically a copy of NXT with some modifications. POS coins have way faster TX time than blockchains, but they suffer from centralization.

>7. Are there any other solutions?

I'm biased about this, but the only endgame solution, meaning one that will still work without problems 30 years from now is Radix. You will see it in action soon.

[r0ach]

>4. Are DAGs the solution?

To an extent. They can replace blockchains, but have their own problems.

This is how I feel about the two DAG coins:

First, let's discuss the main problems with Iota vs Byteball:

1)  Anti-spam PoW (unprofitable PoW) for emails was entirely designed for one-offs.  You put in some labor and the state changes from 0 to 1 once it's been satisfied and this information is now meaningless and can be thrown away afterwards.  Satoshi decided that in order to chain the past to the future in a continous ledger, he would need to create a linked list with a get rich quick scheme built on top of it, otherwise there are no incentives for the burden associated with the cost of holding this data forever.  

It seems like IOTA was invented (unprofitable PoW) while ignoring everything Satoshi learned needed to be utilized in order to launch the bitcoin scheme.  True, Iota could utilize a form of pruning, thus correcting the incentives problem and dragging it back to more like email PoW in nature, but then you have a very fragile, unsound money system with no valid form of state recovery if it goes down.

I'm not saying bitcoin is sound money, because it's not.  It doesn't function as a store of value due to price floor being recursive based on it's own demand, meaning you can always mine an endless stream of coins as transaction fees at the new floor and the floor can crater to nothingness at any time unless bitcoin was the unit of account of something (but it never will be since it doesn't function as a store of value - chicken and egg scenario).

Most attempts to increase bitcoin scalability in altcoins, and thus lower redundancy, seem to make it even less sound money where you can no longer trick people into believing it's money at all.  People will see how fragile they are and treat them as they should be, just as a throwaway currency like airline miles instead of pretending they are a valid store of value like gold or silver.

As for Byteball:

2)  Is there really a purpose in a, hmm how to describe it in general, a branching/multi-threaded/non-linear system like a DAG if you're just using bitshares-style consensus to force convergence and make it linear in a single path again?

[SatoNatomato]

Currently they can't. From IOTA #tanglemath channel I've received an answer similar to this:

Tiny IOT devices like temperature sensors will connect to a proxy node and send the data. The proxy node will take the data and create a TX by doing the POW.
At a later time the sensors will be able to generate the POW themselves by using the JINN processor. This will be a trinary processor with extremely low power usage. Apparently they work since 2 years on that hardware, with CFB/BCNext as the chief architect.

Also remember IOTA is not a decentralized cryptocurrency.

Currently, and since 2 years back, the PoW done on the permissioned network is for illusion of security and marketing. It is the central authority called Coordinator node, which determines the state and consensus.

To be on topic: No coin can do what you ask of today, the most promising is Byteball.

[Sparky_eMunie]

Currently they can't. From IOTA #tanglemath channel I've received an answer similar to this:

Tiny IOT devices like temperature sensors will connect to a proxy node and send the data. The proxy node will take the data and create a TX by doing the POW.
At a later time the sensors will be able to generate the POW themselves by using the JINN processor. This will be a trinary processor with extremely low power usage. Apparently they work since 2 years on that hardware, with CFB/BCNext as the chief architect.

Also remember IOTA is not a decentralized cryptocurrency.

Currently, and since 2 years back, the PoW done on the permissioned network is for illusion of security and marketing. It is the central authority called Coordinator node, which determines the state and consensus.

To be on topic: No coin can do what you ask of today, the most promising is Byteball.

This is not true. The coordinator is an optional compotent. You can configure your node to be part of the network without the coordinator. At the moment nobody is doing it, but it would be possible at any time. If done the network would work without the coordinator, but be suspensible to a 34% attack, just like BTC and ETH are today (51% is an urban legend).

I don't think Byteball is promising. Byteball is basically a clone of IOTA (the author says IOTA inspired him) with added fees, minus the coordinator, minus oracles, minus trinary math, minus the JINN processor, minus a scientific nonprofit foundation.

[r0ach]

the JINN processor

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Blast%20Processing