Bitcoin Fees Will Only Rise Now: Lightning Dev Rusty Russell

[Prince8]

Lightning Network developer Rusty Russell has issued a damning report on Bitcoin scalability, adding that fees would only rise from now on.

In a blog post Monday about the need to increase Bitcoin’s capacity long term, Russell said that the solutions currently available all fall short.

“Bitcoin can’t scale to meet demand unless demand vanishes and it all fails,” he wrote.

“If Bitcoin is used by 100,000 people today, and we want everyone to use it, we need Bitcoin capacity to grow 75,000 times larger. Yet we’re already struggling with 140GB of storage caused by Bitcoin’s first eight years when it was mainly not being used[.]”

While the Bitcoin network is just one day from locking in SegWit, Russell says that even this would provide only temporary relief from high fees before user demand erases the benefits.

A further hard fork and Schnorr signatures, the latter touted by commentators in the past as a useful way out of scaling difficulties, would fail to deliver at “everyone-scale.”

“The only attempt to attach growth to a metric was Pieter Wuille’s 17.7 percent per year increase,” Russel continued.

“That takes 70 years to reach everyone-scale, so no relief there in my lifetime.”

Bitcoin fees were at their lowest for months just this week, at a recommended 100 satoshis per byte. At the same time Aug. 7, suspected ‘spam’ transactions began to inflate the size of Bitcoin’s mempool, which had also been smaller than usual.

from cointelegraph

_______________

comments ?

[CryptosapienZA]

This is interesting. Are we being deceived here. I thought the lightning network was going to solve all of our scaling issues. This is very worrying. If a lighting developer is saying this and Core is saying the opposite, who do we believe? Its going to be an interesting few months and possibly years.

[allthingsluxury]

Throughout the years, there have been many calling for the "doom" of BTC. Each time the community and BTC itself overcomes and continues to grow and prosper. Will there be setbacks? Of course.

[25hashcoin]

Conversely, Bitcoin Cash https://zander.github.io/posts/bcc-fees/

"Bitcoin Cash fees will stay the same, or go down from now on. Count on it."

[Chyton]

This is why I think Bitcoin isn't going to be mainstream digital cash. I think other altcoins will replace Bitcoin in digital cash while Bitcoin become something like digital gold.

[Thatstinks]

Bitcoin Cash gets more and more appealing everyday, literally.

[25hashcoin]

This is why I think Bitcoin isn't going to be mainstream digital cash. I think other altcoins will replace Bitcoin in digital cash while Bitcoin become something like digital gold.

Problem solved http://www.bitcoincash.org

[eckmar]

This is why I think Bitcoin isn't going to be mainstream digital cash. I think other altcoins will replace Bitcoin in digital cash while Bitcoin become something like digital gold.

Problem solved http://www.bitcoincash.org

Because it has "cash" in the name doesn't mean it will be mainstream digital cash. I don't see how it's possible with BCH as it's juster worse version of BTC. I don't understand why would anyone support it or mine it, or invest in it. Only reason why we are even talking about it is because everyone wants to dump it and they are complaining about long confirmation time now...

[xdev]

I think its absolutely hilarious most people on here were saying stuff like, "Bitcoin Cash - the dying FAKE coin". It's kinda funny that Bitcoin Core is funded and owned by a corporation - Blockstream while Bitcoin Cash is completely decentralized.

Lets be real, Bitcoin Cash will take over Bitcoin some day, I hear nothing but good things coming out of Bitcoin Cash lately, and that is from trusted ex- core devs. Meanwhile, you have corporate owned, wholly controlled "Bitcoin" which according to people account for all the trusted devs in the world and is oh so decentralized. Read what the ex-employees are saying and you might change your mind before its too late

[DooMAD]

Well... the blog/article sounds a little pessimistic for my tastes, but I appreciate the point being made.  People just need to keep in mind that it's based on assumptions about demand and that the numbers in that regard are anyone's best guess.  

Ultimately, fees depend on the rate of Bitcoin adoption around the world and how often people wish to make use of it.  In many places around the world, Bitcoin still hasn't broken free of it's reputation as "nerd money" at best, or "money for drug lords and the darkweb" at worst.  All the time the wider world populace holds such views, we probably don't have to worry too much about fees.  A few years back I genuinely thought we'd be out of that phase by now, but I guess it takes time for people to wake up and realise the obvious advantages of crypto.  I thought the scaling situation was more urgent, but I'm starting to feel like we have a bit of time before the mainstream truly comes beckoning.  It's at that point we need to have our shit together and have this scaling stuff sorted out.  Plus we've bought ourselves a bit of time now that SegWit is almost set to go.  

I'm still of the opinion that we should look at any and all scaling options, be it SegWit, blocksize, Lightning, schnorr sigs, etc and not rule anything out.  Plus, I'd still prefer an adaptive blocksize cap over a fixed one because it's inevitable there will be changes in the levels of demand.  There needs to be some elasticity there.  More research absolutely needs to go into that concept.  Having to constantly argue about hardforks due to the blocksize is going to get beyond tedious, so someone find a safe way to make the damn size adjustable, already.  I'm also confident that an adjustable blocksize would help de-escalate all this talk of "3 Bitcoins" where everyone is trying to guess which inane and arbitrary cap might be the right one.  This is science and math, idiots, take the sodding guesswork out of the equation and base the blocksize on something empirical and adjustable! 

While we can't rule out the possibility of fees increasing, it's certainly not a foregone conclusion.  I think they'll probably be a bit lower some time after SegWit is rolled out and most users are on the new keypairs.  At least for a while, anyway.  Keep the scaling ideas coming, though, we might well need them.

[25hashcoin]

This is why I think Bitcoin isn't going to be mainstream digital cash. I think other altcoins will replace Bitcoin in digital cash while Bitcoin become something like digital gold.

Problem solved http://www.bitcoincash.org

Because it has "cash" in the name doesn't mean it will be mainstream digital cash. I don't see how it's possible with BCH as it's juster worse version of BTC. I don't understand why would anyone support it or mine it, or invest in it. Only reason why we are even talking about it is because everyone wants to dump it and they are complaining about long confirmation time now...

BitcoinCash is Bitcoin with 8x the capacity and plans for future massive scaling. Who's left dumping? Price is rising. May want to actually inform yourself.

[Kaller]

Not necessarily.
This guy is basing off the fact that we have not fixed this problem.
After we fix the problem, fees will not "only rise".
They will be fixed fees and very low (compared to credit card).

[countryfree]

Hey, BTC just got better, and there are already people saying it's doomed!

Everybody knows SegWit isn't the end of the world. It's just a forward step in BTC's evolution. There will be plenty other steps, which will come in due time.

[25hashcoin]

Not necessarily.
This guy is basing off the fact that we have not fixed this problem.
After we fix the problem, fees will not "only rise".
They will be fixed fees and very low (compared to credit card).

What fix? There's no fix in sight. Their "fix" in centralized payment channels that you can settle on chain for a $100 fee. LN does not even exist yet anyway. Segwit is no help as author mentions. BCore already opposes S2x and 2mb would do very little for very short amount of time. BitcoinCore is strangled and will enter a death spiral.

All should read this: http://bitcoinandtheblockchain.blogspot.com/2017/08/btc-is-dead-long-live-btc.html?m=1

[Stedsm]

Conversely, Bitcoin Cash https://zander.github.io/posts/bcc-fees/

"Bitcoin Cash fees will stay the same, or go down from now on. Count on it."

But Bitcoin Cash needs miners to have it working and that's not going to become possible so easily as many companies who were in favor before, took their names off when it came to exchanges. Whether Bitcoins' fees will rise in Bitcoins itself or not, but they will be rising in fiat definitely because of its inflating prices. And it is obviously a horrifying statement because it has been said by a Dev himself, so we should be prepared for the truth that will be seen in the next few days as number of users and their demand for Bitcoins increase to something which Bitcoin may not meet up.

[25hashcoin]

Conversely, Bitcoin Cash https://zander.github.io/posts/bcc-fees/

"Bitcoin Cash fees will stay the same, or go down from now on. Count on it."

But Bitcoin Cash needs miners to have it working and that's not going to become possible so easily as many companies who were in favor before, took their names off when it came to exchanges. Whether Bitcoins' fees will rise in Bitcoins itself or not, but they will be rising in fiat definitely because of its inflating prices. And it is obviously a horrifying statement because it has been said by a Dev himself, so we should be prepared for the truth that will be seen in the next few days as number of users and their demand for Bitcoins increase to something which Bitcoin may not meet up.

http://bitcoinandtheblockchain.blogspot.com/2017/08/btc-is-dead-long-live-btc.html?m=1

Bitcoin Cash will become more profitable. Miners will have to mine in good faith and ignore profits for Segwitcoin to live. Not something I would bet on.

[User365]

Lightning Network developer Rusty Russell has issued a damning report on Bitcoin scalability, adding that fees would only rise from now on.

In a blog post Monday about the need to increase Bitcoin’s capacity long term, Russell said that the solutions currently available all fall short.

“Bitcoin can’t scale to meet demand unless demand vanishes and it all fails,” he wrote.

“If Bitcoin is used by 100,000 people today, and we want everyone to use it, we need Bitcoin capacity to grow 75,000 times larger. Yet we’re already struggling with 140GB of storage caused by Bitcoin’s first eight years when it was mainly not being used[.]”

While the Bitcoin network is just one day from locking in SegWit, Russell says that even this would provide only temporary relief from high fees before user demand erases the benefits.

A further hard fork and Schnorr signatures, the latter touted by commentators in the past as a useful way out of scaling difficulties, would fail to deliver at “everyone-scale.”

“The only attempt to attach growth to a metric was Pieter Wuille’s 17.7 percent per year increase,” Russel continued.

“That takes 70 years to reach everyone-scale, so no relief there in my lifetime.”

Bitcoin fees were at their lowest for months just this week, at a recommended 100 satoshis per byte. At the same time Aug. 7, suspected ‘spam’ transactions began to inflate the size of Bitcoin’s mempool, which had also been smaller than usual.

from cointelegraph

_______________

comments ?

Well what else shaould he say? He want´s his LN implemented 

I think he can go and implement his closed source somewhere else, but not in BTC. I think we need offchain scaling but a open source solution (or anything better but segwit + blocksizeincreasing won´t do it). 

[nl247]

This is why I think Bitcoin isn't going to be mainstream digital cash. I think other altcoins will replace Bitcoin in digital cash while Bitcoin become something like digital gold.

I think this is just it! If things end up being like this, then where is the future? Why will I keep paying a huge amount of transaction fee when there are other alternatives. If some of this cryptos can play their cards well, I see an overtaking soon if care is not taken. I wanted to do a transaction via blockchain.info today, the fees made me to change my mind and make use of paypal instead. Apparently the only thing bitcoin is gradually becoming good for is just keeping as an asset for now until... Watching in 4D

[pearlmen]

Lightning Network developer Rusty Russell has issued a damning report on Bitcoin scalability, adding that fees would only rise from now on.

In a blog post Monday about the need to increase Bitcoin’s capacity long term, Russell said that the solutions currently available all fall short.

“Bitcoin can’t scale to meet demand unless demand vanishes and it all fails,” he wrote.

“If Bitcoin is used by 100,000 people today, and we want everyone to use it, we need Bitcoin capacity to grow 75,000 times larger. Yet we’re already struggling with 140GB of storage caused by Bitcoin’s first eight years when it was mainly not being used[.]”

While the Bitcoin network is just one day from locking in SegWit, Russell says that even this would provide only temporary relief from high fees before user demand erases the benefits.

A further hard fork and Schnorr signatures, the latter touted by commentators in the past as a useful way out of scaling difficulties, would fail to deliver at “everyone-scale.”

“The only attempt to attach growth to a metric was Pieter Wuille’s 17.7 percent per year increase,” Russel continued.

“That takes 70 years to reach everyone-scale, so no relief there in my lifetime.”

Bitcoin fees were at their lowest for months just this week, at a recommended 100 satoshis per byte. At the same time Aug. 7, suspected ‘spam’ transactions began to inflate the size of Bitcoin’s mempool, which had also been smaller than usual.

from cointelegraph

_______________

comments ?

From this, it seems the challenges is far from over and the victory is just creating opening for another battle which is what bitcoij has been about since inception. In all I am still optimistic that in as much that the  believe people have in bitcoin is still waxing strong then this another challenge will be surmounted just like the previous ones have equally been.

[Stedsm]

Conversely, Bitcoin Cash https://zander.github.io/posts/bcc-fees/

"Bitcoin Cash fees will stay the same, or go down from now on. Count on it."

But Bitcoin Cash needs miners to have it working and that's not going to become possible so easily as many companies who were in favor before, took their names off when it came to exchanges. Whether Bitcoins' fees will rise in Bitcoins itself or not, but they will be rising in fiat definitely because of its inflating prices. And it is obviously a horrifying statement because it has been said by a Dev himself, so we should be prepared for the truth that will be seen in the next few days as number of users and their demand for Bitcoins increase to something which Bitcoin may not meet up.

http://bitcoinandtheblockchain.blogspot.com/2017/08/btc-is-dead-long-live-btc.html?m=1

Bitcoin Cash will become more profitable. Miners will have to mine in good faith and ignore profits for Segwitcoin to live. Not something I would bet on.

What was the term "EDA" meant for that was said to save the current chain?
Someone tried to be very miserable here with the theory they produced among us regarding BCH (and not to forget those grammatical mistakes as well), but BCH cannot be fully understood as well as justified because everybody just knocked their hammers hard by preferring BTC over BCH and I still don't see any reasons for supporting BCH because today's pump was just because of "miners not mining it" to stop the chain and let the game begin. <<-- Saw that information somewhere.