If you could travel back in time, how would you change Bitcoin?

[gabriella]

if you could travel back to 2008, knowing what you know now, what fundamental changes (if any) would you make to the bitcoin system before it gets released to the wild?

[beetcoin]

as i expect everyone else to say, i'd give myself some more  

but yeah, possibly implement a way to prevent big mining pools from forming. the idea is decentralization after all.

[grau]

1. Define its protocol then implement tests of it then implement code that satisfies the tests in a modern programming language by a software engineer and produce documentation.

2. Isolate consensus engine from wallet mining and UI at best implemented in separate processes.

3. have a trusted communication channel (bus) instead of RPC.

4. Have a voting algorithm for hard forks.

5. use an industry standard message serialization e.g. BSON.

6. use regular 2 complement integers with fixed 32 bit length in the script language.

7. have  SIGHASH_WITHINPUTVALUE https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=181734.0

this is just a quick list ... completing this list should be point 0.

[Bigeyeone]

This guy has an idea how to prevent mining pools; NSAcoin lol , a coin that DDOS you every time you find a block

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=392535.0

But I suspect if anyone had implemented that in the past for bitcoin, BTC would have been history by now

[Kenshin]

I would contact Satoshi, then I will know who he, she or they are. Then make a movie about Bitcoin.  

[davedx]

Faster transaction times, surely?

[Come-from-Beyond]

if you could travel back to 2008, knowing what you know now, what fundamental changes (if any) would you make to the bitcoin system before it gets released to the wild?

I would ask Satoshi not to use "coin" in the name.

[bryant.coleman]

If I could travel back in time, I will do something to eliminate the possibility of a 51% attack. It is not a concern now... but in future it can become one.

[zagerfish]

they need a way to split stocks, but with the coins.

turn 12 million coins into 120 million. 

no one wants to pay for a sandwich with .00000012 of a coin.

___________________________________
Get 420 with bitcoins at zeltasgarden.com

[davedx]

they need a way to split stocks, but with the coins.

turn 12 million coins into 120 million. 

no one wants to pay for a sandwich with .00000012 of a coin.

___________________________________
Get 420 with bitcoins at zeltasgarden.com

Why not? 

It's not like you have to count out a hundred satoshis by hand.

I really don't understand the fixation on the magnitude of amount used in payments. Most people will end up scanning QR codes in the end, right?

[tysat]

they need a way to split stocks, but with the coins.

turn 12 million coins into 120 million. 

no one wants to pay for a sandwich with .00000012 of a coin.

___________________________________
Get 420 with bitcoins at zeltasgarden.com

Why not? 

It's not like you have to count out a hundred satoshis by hand.

I really don't understand the fixation on the magnitude of amount used in payments. Most people will end up scanning QR codes in the end, right?

Because small numbers like that will confuse most people.

[zagerfish]

there's also just something psychologically that makes me not want to pay 10k per ONE coin.

I'd start buying litecoin before I'd pay 10k per a bitcoin.

Stocks split for a reason.

Then imagine 100k for a bitcoin. Who in their right mind would pay that?

For bitcoin to become mainstream it would have to increase in value to like 100k or even a million, cause their just aren't enough bitcoins for it to be mainstream for the whole world of 7 billion.

[Cryddit]

Scalability.

Bitcoin can never become mainstream while able to handle less than a thousand transactions per second. 

[skivrmt]

Scalability.

Bitcoin can never become mainstream while able to handle less than a thousand transactions per second. 

I think this is the main concern.  Merchants need instant verification if this is ever to go mainstream.  I don't know who much of a concern double spending (I know there's a better term for it!) the same address is right now, but the first we hear of it from a merchant there might be some negative press about it.

[gsingh]

I guess the current limit is 7/sec. Is there any way to optimise this to 500/sec.

Is litecoin any better for this?

[DannyHamilton]

Then imagine 100k for a bitcoin. Who in their right mind would pay that?

Right, and who in their right mind would pay $39,000 for a kilogram of gold?!

Oh, wait, we don't have to buy it in kilogram units?  It can be bought in smaller portions and we can use different names for those portions?  But, it's still gold, right?  Ok, so mayby I can spend $39 and buy a gram of gold.  That works.

If bitcoin is $100,000 per bitcoin, then you will be exchanging and buying microbitcoin (µBTC). You might even use a reasonable nickname for the quantity.  Call it a "Mike", or a "microbit", or a "Mic".  You'll be paying $0.10 per microbitcoin.  That's a very reasonable number.

[cbeast]

Nothing but the name. I would have called it Dogecoin.

[theecoinomist]

they need a way to split stocks, but with the coins.

turn 12 million coins into 120 million. 

no one wants to pay for a sandwich with .00000012 of a coin.

[tromp]

I'd employ a different proof-of-work that doesn't provide much benefit to GPUs/ASICs,
but rather depends on many gigabytes of memory (just for generating, not for verifying)

Well, that's what I'm trying to design right now:)

-John

[Come-from-Beyond]

I'd employ a different proof-of-work that doesn't provide much benefit to GPUs/ASICs,
but rather depends on many gigabytes of memory (just for generating, not for verifying)

Well, that's what I'm trying to design right now:)

-John

Where could we read more about ur design?