Could bitcoin network cope with massive adoption?

[techstorm2]

Hi All


Be gentle with me, just posing a question.

We know overstock now accepts btc and took almost 130K in 1 day.

Assuming Amazon, Ebay or a few other mega companies accept BTC in 2014, could the bitcoin network handle this in terms of scalability, transaction times.

It would be a great problem to have but just concerned things mushroom too quickly which could then have a -ve effect on btc in the media.


 

[mtnminer]

I believe the bitcoin network can handle the load, look at the hashing power we now have online with ASIC's and this number continues to rise.  It will actually make transaction fees more "profitable" for miners in pools paying or sharing these fees.

Mtnminer

[Buffer Overflow]

The network is temporary currently throttled to ~7tps at the moment.

[OnkelPaul]

I believe the bitcoin network can handle the load, look at the hashing power we now have online with ASIC's and this number continues to rise.

Actually, the hashing power has no direct relation to the transaction handling capacity of the network.
At the moment, the main limit seems to be block size and frequency - as the number of transactions per time unit increases, so does the size of each block, but the block size is currently limited to 1 MByte which roughly translates to 7 transactions per second.
Here's an article on the topic: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/12/bitcoin-needs-to-scale-by-a-factor-of-1000-to-compete-with-visa-heres-how-to-do-it/

Onkel Paul

[Meuh6879]

If professionnal want made fast transaction ... then ... they "can" up her fee transaction (instead of 0,0002 ...).
They save all fee and material from CB so, it's OK.

[BTC-TK]

No

[bluemeanie1]

I believe the bitcoin network can handle the load, look at the hashing power we now have online with ASIC's and this number continues to rise.  It will actually make transaction fees more "profitable" for miners in pools paying or sharing these fees.

Mtnminer

more profitable for miners, more expensive for users.

[bluemeanie1]

I believe the bitcoin network can handle the load, look at the hashing power we now have online with ASIC's and this number continues to rise.

Actually, the hashing power has no direct relation to the transaction handling capacity of the network.
At the moment, the main limit seems to be block size and frequency - as the number of transactions per time unit increases, so does the size of each block, but the block size is currently limited to 1 MByte which roughly translates to 7 transactions per second.
Here's an article on the topic: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/11/12/bitcoin-needs-to-scale-by-a-factor-of-1000-to-compete-with-visa-heres-how-to-do-it/

Onkel Paul

there is also the Color Coins project which will not only add transactions, it will multiply the RATE of transactions perhaps by a factor of thousands(perhaps even hundreds of thousands- there is no limit).

at the minimum, having a full block chain copy will be impossible for the average user, further compromising the p2p aspect.

[Nagle]

The network is temporary currently throttled to ~7tps at the moment.

Right. It's up to ghash.io, which controls most mining power, to decide whether that gets to be raised. They may decide to raise fees instead.

[Melbustus]

It's up to ghash.io, which controls most mining power...

False.

They are the biggest pool, but they do not control "most mining power". Their share has also decreased significantly in the past week.

Observe: http://blockchain.info/pools

[tacoman71]

I believe the question should be if the network can handle the increased load, but if everyone leaves, can the network handle the sudden loss of hashing power.

[Lauda]

No it can't. It is currently limited.
I'm just asking what the devs are doing with their time..

[phillipsjk]

I believe the question should be if the network can handle the increased load, but if everyone leaves, can the network handle the sudden loss of hashing power.

If that happens
1.wait for price to crash
2. buy cheap miners
3.
4. Profit.