Let me play devils advocate.
1) Zero confirmation transactions are usually fine. I have never even heard a story of someone trying to do a double spend at an in person transaction. Im pretty sure you are more likely to get a gun pulled on you.
3) It could scale past 7 transactions tomorrow if the core devs would pull their heads out.
5) I'm pretty sure that everyone wants to change bitcoin they just cant agree on how. You are right about the infighting and lack of consensus though.
6) Is it really alarming? I know a bunch disappeared recently, but I thought that was most likely because of the recent stress test/attack.
7) True, but those pools would cease to exist immediately after trying this. I suppose it might be worth it for them to do it. A successful double spend on the Gemini hotwallet could be worth it and would be hugely damaging. I think we know who the pool operators are though. They would have to try to pull the we got hacked story and there would definitely be an investigation. I guess we can call this a high damage low probability risk.
I think there is definitely interest in fixing them, but it is true that they have not been fixed though there has certainly been time to do so. This is another consensus/governance issue rather than a lack of interest.
10) There are proposals to make bitcoin more private. It comes back to the consensus and governance issues preventing those proposals from happening.
11) I dont really understand this one. Could you be more specific about what they have their head in the sand about and why they are wrong to ignore it?
13) People dont need to understand the email protocol to use it, and Dash isn't any simpler
Seems like most of the problems could be fixed with better governance.
Proposal:
If the bitcoin community can fix its governance it will succeed, if it cannot it will lose its throne to another crypto.
Perhaps if XT succeeds it can restore the benevolent dictator model?
Great points! Before I rebut, let me say that I'm envisioning a mainstream, global financial protocol. Honestly, Bitcoin is pretty decent for the *current* use case. It's generally fast enough, especially since most merchants who accept it are online and can always delay shipping. It doesn't get used a whole lot, so the maximum transactions per second and blocksize aren't really that relevant. The blockchain is still a manageable size so there are enough nodes run by altruists to support the network. There's no anonymity, but most people aren't that interested in digging into your finances, because Bitcoin just isn't used enough for that. Ease-of-use isn't that important either, since only computer and finance nerds are using it.
But if you want to create a paradigm-shift in the financial world, bring analog money into the digital age, and approach a mainstream use-case, then changes are needed. Changes that Dash has brought and that Dash Evolution will continue to bring.
In answer to your counterpoints:
1) Zero confirmation transactions are usually fine. I have never even heard a story of someone trying to do a double spend at an in person transaction. Im pretty sure you are more likely to get a gun pulled on you.
--That's very true on a use-by-use case. But zoom out and look at the larger picture. If you're looking at the really big numbers needed to make crypto "mainstream"...billions of dollars moved per day...would you trust any system that is less than 100% bulletproof? At least in my opinion, this is about confidence in the protocol rather than whether a merchant can "risk" selling me a pack of toaster.
3) It could scale past 7 transactions tomorrow if the core devs would pull their heads out.
--True. It could get all the way up to 14 if they doubled the block size. Or 70 if they dectupled it. But that's not really going to scale to global adoption, is it? I'll play devil's advocate here: Bitcoin could theoretically make a change and scale up to 70 TPS. Dash will still be ahead by 1430 TPS once Evolution is released. Dash wins.[/quote]
5) I'm pretty sure that everyone wants to change bitcoin they just cant agree on how. You are right about the infighting and lack of consensus though.
--That's a distinction without a difference. I want to be able to walk through walls, but I can't figure out how to make that happen. An exaggeration, yes, but the same principle. My problem is physics; Bitcoin's problem is politics. Both appear intractable, or nearly so.
6) Is it really alarming? I know a bunch disappeared recently, but I thought that was most likely because of the recent stress test/attack.
--Today? No. But when scaling up to a truly global payment system? Yes. How many of the existing nodes do you think could successfully serve up a 1 TB blockchain? 10 TB? 100 TB? The cost to run a Bitcoin node today is small...if Bitcoin was to scale up though, the cost would be astronomical. Who would be willing to pay that cost, other than a very few die-hard do-gooders? And would those few be enough to truly call it "decentralized?"
7) True, but those pools would cease to exist immediately after trying this. I suppose it might be worth it for them to do it. A successful double spend on the Gemini hotwallet could be worth it and would be hugely damaging. I think we know who the pool operators are though. They would have to try to pull the we got hacked story and there would definitely be an investigation. I guess we can call this a high damage low probability risk.
--I'm less concerned about the pools and more concerned about the currency. Everyone who addresses this topic focuses on game theory and the relative advantage of acting versus not acting. I call B.S. on this approach. Target got hacked. Ashley Madison got hacked. The U.S. government got hacked. Who really believes that it's impossible for a few bitcoin pools to get hacked? The hacker, having nothing to lose, could easily attach the network for "lulz." What about a state- or corporate-actor who doesn't mind losing money if it destroys a competitor? The problem isn't "Joe Bob is going to doublespend $10,000." The problem is "Oh shit, Bitcoin's been broken. Sell your Bitcoin now. It's been attacked once; it could happen again. Bitcoin isn't secure. Sell. Sell. Sell." It's all about confidence. A truly global system must be bulletproof.
I think there is definitely interest in fixing them, but it is true that they have not been fixed though there has certainly been time to do so. This is another consensus/governance issue rather than a lack of interest.
--Agreed. Yet the problem still remains intractable due to politics.
10) There are proposals to make bitcoin more private. It comes back to the consensus and governance issues preventing those proposals from happening.
--Agreed. Yet the problem still remains intractable due to politics. Hell, Gavin could port Darksend into Bitcoin tomorrow if he wanted--the code is open source and I'm sure people would be happy to run Bitcoin masternodes--but it isn't really likely to happen. It's not because it is impossible--Dash has proven that it is--it's because nobody will make or adopt the necessary changes to the protocol.
11) I dont really understand this one. Could you be more specific about what they have their head in the sand about and why they are wrong to ignore it?
--This is a reference to Bitcoin maximalists thinking that there are no good and valid ideas out there other than their own. Peter Todd for instance is very vocal about Dash being useless; Gavin has said that all the energy spent on altcoins is "wasted." When your competition has a brilliant idea, the proper response is to see if you can match it or beat it. The best response the Bitcoin community can muster is "We are bigger than you. We have the network effect on our side. We will bury you."
13) People dont need to understand the email protocol to use it, and Dash isn't any simpler
--Exactly so! That's a great analogy. No, Dash isn't currently any simpler, but apparently Dash Evolution will be.
Proposal:
If the bitcoin community can fix its governance it will succeed, if it cannot it will lose its throne to another crypto.
--Sure thing...but good luck. They've been arguing about block size for two years, and malleability has been a known problem for four. It's not that these problems are impossible to solve technically--Dash proves that they aren't. The problem is that the Bitcoin devs and community simply do not innovate for political reasons.