If Satoshi was a "genius", then why do BTC transactions take so long?

[MoonShadow]

Also, even a 1 minute delay would be too long to wait in many situations. Especially as that would be the average and some confirmations would take longer. When I'm paying by credit card at a supermarket, if it takes as much as 10 seconds it annoys me. When I've finished and paid I don't want to hang around, waiting. So faster confirmation times don't really help unless they are a lot faster, like 50 times faster.

(I don't know whether Satoshi made this point, and don't much care.)

i agree. why we stay with a bitcoin if other coins are quicker and even safer. Nextcoin is faster than Litecoin. pos coins , they seem more eficient to me.

Good luck with that.

[Brangdon]

Also, even a 1 minute delay would be too long to wait in many situations. Especially as that would be the average and some confirmations would take longer. When I'm paying by credit card at a supermarket, if it takes as much as 10 seconds it annoys me. When I've finished and paid I don't want to hang around, waiting. So faster confirmation times don't really help unless they are a lot faster, like 50 times faster.

i agree. why we stay with a bitcoin if other coins are quicker and even safer.

You aren't agreeing with me. I was arguing against faster confirmations, because even if they are 10 times quicker they still won't be quick enough. They'd have to be 50 times quicker; but then the cost of orphaned blocks (as described in the post before mine) would be prohibitive.

The way to get fast enough for the supermarket scenario is to accept transactions with zero confirmations. Then you only have to wait a few seconds. With that in place, the block time becomes almost irrelevant.

[jonald_fyookball]

Conclusion:  the whole "we need a fast altcoin" argument is bunk.

[curt.rowland]

If Bit_Happy was a 490 activity user then why hasn't he seen the endless topics and pages written on this? Especially a LTC user... why the sudden curiosity i wonder...

Cuz forums get cluttered with fucks like you who feel a need to show everyone how much smarter you are than everyone.

[FeedbackLoop]

If Bit_Happy was a 490 activity user then why hasn't he seen the endless topics and pages written on this? Especially a LTC user... why the sudden curiosity i wonder...

Cuz forums get cluttered with fucks like you who feel a need to show everyone how much smarter you are than everyone.

Or maybe "cuz" the only usage "advantage" of LTC is that it has faster block times and LTC just went through a massive pump and dump with the introduction in chinese exchanges leaving lots of LTC bagholders all around the forum asking why is "Bitcoin so slow".

And maybe that contributes to forums getting cluttered with the same thing over and over... OP has a LTC and Bitcoin signature and near 500 activity. Even if he doesn't know the main differences between the altcoin he favors and Bitcoin, and even if he was being naive, he would certainly know about cluttering and searching topics.

But maybe "fucks like you" don't get it and "feel a need to show everyone how much" dumber you are than everyone.
 
The thread ended up being relatively OK with some good information repeated. In a week it will be feathercoin being dumped and yet another seemingly naive OP will show up asking why are LTC and Bitcoin so slow, leading to a shittier thread and clogging up the searches of a genuine newbie.
 

[bananas]

if you take the risk of acccepting 1 confirmation or noen at all it is fast...

[mobile4ever]

It is lot faster than some bank transactions. Three days for a cheque to clear? The world was waiting for something like Bitcoin.

[Beliathon]

Because Satoshi is almost as intelligent as you are unintelligent, OP.

[bananas]

Retailers get risks in all payment forms.

Bitcoin is slow if risk is 0, and so are other payment forms. Actually bitcoin is better to handle risk and processing time.
The retailer can do something like this in his Point of Sale system :

if value < $30 , conf = 0
if value  > $30  conf = 1
if value > $100 , conf = 3
if value > $400 , conf = 6

[merockstar]

Retailers get risks in all payment forms.

Bitcoin is slow if risk is 0, and so are other payment forms. Actually bitcoin is better to handle risk and processing time.
The retailer can do something like this in his Point of Sale system :

if value < $30 , conf = 0
if value  > $30  conf = 1
if value > $100 , conf = 3
if value > $400 , conf = 6

Or it could be worked around.

Planning to spend alot on groceries? Send a thousands worth of bitcoin before shopping, do your shopping, then by the time you're done your coin is confirmed. Get your change back in btc, or as a shopping voucher

[irrational]

Retailers get risks in all payment forms.

Bitcoin is slow if risk is 0, and so are other payment forms. Actually bitcoin is better to handle risk and processing time.
The retailer can do something like this in his Point of Sale system :

if value < $30 , conf = 0
if value  > $30  conf = 1
if value > $100 , conf = 3
if value > $400 , conf = 6

If you're willing to accept purchase with 0 confirmations, then we should hook up... I have a lot of micro-purchases I'd like to conduct with you.

[podyx]

i'm curious to how easy it is to double spends. is it something average joes can learn to do or does it take some college kid genius with glasses and shit to do it?

would it be safe to accept with 0 confirms with, lets say a $10k purschase as a company?

[irrational]

Retailers get risks in all payment forms.

Bitcoin is slow if risk is 0, and so are other payment forms. Actually bitcoin is better to handle risk and processing time.
The retailer can do something like this in his Point of Sale system :

if value < $30 , conf = 0
if value  > $30  conf = 1
if value > $100 , conf = 3
if value > $400 , conf = 6

If you're willing to accept purchase with 0 confirmations, then we should hook up... I have a lot of micro-purchases I'd like to conduct with you.

Sure, just don't forget to smile for the camera as you check out, we already have your license plate since you parked in our parking lot.

This not-so-serious post is just one example of ways B&M merchants can feel confident selling goods for 0 confirmations. They could even require you to show them your ID unless you wanted to wait for a confirmation.

There are other ways as well. You could make a transfer to the store upon entrance, and you get confirmations while you shop. Upon check out, the merchant adds up your total and subtracts it from your deposit, sending you the change.

There are reasons most merchants stopped taking personal checks, and this is one of them. The merchant would rather eat a 2.9-3.9% CC fee and process a transaction with little risk, than have to fight dead beat check writers in court. Despite the law being on the merchant's side, it usually turned out to be a losing proposition due to having to track them down, file court documents, and appear in court.

I, personally, view Bitcoin as a better ACH, but it's just ripe for someone to build a credit card network on top of it.

[jonald_fyookball]

i'm curious to how easy it is to double spends. is it something average joes can learn to do or does it take some college kid genius with glasses and shit to do it?

would it be safe to accept with 0 confirms with, lets say a $10k purschase as a company?

Good question, because everyone knows that a college kid genius without glasses is in fact no genius at all!

[bananas]

Retailers get risks in all payment forms.

Bitcoin is slow if risk is 0, and so are other payment forms. Actually bitcoin is better to handle risk and processing time.
The retailer can do something like this in his Point of Sale system :

if value < $30 , conf = 0
if value  > $30  conf = 1
if value > $100 , conf = 3
if value > $400 , conf = 6

If you're willing to accept purchase with 0 confirmations, then we should hook up... I have a lot of micro-purchases I'd like to conduct with you.

It will be a pleasure if you already signed up to our preferential customer program which is free of costs.

[MoonShadow]

i'm curious to how easy it is to double spends. is it something average joes can learn to do or does it take some college kid genius with glasses and shit to do it?

would it be safe to accept with 0 confirms with, lets say a $10k purschase as a company?

It's not easy.  In fact, it's never been provabley be done in the wild.  It's entirely theoretical.

[jonald_fyookball]

i'm curious to how easy it is to double spends. is it something average joes can learn to do or does it take some college kid genius with glasses and shit to do it?

would it be safe to accept with 0 confirms with, lets say a $10k purschase as a company?

It's not easy.  In fact, it's never been provabley be done in the wild.  It's entirely theoretical.

A better question is:  If you had a really good coder build you a wallet client that was specifically designed to do double spending,
what percentage of the time would it work to create a zero confirmation transaction, without any "outside assistance" (other nodes coordinating in the attack etc)

[RodeoX]

i'm curious to how easy it is to double spends. is it something average joes can learn to do or does it take some college kid genius with glasses and shit to do it?

would it be safe to accept with 0 confirms with, lets say a $10k purschase as a company?

It's not easy.  In fact, it's never been provabley be done in the wild.  It's entirely theoretical.

Listen to lord MoonShadow.  
If you read the news you would think bitcoin is "hacked" all the time. In fact it is trusting others that leads to theft by hacking. The protocol is very safe, unlike your credit card.

P.S. I would wait for some confirmations if it was $10K.

[cambda]

i'm curious to how easy it is to double spends. is it something average joes can learn to do or does it take some college kid genius with glasses and shit to do it?

would it be safe to accept with 0 confirms with, lets say a $10k purschase as a company?

It depends on attacker hashing speed how likely a double spend can be done. Also it matter only if the company cannot simply cancel the order/purchase after doublespend happens (this is know within one hour)

[MoonShadow]

i'm curious to how easy it is to double spends. is it something average joes can learn to do or does it take some college kid genius with glasses and shit to do it?

would it be safe to accept with 0 confirms with, lets say a $10k purschase as a company?

It's not easy.  In fact, it's never been provabley be done in the wild.  It's entirely theoretical.

A better question is:  If you had a really good coder build you a wallet client that was specifically designed to do double spending,
what percentage of the time would it work to create a zero confirmation transaction, without any "outside assistance" (other nodes coordinating in the attack etc)

This is unknowable, but considering that the issue about acceptance of zero confirm transactions is a meatspace issue primarily, it'd still be quite a trick for a hacked android client to produce two competing transactions at the exact same moment without Wal-Mart's bitcoin service noticing and denying the transaction.  Theoretically, the best chance you can have with a double spend attack is 50%, but that assmues that both the attacker and the vendor have equal access to the p2p network (which is unlikely in any event) and that the vendor hasn't taken steps to reduce his exposure (which is possible today, but would become as rare as hen's teeth a week after the public finds out that a true double spend attack was accoplished against a vendor).