Questions I have about Bitcoin

[zippitypippity]

Is bitcoin really viable as a peer-to-peer electronic cash?

Due to high transaction costs and slow transaction speeds, how can we ever use bitcoin to purchase, for example, a Sprite and a bag of potato chips at a gas station? If I want to send a micropayment, for example, of 1000 sats on-chain I can pretty much forget about it because miners can’t afford to and as a result the transaction hangs out in the memepool indefinitely. I had a lot of hope for lightning network, but I am now starting to have doubts about its long-term success. What happens when someone using lightning wants to settling a microtransaction on the bitcoin blockchain?

How secure is bitcoin really?

Remember when cz binance wanted to people to thank him for not ordering a re-org to recover lost funds? Isn't bitcoin mining dangerously centralized? What if in the future there is a terrorist attack by government or other criminal orgs that involve bombing or burning large bitcoin mining facilities?

Satoshi writes in the bitcoin white paper that we propose a solution to the double spending problem, but has this really been achieved? Double spends are still possible with a 51% attack, so what solution to double spending has been achieved? Can't large mining pools conspire to attack bitcoin?

These are concerns I have for the long-term viability and intrinsic value of bitcoin.

[avikz]

Is bitcoin really viable as a peer-to-peer electronic cash?

Due to high transaction costs and slow transaction speeds, how can we ever use bitcoin to purchase, for example, a Sprite and a bag of potato chips at a gas station? If I want to send a micropayment, for example, of 1000 sats on-chain I can pretty much forget about it because miners can’t afford to and as a result the transaction hangs out in the memepool indefinitely. I had a lot of hope for lightning network, but I am now starting to have doubts about its long-term success. What happens when someone using lightning wants to settling a microtransaction on the bitcoin blockchain?

This is a really valid question. At current transaction rate, it really worries me about the future of bitcoin as a successful currency. It is simply not feasible to use bitcoin for micro payments. If you want to buy a Sprite and a bag of potato chips at a gas station, you would definitely want to use fiat or card payment. Because that is cheap and convenient. Same with me!

There are two options available for us to use bitcoin for micropayments. Either we use pre paid cards like Polispay or we can use LN. If you want to know how LN works, you can read the below article,

https://cointelegraph.com/lightning-network-101/what-is-lightning-network-and-how-it-works

Lightening network is definitely a good solution but it needs to be more user friendly before it can become popular. But it is also gaining momentum slowly among the regular crypto users. So it's just a matter of time before it becomes an obvious choice.

[odolvlobo]

Is bitcoin really viable as a peer-to-peer electronic cash?

Due to high transaction costs and slow transaction speeds, how can we ever use bitcoin to purchase, for example, a Sprite and a bag of potato chips at a gas station? If I want to send a micropayment, for example, of 1000 sats on-chain I can pretty much forget about it because miners can’t afford to and as a result the transaction hangs out in the memepool indefinitely. I had a lot of hope for lightning network, but I am now starting to have doubts about its long-term success. What happens when someone using lightning wants to settling a microtransaction on the bitcoin blockchain?

Can you use coins and paper notes to pay for an online order? No. Does that mean that coins and paper notes are not viable forms of cash? No. The fact that Bitcoin is not the best option for certain kinds of transactions does not mean that it is not viable.

The proper question is, "are there any kinds of transactions in which Bitcoin is a viable option?" The answer to that is probably yes.

Isn't bitcoin mining dangerously centralized? What if in the future there is a terrorist attack by government or other criminal orgs that involve bombing or burning large bitcoin mining facilities?

There are so many bitcoin mining facilities that I don't think that is a real danger. There are many more bitcoin mining facilities than there are Federal Reserve offices.

Satoshi writes in the bitcoin white paper that we propose a solution to the double spending problem, but has this really been achieved? Double spends are still possible with a 51% attack, so what solution to double spending has been achieved? Can't large mining pools conspire to attack bitcoin?

Keep in mind that every monetary system is vulnerable to some kind of attack. There is never any perfect solution.

[Utoy101]

Is bitcoin really viable as a peer-to-peer electronic cash?

These are concerns I have for the long-term viability and intrinsic value of bitcoin.

All your concerns are on point and in as much as i hate to say, the current state of bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrencies is far from what was promised and proposed by satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin was to provide a decentralized financial system where transactions can be reversed but what cz planned on doing shows that people who are good with programing and codings will always have there way around bitcoin networks. For bitcoin to hit mainstream, the entire current operating model has to shift to a more palatable concepts that was promised

[coupable]

Is bitcoin really viable as a peer-to-peer electronic cash?

Not for small transactions. And it was clear since first price right after 2010. We can't send 10.000 bitcoins to order a Pizza like old days.
As suggested above, it's time to rise awarness about problems in bitcoin and how to deal with it. Using lightening network is a good option but it's not yet friendly use for everybody even for well experienced users. Personally, i faced a lot of troubles while trying to use Blue-Wallet which is considered one of the great wallets using LN .

[Velkro]

Is bitcoin really viable as a peer-to-peer electronic cash?

I dont think so. For sure not main branch Bitcoin itself.
There must be developed second layer solutions like we have already btw Lighting Network because fees will be much lower, transactions will be much faster etc
Bitcoin is best as global store of value, digital gold that is better than gold in many ways.

How secure is bitcoin really?

about 51% attack Andreas Antonopolous made great video explaining this, in short this is not viable attack in many terms, mostly money and things you can actually achieve by this attack (not much)
so this is least of my worries in terms of Bitcoin security

[aundroid]

Satoshi writes in the bitcoin white paper that we propose a solution to the double spending problem, but has this really been achieved? Double spends are still possible with a 51% attack, so what solution to double spending has been achieved? Can't large mining pools conspire to attack bitcoin?

Well, a 51% attack on the Bitcoin network would cost the attacker ~$290,000 per hour.
By comparison, a 51% attack on BCash for 1 hour costs only $8,502 and on Bitcoin Scam Vision it is just $5,626 /hour
You can checkout https://www.crypto51.app/ to look at the theoretical costs of a 51% attack on different chains.

I strongly believe that for someone who controls that much bitcoin hashing power it would be more profitable to mine properly than to make a double spend.

[franky1]

bitcoin is no longer considered a digital cash for the unbanked.
(tx fee's are more then a days labour for some 3rd world countries)
now its become deemed as the digital gold for custodian/bank vaults. while other networks let you use their pegged tokens(banknotes pretending to be gold value) so that other networks offer the 'digital cash'

..
as for the viability of the peer-to-peer. thats becoming more centralised to business-to business
if developers keep pushing people to use these alt networks in their ploy to make bitcoin the vaulted digital gold reserve business model. then independent users wont be even using bitcoins network daily so wont see any advantage to be full nodes for it.
instead they will just want to check the vault(the locked real btc) once a month or 2. and they will do this via their alt network custodian wallet provider.

..
transaction fee's have been coded to increase. there were many ways to code fee's better to remain low. but those methods were ignored because it went against the business model of shifting users to alt networks

luckily im an early adopter and have enough coins to not worry about fee's compared to the coinage i have so im sticking with bitcoin to hoard my value. but bitcoin has totally lost and continues to lose its electronic peer-to-peer electronic cash status for average joe that just wants to buy things with bitcoin

(pre-empt all the LN fangirls adverting their alt-network. pretending it is btc(its not))
note LN is not a unique feature for btc. other coins can do it. so if another coin like LTC has cheaper onchain fees and less block confirm time. LN wont make btc any better but instead make people want to use LN with LTC.. thus LN wont help btc

[Becky666]

With the help of lighting Network we should be rest assure for micro payment on Bitcoin. This network is fast in terms of micro payment, also remember that, this doesn't need block confirmation but instantaneous in operation. Though, this technology is still be working upon for the betterment of the bitcoin transaction. Bitcoin is Still at the early stage of development and when time come everything needed for the micro payment will be activated.

[pooya87]

how can we ever use bitcoin to purchase, for example, a Sprite and a bag of potato chips at a gas station?

the purpose of creating bitcoin has never been to replace fiat and let people use it for all their day-to-day purchases like a "bag of potato chips". the purpose is to create a decentralized currency and give people the financial sovereignty that they can never have while using centralized fiat while relying on corrupted banks.
that doesn't mean huge fees are acceptable though.

Remember when cz binance wanted to people to thank him for not ordering a re-org to recover lost funds? Isn't bitcoin mining dangerously centralized?

if anything the CZ clowning proved that bitcoin mining is decentralized and bitcoin is the most immutable currency that has ever existed. idiots like CZ will always try to make money from bitcoin and when their stupidity leads to losses (shitty platform getting hacked) they look to bitcoin to bail them out but it won't.

[mk4]

Bitcoin was to provide a decentralized financial system where transactions can be reversed but what cz planned on doing shows that people who are good with programing and codings will always have there way around bitcoin networks.

That right there is a huge misconception.

Even if CZ wanted to do a rollback, he would've failed anyway. It's not that CZ changed his mind to save Bitcoin's reputation, it's just that it wasn't going to be possible in his case.

Also, you're probably referring to huge enterprise miners not "people who are good with programing and codings".

[Mikeowen]

Will the emergence of quantum computers affect Bitcoin's password security?

[witcher_sense]

Will the emergence of quantum computers affect Bitcoin's password security?

It definitely will. Hypothetically, quantum computers are powerful enough to break sha-256 encryption. The problem is there is no quantum computers yet. If they were exist today, that would be a problem for the bitcoin protocol, it would be already dead. The main advantage of bitcoin, however, is the fact that Bitcoin is open source software, which means everyone can contribute in it and develop some solutions for better quantum resistance of bitcoin. I assume it is going to be easier to do than inventing of powerful enough quantum computer. I don't know if it is possible to mine bitcoin using quantum computer, but it would also require some changes in the protocol to avoid possible centralization of mining or 51% attack.

[mk4]

Will the emergence of quantum computers affect Bitcoin's password security?

Not sure what you specifically mean by Bitcoin's "password security", but potentially yes. Tell you what though, we're going to potentially have BIGGER problems if Bitcoin's encryption can be cracked.

[salamat700]

Is bitcoin really viable as a peer-to-peer electronic cash?

Lightening network is definitely a good solution but it needs to be more user friendly before it can become popular. But it is also gaining momentum slowly among the regular crypto users. So it's just a matter of time before it becomes an obvious choice.

I fully agree that LN can be providing the solution to the problem of Bitcoin gaining the upper hand as a prime digital cash which people can use all the time to purchase from high-ticket items down to ordinary products we are using every day...or in a mom-and-pop operated grocery store. This is quite critical for the future of Bitcoin because it being a speculative asset is not quite good enough. Of course, LN is not yet so perfect as it is a work in progress, but we are getting there am sure.

[aundroid]

Will the emergence of quantum computers affect Bitcoin's password security?

I have (like the others here) also no clue what you mean by 'password security'. 
The Bitcoin protocol uses two different algorithms: ECDSA for signing and SHA256 to create the public address and calculate a block hash.

Theoretically it would be possible to break ECDSA and calculate the private key from the public key (Shor's algorithm).
So if you had a wallet without a single outgoing transaction, there would also be no public key for the quantum computer.

Should it ever be possible to break SHA256, we would have much worse problems, because SHA256 is also used for all SSL certificates.

[vycl87]

How secure is bitcoin really?

I did not understand what problem could be with Bitcoin's security. But be sure that it is extremely secure. Moreover, you are completely free to join the network and mining on this security. This is one of the main reasons for the high reliability of the network.
But if we are talking about wallet security here, then the situation is different. Each wallet holder must secure his own wallet. We could not be expected to rely on a wallet already protected by another person. These issues have been discussed both in this forum and in all other channels for years. There are people who have a lot of technical knowledge working on it. So I don't think there's anything to worry about.

[ranochigo]

It definitely will. Hypothetically, quantum computers are powerful enough to break sha-256 encryption. The problem is there is no quantum computers yet. If they were exist today, that would be a problem for the bitcoin protocol, it would be already dead. The main advantage of bitcoin, however, is the fact that Bitcoin is open source software, which means everyone can contribute in it and develop some solutions for better quantum resistance of bitcoin. I assume it is going to be easier to do than inventing of powerful enough quantum computer. I don't know if it is possible to mine bitcoin using quantum computer, but it would also require some changes in the protocol to avoid possible centralization of mining or 51% attack.

Quantum computers exist. Quantum computers just hasn't reached the level to pose a threat to encryption standards in the current day. Hypothetically, quantum computers can break ECDSA (and other asymmetrical algorithms) with Shor's algorithm. Quantum computer can theoretically weaken SHA256 (and symmetrical algorithms) but to a point whereby it's still very very hard to break it.

[pooya87]

Even if CZ wanted to do a rollback, he would've failed anyway. It's not that CZ changed his mind to save Bitcoin's reputation, it's just that it wasn't going to be possible in his case.

he did want a rollback and he did try so hard to make it happen and he did fail.
he even contacted a lot of mining pools and miners trying to convince/bribe them into rolling back the blocks and reversing his embarrassment but he never succeeded. it is impossible to perform such a thing but his lack of success was not just because of impossibility but also because all those miners are also protecting their investment and are well aware that a rollback is practically end of bitcoin's immutability, not to mention the death of that mining pool since all miners would stop using it right away.
then he tried to save face by saying he "changed his mind" instead of saying "i failed miserably". that is why i refer to him as a clown

[Naida_BR]

How secure is bitcoin really?

Remember when cz binance wanted to people to thank him for not ordering a re-org to recover lost funds? Isn't bitcoin mining dangerously centralized? What if in the future there is a terrorist attack by government or other criminal orgs that involve bombing or burning large bitcoin mining facilities?

Satoshi writes in the bitcoin white paper that we propose a solution to the double spending problem, but has this really been achieved? Double spends are still possible with a 51% attack, so what solution to double spending has been achieved? Can't large mining pools conspire to attack bitcoin?

These are concerns I have for the long-term viability and intrinsic value of bitcoin.

If a terrorist attack needs to happen and bomb all mining facilities then those attacks would need to happen all over the world and maybe sparkle a WWIII.
In this case, if Bitcoin is going to be shut, fiat currencies are going to be over inflated.
In conclusion, there is no way that Bitcoin is going to be harmed and not fiat currencies as well, the opposite cannot happen though.