What do you see as the major flaws of the Bitcoin ecosystem right now?

[Phoenix_PROG]

Security is the biggest flaw of everything that has to do with online, bitcoin did what it was build for and keys safety isn't one of them,  private keys are meant to be kept in private and that's not on bitcoin but users themselves, bitcoin isn't build to keep private keys itself for one particular user only, we have to keep private keys ourselves, is this a flaw? No

[Ratash]

I do not think that's an inconvenient compared to conventional money storage methods, because if you store your money in bank accounts its more difficult to creat an account and access your iy because of all the paper work, but with bitcoin you can do it in five minutes and you can secure your private key yourself,for me the inconvenient is the high fee because you can not make small transactions.

[Lordhermes]

From what others had said above, I think there's isn't any actual renovations and implementations on the bitcoin network as it had already shown a great methods to securing funds. Its up to the people in the blockchain industry to avoid been vulnerable by constantly reading the safety procedures in keeping seed phrases and keys at safe place.
On the other hand, in some months ago, there was an introduction of the Lightening Network (LN) which was built as the Layer 2 protocol on top of Bitcoin network which actually will reduce the transaction fee and some other new features too, isn't it part of the new development in the industry?

[hatshepsut93]

Agree 100%. Power user is a good way to put it. You shouldn't have to be a power user. I was looking at another thread on here about the most secure way to have a cold wallet, and people are saying like "install linux, download some software, check the checksum or whatever to make sure you got the correct software, run command line commands, etc". I'm like good lord this is a major problem. You shouldn't need to be into coding and be a power user of crypto stuff just to be able to safely use it. Vast improvements are needed to help people use Bitcoin as easily as they use other financial apps.

Right now hardware wallets is the easiest solution, but they come at a price, and a lot of people would rather save $50-100 if they can not pay it. I remember there was some sort of cold wallet that came together with its OS, so you just had to put it on a USB drive and it was ready to go, but it isn't as popular as (live) Linux + Electrum. Maybe some day someone will come with a solution that would allow people to create something close to a hardware wallet with software that can be installed on a USB stick and used just like a hardware wallet - perhaps virtualization can help with that.

[thecodebear]

Tell someone they have to buy a hardware wallet and they'll be like what they heck is that, why do I need to buy something to own bitcoin, how do I use it, etc. Mention BIP38 encryption of private keys to someone and you're gonna get a blank stare. Saying you just need pen and paper doesn't tell anyone anything about bitcoin and of course doesn't magically generate keys with pen and paper. A lot of user experience needs to be simplified in this regard. You have to know technical details about Bitcoin, where to download some safe key/pair generator from that won't be some malicious attempt to steal their bitcoin, the average user shouldn't need to know anything about encryption techniques, etc.

The same arguments could be made for literary anything else as long as the person you are telling this about is not familiar with that thing. For example if you try to introduce cars and how to drive them to someone who has never even seen a car you will get the same "blank stare" when you try describing what the 3 pedals are for. You can't say that is a flaw in cars just because it takes a lot of effort to learn how to use them.

Not really a good analogy. Understanding how to drive a car is extremely easy: turn steering wheel to turn car, press pedal to go forward, press pedal with gear in reverse to go backward, press  the other pedal to brake. Very basic and easily learned. No in depth research is required, no technical know how of how the car operates mechanically is required. The hard part associated with driving is learning to drive safely with other people on the road, not simply using a car. Also, to state the obvious, hitting the left turn signal instead of the right turn signal in a car doesn't result in you losing all your money!

A good car-bitcoin analogy would be if you had to learn significant details of how a car operates mechanically just to drive the car. Obviously that is not the case, but to use bitcoin safely (to really use it, not just buying & selling on an exchange) you have to do some in depth research and be aware of scams and possibly even have some computer know-how in order to be really safe and not risk losing all your money.

Thank you for instead of refuting my point, giving a great example of my point!

[WinBitcoinsCasino]

It has so high transaction fees. This is the only reason why there are so many other coins

[thecodebear]

Security is the biggest flaw of everything that has to do with online, bitcoin did what it was build for and keys safety isn't one of them,  private keys are meant to be kept in private and that's not on bitcoin but users themselves, bitcoin isn't build to keep private keys itself for one particular user only, we have to keep private keys ourselves, is this a flaw? No

But notice how in the topic thread and my opening post I said I am talking about solutions not to Bitcoin itself, but to the ecosystem. You are simply agreeing with me, not disagreeing as you seem to think. Problems with key security is a flaw in the Bitcoin ecosystem that is in need of a good solution. I specifically stated this thread is talking not about changes to Bitcoin itself, but changes to the ecosystem, that blockchain/app developers (not bitcoin core developers) could provide to make bitcoin more usable for the average person.

[thecodebear]

I feel like some people are missing the point of this thread. We're talking about places in the the Bitcoin ECOSYSTEM that are ripe for solutions to problems to make Bitcoin easier to use for the masses.

We AREN'T talking about changes to the Bitcoin blockchain itself. We aren't talking about fees, scalability, etc.

What sort of problems do you see, and what solutions to those problems, do you think could be made in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Basically, what solutions could be provided by blockchain/application developers to make it easier and less dangerous for someone new to crypto to setup and use a wallet, make key/address pairs and store them securely without worrying about losing their keys, sending transactions securely, etc. Talking about user experience solutions that make Bitcoin safer and easier to use for the masses (ie people who don't want to do days of research on bitcoin technicals just to be able to set up a wallet safely and make transactions safely and not worry about hitting a wrong key and their money is gone.

[verita1]

A good design that is user friendly is crucial in the mobile version. We spend the most time on our SmartPhone which will allow more people to join the great bitcoin wave.
Easy to receive, send, buy and sell bitcoin. If you talk and show anyone how easy it is to handle bitcoin, you will win a new user. So I think that this is what developers are thinking about their applications now that Paypal is in the crypto space and the growing demand for new applications is coming.

[bearexin]

I don’t really know if what you have pointed is a flaw, because that’s like a normal thing and I think anyone can do that if they just Google it and follow the process that’s involved in doing it. So, I wouldn’t say that’s a flaw, and you can make use of Trezor or Nano in storing your coins and you will be more safe than when you’re making use of some other wallets.

Maybe we should be talking about security when it comes to flaws, but I think that this is also up to us, and another thing is that we are exposed to so much scams, but it’s also up to us to be careful to avoid these scams.

[South Park]

Transactions take a long time. Fees are still high.

This is inevitable, the space on each block is limited and when there is high interest in securing a spot on the next block like when there is a bull run then people are going to compete to get their transactions confirmed as fast as possible and this drives the price up for transactions, so for the time being your only option are to be patient as most likely the bull run that we are experimenting will not disappear any time soon and the congestion on the network will continue for a long time.

[c0rnel1us]

Definitely transaction fees.

For mass adoption, it is unconceivable to have transaction fees. We've shifted to a zero fee world. Even card are zero fees now...
In a user experience perspective, transaction fees belong to the past and are a real drag on the adoption.


On the other hand, how could Bitcoin survive without fees when the 21m will be reached? (from a miner perspective)

I am very curious to see how Bitcoin will behave that very day.

[imstillthebest]

to me the bitcoin biggest flaws are the high transaction fees but this can be fix itself without update or fork  .

 it can be fix again or the fees will lower once the btc value decreases . scalability issues , making a transaction private and about the custodial wallet issue ,  all of those can also be fix without needing for a change of code  but the fix can be temporary and not permanent  .

the only way to make the fix permanent is i guess to update btc or change something in it .

[Coin_trader]

to me the bitcoin biggest flaws are the high transaction fees but this can be fix itself without update or fork  .

 it can be fix again or the fees will lower once the btc value decreases . scalability issues , making a transaction private and about the custodial wallet issue ,  all of those can also be fix without needing for a change of code  but the fix can be temporary and not permanent  .

the only way to make the fix permanent is i guess to update btc or change something in it .

Do you even realize that your post contradicts itself? Bitcoin Fork is the way to upgrade blockchain permanently. There are different kinds of fork(soft and hard fork) which are being used to solve the scalability issue. Updating the code is immenent to meet the increasing demand of BTC and Fork is the way to update the code to make BTC blockchain more faster since blockchain is decentralized.

[Wisbrown]

What I see as a flaw is the ability of Bitcoin to be legally and generally accepted by the whole country in the world.
And for Bitcoin to be use as other currency for the buying of goods and service in the world market.

[South Park]

What I see as a flaw is the ability of Bitcoin to be legally and generally accepted by the whole country in the world.
And for Bitcoin to be use as other currency for the buying of goods and service in the world market.

But that is not the fault of bitcoin, bitcoin was created as a response to corrupt governments stealing the wealth of their citizens through inflation and it is obvious those same governments are not going to like bitcoin at all and are going to fight it, this is why adoption is so slow, but once a major crisis comes related to their monetary policies then you can be sure people will finally understand why we need bitcoin and even if governments try to fight against bitcoin at that point people will use it regardless of the consequences.