Bitcoin in 10 years, 9 years ago - from Theymos reddit AMA

[libert19]

"I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume." — Billions of daily volume

Bitcoin may be replaced by something better in 10 years, though I think that it's more likely that Bitcoin will survive and be very popular. — BTC-ETH flippening?

The protocol and network will look a lot different. There will have been at least one major hardfork that changes quite a bit of the protocol. — Have you got something on this one (not counting separate chains — BCH, BSV, etc)?

A lot of transactions will probably occur through a payment system on top of Bitcoin because Bitcoin transactions will be somewhat more expensive than they are today.  — Lightning network?

Maybe Bitcoin transactions will work more like email and you'll send transactions to an address like theymos@fast-bitcoin.com — Not on bitcoin but it's available on ethereum and some other chains.


Great prophecy tbh

[NotATether]

Great prophecy tbh

And some of it has come to pass actually (except that Segwit and Taproot were soft-forks, and not hardforks).

I don't see it likely that ETH will ever get higher market caps than Bitcoin, if it never managed to do so already. I mean, ETH developers are tiring themselves making feature after feature (defi, NFTs etc.) but it only has a small percentage of BTC's market cap with virtually no hardforks at all.

Perhaps people simply like tried and tested coins better.

[pooya87]

"I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume." — Billions of daily volume

That's what Satoshi said by the way.

Bitcoin may be replaced by something better in 10 years, though I think that it's more likely that Bitcoin will survive and be very popular. — BTC-ETH flippening?

It is a reasonable assumption to say after many years a new and better innovation comes along that could become bigger than bitcoin but not necessarily replace it.
However, I don't see how a centralized shitcoin with mutable blockchain and numerous protocol flaws such as ethereum even came to your mind when you read this comment!

The protocol and network will look a lot different. There will have been at least one major hardfork that changes quite a bit of the protocol. — Have you got something on this one (not counting separate chains — BCH, BSV, etc)?

We had significant changes through soft-forks like Taproot that even changed the signature algorithm we use from ECDSA TO ECSDSA.

A lot of transactions will probably occur through a payment system on top of Bitcoin because Bitcoin transactions will be somewhat more expensive than they are today.  — Lightning network?

Yes, except that transactions on main-net are not expensive and they should not be expensive otherwise the second layer would face difficulties.

Maybe Bitcoin transactions will work more like email and you'll send transactions to an address like theymos@fast-bitcoin.com — Not on bitcoin but it's available on ethereum and some other chains.

There is no bitcoin available on any chain least of which centralized shitcoins like ethereum. What you see there are fake tokens that have no connection to bitcoin despite their fake claims.
Also I don't think the quote means what you think it means. It is predicting that you could send bitcoin to emails (or something similar like IP address that existed in early days) instead of sending to an address.

[Accardo]

With the domain kind of address bitcoin transaction may work like sending an Email, though not exactly how he stated  it. Before then, they was nothing like Altcoins, all the altcoins joined together can be bigger than Bitcoin, tagging ETH it's impossible for one project to outstand or get better than Bitcoin. In my opinion, his predictions is close to the Truth, as bitcoin is popular and more people looking to invest into Bitcoin. Alot of transaction occurs on the blockchain network through a payment system, lightening network sure, but I think the payment system is bolt12, sending transaction through onion messages free or paid.

[2stout]

Even if something comes along that is "better" than bitcoin, there will always be a place for it as bitcoin was the first and is responsible for the proliferation of crypto.  At that point, maybe it transitions into even more so a store of value and holds and increases in value here.

[NeuroticFish]

A lot of transactions will probably occur through a payment system on top of Bitcoin because Bitcoin transactions will be somewhat more expensive than they are today.  — Lightning network?

Interesting. I didn't expect theymos envision the future this good.
The "payment system on top of Bitcoin" together with "many different transaction providers that only occasionally settle their debts with each other and with customers using real Bitcoin transactions" indeed sounds like LN and many similar systems to come.

Maybe Bitcoin transactions will work more like email and you'll send transactions to an address like theymos@fast-bitcoin.com — Not on bitcoin but it's available on ethereum and some other chains.

The email system has been implemented a couple of times for bitcoin too. I remember one was clearly working in 2015, for example. But people understood that it's risky and kinda gave it up.
However, I'm not sure you're showing how good was theymos' prediction, or you try to advertise ethereum in Bitcoin discussion area.

[darkv0rt3x]

Maybe Bitcoin transactions will work more like email and you'll send transactions to an address like theymos@fast-bitcoin.com — Not on bitcoin but it's available on ethereum and some other chains.

There is a small protocol called LnRUL that allows you to use email domains to send sats over the LN. No need for Shitereum to do that! See here the RFC: https://github.com/fiatjaf/lnurl-rfc

Telegram also has this integration with bots that allow you to do many things like advertising, get paid for those advertising, send tips for messages in Telegram, etc!

[mk4]

Bitcoin may be replaced by something better in 10 years, though I think that it's more likely that Bitcoin will survive and be very popular. — BTC-ETH flippening?

Ehh, "replaced" is quite broad. If he meant replaced in the #1 spot, then I really wouldn't bet on it.

The protocol and network will look a lot different. There will have been at least one major hardfork that changes quite a bit of the protocol. — Have you got something on this one (not counting separate chains — BCH, BSV, etc)?

I'm pretty sure he meant that there will be a hard fork on the main BTC chain and that it'd still be the "main" chain. Hard forks from separate chains have been guaranteed to happen.

[Kakmakr]

Well, the hardforks was done for different reasons.... but he was correct... it did change the original protocol a lot. The LN sidechains can be seen as another technology on top of the Bitcoin protocol ....which made the "cost" of the transactions a lot cheaper than before.

Theymos has been there from the early days, so he had contact with many of the knowledgeable people in the Bitcoin community. This gave him access to a vast amount of knowledge and insight into the working of the technology and the possible roadmap for it's future.  

[Pmalek]

BTC-ETH flippening?

I would say it's very unlikely that a blockchain such as Ethereum will get the same support and build trust as Bitcoin has done. If and when Ethereum migrates to POS it will become even worse.  Just check the fees you have to pay to work with DeFi and smart contract interactions to see how useful Ethereum is in its current form.

A lot of transactions will probably occur through a payment system on top of Bitcoin because Bitcoin transactions will be somewhat more expensive than they are today.  — Lightning network?

Lightning Network or any other sidechains that might be created in the future still require official on-chain confirmations. So you still have to go through the bottleneck of Bitcoin's TPS and block generation time. Until that happens, those coins aren't yours yet.

[yhiaali3]

Theymos had a great vision for the future of bitcoin and his predictions came true most of them, but what excited me what could replace bitcoin and be better than it? I don't think it is Ethereum or any other cryptocurrency. This must be a new discovery of a different kind that overcomes all the problems that the Bitcoin network suffers from, especially, I don't know what it is, but the problems in the Bitcoin network such as the increase in block volume as a result of high transaction volume, delayed transactions and high fees Someone might be pushed to do something different, no one knows it's a prophecy for the future.

[buwaytress]

The send-to-email thing was really active in around that same year though? I remember people sending me Coinbase invite back when you didn't need to be a US citizen to sign up and it was through email. You'd just get a message saying hey you have $10 in BTC, and you already have a wallet, just use your email and create a password!

That didn't entice me then, 3 years later I opened my first wallet, and had been told by then all those email wallets aren't secure (rightly so).

I'm not saying that's good, by the way, I still feel using Bitcoin without the likes of Coinbase could be much, much easier. Actually, maybe it already is and I'm not aware?

[libert19]

The send-to-email thing was really active in around that same year though? I remember people sending me Coinbase invite back when you didn't need to be a US citizen to sign up and it was through email. You'd just get a message saying hey you have $10 in BTC, and you already have a wallet, just use your email and create a password!

It's more like refer and earn, you click on link > enter details > create account > get referral bonus credited. it isn't creating/sending transaction.

[theymos]

It's an interesting look back, though my predictions don't strike me as especially prescient or anything.

IMO it seems less likely now that Bitcoin will be replaced as a base-money/digital-gold asset. Bitcoin's network-effect and reputational advantage is too strong at this point. Any replacement would have to have overwhelming advantages over Bitcoin, with Bitcoin failing to compete against these advantages for years. I don't see ETH as a likely competitor in the base-money niche, though there is clearly intense demand for easy-to-use smart contract capability, so until BTC smart-contract tech advances to compete with that, ETH will have a place. It's definitely possible for off-chain BTC smart contracts to work just as well or better than ETH's smart contracts, but the development of this has been slow. And CBDCs are in a completely different niche, and don't compete against Bitcoin.

I've never been opposed to hardforks if they are uncontroversial and are phased in very slowly, though I underestimated how much could be done with softforks. There probably will be a hardfork someday, though probably not soon.
On the email-address thing, IIRC I was specifically thinking of a hub-and-spoke payments system where everyone would have a Bitcoin wallet provider of their choice (possibly self-hosted), similar to how everyone has an email provider like gmail and it's also possible to run your own email server on your own domain. You'd trust a small amount of your total BTC with your wallet provider, and small everyday transactions would be done in a process like this:
 1. You tell your wallet provider to send to client@wallet.com.
 2. If your wallet provider is wallet.com, then they just do an internal debit/credit, with no on-chain transaction.
 3. If your wallet provider has a payment channel open with wallet.com, then they debit your account, adjust the payment channel to move the BTC to wallet.com without an on-chain transaction, and wallet.com credits their client account.
 4. If there is no existing payment channel, then a payment channel is opened, requiring some on-chain transactions. This would require an automated negotiation about how large the channel should be and how the fees should be split between the wallet providers, though these fees would presumably be just a small cost of doing business for the wallet providers rather than a per-transaction fee for the end-users.

The idea was that you'd still send large transactions on-chain, similar to wire transfers vs ACH transfers. This would only be for small everyday transactions.

This is somewhat similar to LN, but LN improved upon it in almost every way.

[dezoel]

Honestly? I have been here since around that time, and I was thinking the same thing as well. It wasn't a marvelous revelation to say those things back in the day, why? Because people who got into crypto in 2017 bull period, or during 2021 bull period, they think of bitcoin as a thing that could make them rich.

But, people like me who have been here for 7-8 or more years, they know what bitcoins purpose was and why we liked it. This is why I agree that there is a bit of a problem with how people approach it these days. To us, the early birds, bitcoin has always been a thing that would improve, but would be at the top until there is something that gets into the market, and so far nothing did.

[hatshepsut93]

Bitcoin may be replaced by something better in 10 years, though I think that it's more likely that Bitcoin will survive and be very popular.

Is Bitcoin "very" popular right now? That really depends on what you count as "very". I'm inclined to say no, there isn't even a 100 million users, and most users are just people who hold Bitcoin to sell it at higher price, instead of using it as a currency regularly.

The protocol and network will look a lot different. There will have been at least one major hardfork that changes quite a bit of the protocol.

There hasn't been any hard forks from Core devs, and fundamentally Bitcoin still has the same architecture as it did when Satoshi released it

A lot of transactions will probably occur through a payment system on top of Bitcoin because Bitcoin transactions will be somewhat more expensive than they are today.


Maybe Bitcoin transactions will work more like email and you'll send transactions to an address like theymos@fast-bitcoin.com

It's remarkable that theymos predicted the scalability problem so early, but it seems like the Layer 2 that he envisioned was more like a centralized system similar to PayPal, rather than an elegant solution like LN

[bittraffic]

Its hard to see Bitcoin going to be replaced when its all that we know that is really decentralized.  ETH may not flipped BTC, it will however be more popular because of the celebrities using NFTS. But who knows 20 years isn't yet over and ETH is really making a lot of development on top of it.

It will probably not be base on price but on the dominance of ETH or if its CBDC then maybe since it will be easier for regular people to get government backed digital currency.

[Jemzx00]

Its hard to see Bitcoin going to be replaced when its all that we know that is really decentralized.  ETH may not flipped BTC, it will however be more popular because of the celebrities using NFTS. But who knows 20 years isn't yet over and ETH is really making a lot of development on top of it.

It will probably not be base on price but on the dominance of ETH or if its CBDC then maybe since it will be easier for regular people to get government backed digital currency.

Bitcoin being one of most widely known when we talk about cryptocurrencies, it will be very hard to see it being overtaken by other crypto. But, still the fact that Ethereum various developments and applications such as NFTs, Games and other activities being held on ETH network. It might probably overthrow bitcoin being number one.