Stop adding features to Bitcoin that don't facilitate its use as electronic cash

[Cookdata]

Bitcoin was designed to be "electronic cash".  Nothing should be changed in core that does not support this mission.

The title of the Bitcoin white paper - "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".

You should know that Bitcoin is an open source project which means it's open to everyone and of course development is a must and if the community agree to something for the better of the protocol, it will be reviewed as "Bitcoin improvement proposal" and and agreed date which modification will be added through soft work which means that even though you don't update your client to the latest protocol, you can still use the network efficiently.

You should also know that the phrase electronic cash is not what Bitcoin is today, it has expanded above that level, lightening network has been developed as a base layer through the native chain and everything is working perfectly, the existence of the other chain doesn't affect the main chain. There have been some NFTs on the Bitcoin which doesn't in any way affect the Bitcoin protocol but it's even favoring the miners who collect he fees to provide maximum security for the Bitcoin chain, everything you see accepted into Bitcoin doesn't in any way affect the originality of Bitcoin.

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[franky1]

Bitcoin was designed to be "electronic cash".  Nothing should be changed in core that does not support this mission.

The title of the Bitcoin white paper - "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".

You should know that Bitcoin is an open source project which means it's open to everyone and of course development is a must and if the community agree to something for the better of the protocol, it will be reviewed as "Bitcoin improvement proposal" and and agreed date which modification will be added through soft work which means that even though you don't update your client to the latest protocol, you can still use the network efficiently.

bitcoin used to be secure.. where by anyone could propose something, but it only activates if majority update their node to be ready to fully validate the new ruleset/feature.. this is called good security.. and  was the entire point of full nodes and a decentralised network

however now hardly anyone can openly/freely make a BIP due to CORES control of the BIP list and their moderation policy of the tiered system of even discussing proposals before they can even be listed in cores BIP list
and then we have core that slip in nw features without needing community agreement because.. as you say and admit.. it does not require users to upgrade to agree to the new feature

[Assface16678]

Well it can't be helped people are becoming more advanced and doing innovative things and bitcoin is not an exception, at first yes the purpose of bitcoin is for digital currency but later on people see bitcoin as more than that, they implemented bitcoin in so many different ways and use its technology which is blockchain, right now we can see how we can earn or mine bitcoin or any other crypto currency in different ways, for example in NFT or crypto games, we have so many crypto currency that can be mined using a game or either a project and bitcoin is also can be used in that, we can't avoid people innovating more ways to use bitcoij we just need to accept it, because if not then bitcoin should not be able to reach its current state, and I think its more practical that bitcoin has been created in order for more advancement innovations.

[we-btc]

Well it can't be helped people are becoming more advanced and doing innovative things and bitcoin is not an exception, at first yes the purpose of bitcoin is for digital currency but later on people see bitcoin as more than that, they implemented bitcoin in so many different ways and use its technology which is blockchain, right now we can see how we can earn or mine bitcoin or any other crypto currency in different ways, for example in NFT or crypto games, we have so many crypto currency that can be mined using a game or either a project and bitcoin is also can be used in that, we can't avoid people innovating more ways to use bitcoij we just need to accept it, because if not then bitcoin should not be able to reach its current state, and I think its more practical that bitcoin has been created in order for more advancement innovations.

Innovation is great if the innovation advances the purpose of Bitcoin which is to be “electronic cash”.  Fungible and non-fungible tokens are not new innovation. We all know that they are available on other centralized networks.

There is a lot of work to be done supporting Bitcoin as a decentralized, trustless cash system. lets get on with the work of freeing ourselves from financial servitude.

[legiteum]

Innovation is great if the innovation advances the purpose of Bitcoin which is to be “electronic cash”.  Fungible and non-fungible tokens are not new innovation. We all know that they are available on other centralized networks.

There is a lot of work to be done supporting Bitcoin as a decentralized, trustless cash system. lets get on with the work of freeing ourselves from financial servitude.

Just out of curiosity, in what way can you imagine Bitcoin being improved?

What is wrong with the way Bitcoin is now that you'd want to be different?

[Apocollapse]

Innovation is great if the innovation advances the purpose of Bitcoin which is to be “electronic cash”.  Fungible and non-fungible tokens are not new innovation. We all know that they are available on other centralized networks.

There is a lot of work to be done supporting Bitcoin as a decentralized, trustless cash system. lets get on with the work of freeing ourselves from financial servitude.

1. Make sure you become US president.
2. Make an announcement that you will replace USD with Bitcoin.
3. Tell Gary Gensler to shutdown every centralized exchanges and services, force people to use Bitcoin in layer 2 and sidechain, decentralized exchange and non custodial wallet.

I'm sure Bitcoin will be fully decentralized and trustless cash system, the question is when you will kick Biden.

[Z390]

What are those features?

Ordinals, Runes and anything that is decreasing the efficiency of the network while increasing fees. The purpose of the network is to provide a "peer-to-peer electronic cash" system.  Anything that is not directly related to this mission should not be in the code.

I understand you mate, and so are many other members on this forum, many people don't like the existence of Ordinals and runes, but there is nothing we can do to stop this, and if we look at this from a different angle, you will see that this stupid idea is benefiting some people.

How? I know people who are so into Bitcoin because of the ordinals, they are NFT fans back in the days, and they choose to stay away from Bitcoin because they thought it's too high in value, they want with NFT from other ALTs, fast forward to today, they are into ordinals and now they have some BTC too.
Also since the existence of ordinals is giving BTC miners more gains, this just makes Bitcoin mining even better, even when the halving is complete and the reward slashed into two, with the existence of ordinals BTC mining can be more profitable than it used to be when ordinals were never here.

[we-btc]

Just out of curiosity, in what way can you imagine Bitcoin being improved?

What is wrong with the way Bitcoin is now that you'd want to be different?

In order for Bitcoin to be an electronic cash system it needs to be fast and the fees need to be low enough that it won't be cost prohibitive for smaller transactions.

We need to remove the incentives to pay higher fees. By adding fungible and non-fungible tokens to the network people are willing to pay more in fees then makes sense for a normal purchase where credit card fees are around 2.5%. The fees would regulate themselves properly if Bitcoin was used as a cash system.

We also will need to solve the speed problem as well.  A person needs to be able to commit the funds quickly so that merchants and people receiving funds can be guaranteed that the funds are committed and they can provide the product or service in a timely manner.

If we solve these two problems Bitcoin becomes a real option for decentralized, peer-to-peer transactions.

[DooMAD]

We also will need to solve the speed problem as well.  A person needs to be able to commit the funds quickly so that merchants and people receiving funds can be guaranteed that the funds are committed and they can provide the product or service in a timely manner.

Two things: 

First, many of the fiat methods of payment currently used in the world daily are not guaranteed as settled anywhere near as quickly as people tend to assume.  Three-to-five working days for a payment to clear is a common timeframe in banking.  BTC is already faster than that.  And card payments can still be reversed via "chargeback" after they're supposedly settled.  Good luck doing that in Bitcoin.

Second, in terms of the base layer, it's not as easy as you make it sound.  There's a cause and effect thing at play.  Compromise and consequence.  If there were any low-hanging fruit here, someone would have picked it by now.  You don't just get something for nothing.  "Faster" has a cost.  But few seem to understand what that cost is or why they're inadvertently asking someone else to pay that cost without even realising.

[franky1]

the economical, practical, useful, logical, common sense approach is this:

unlike the cultish games and shoddy subnetworks of today. the future could see the likes of walmart/starbucks setting up THEIR OWN subnetworks(plural) where people onchain lock up monthly value into their favoured retailers multisig to then purchase goods with IOU units on the subnetworks and settle up each month by closing the sessions. and re establishing new sessions in the same process

much like buying giftcards today in the real world with fiat

but whether we patiently allow cultish idiots to remain in their delay scandals of utopian dreams that never manifest, or the practical future of niche subnetworks for retail needs. the bitcoin network still needs to scale.. and no i am not saying LEAP!!(before the cult idiots pretend thats what scaling is)

scaling means:
1. hardening the rules again to remove the cludge. so that every byte counts and gets validated to meet the rules of actual bitcoin purpose
2. by doing (1) less bloat would occur to allow more transactions within the current allowed blockspace
3. make bloat cost more(a fee multiplier specifically for bloat(witness/metadata)) rather then punishing everyone else while giving bloaters the lower fee
4. where by transactions that want to respend EVERYBLOCK(spammers) also get penalised, rather than everyone else
    and no i dont mean just a huge fee of 1 confirm spends. i mean a scale thats huge for 1confirm respends, decreases per confirm unspent
5. doing (3) and (4) will also help reduce the spam/bloat to then allow more transactions for genuine bitcoiner economic use
6. yes increase the blocksize, but do so based on the DATA congestion of blocks(like how difficulty adjusts) not some central core groups politics
    eg when blocks are full over ##% period(52.5k, 105k 210k blocks) of a halving cycle increase blocksize
7. by doing (1) especially but also some other tweaks, to make transactions leaner so more transactions can fit
8. by doing (1) especially but also some other tweaks, allot the main body of a tx(the actual value transfer) utilise the ful "weight" space, instead of segregated to a 25% portion, thus allowing more transactions per block

emphasis: none of these idea's are blockchain killers nor going to cause centralisation nor going to cause any other stupid excuse cultish groups come up with

i guarantee i will see them spin up old narratives that they fear costs of $50 hard drives for 20 years of tx data..  but be ok with $50 for a single transaction.. so lets get that joke over and done with before they make us laugh, and before we make them cry

i guarantee i will see them spin up old narratives that they fear [insert stupidity] so get the popcorn and lets see them make us laugh with their lame excuses why bitcoin should not scale and we should instead abandon bitcoin for their single subnetwork of their favouring (of shoddy workmanship that has more exploits, bugs and broken promises that are NOT solutions)

[we-btc]

Two things:  
First, many of the fiat methods of payment currently used in the world daily are not guaranteed as settled anywhere near as quickly as people tend to assume.  Three-to-five working days for a payment to clear is a common timeframe in banking.  BTC is already faster than that.  And card payments can still be reversed via "chargeback" after they're supposedly settled.  Good luck doing that in Bitcoin.

I completely agree with your point.  Bitcoin is faster.  The issue is that RBF allows senders to reverse the transaction before it settles(is added to a block).  If we can fix this so that it is not so easy to RBF then Bitcoin is faster.

Second, in terms of the base layer, it's not as easy as you make it sound.  There's a cause and effect thing at play.  Compromise and consequence.  If there were any low-hanging fruit here, someone would have picked it by now.  You don't just get something for nothing.  "Faster" has a cost.  But few seem to understand what that cost is or why they're inadvertently asking someone else to pay that cost without even realising.

I also agree with this point.  There are tradeoffs but the low hanging fruit here is don't allow extra bloat into the transactions like fungible and non-fungible ordinals.  This is slowing the transactions down and making them more expensive.  It is like the developers don't want it used as a "form of electronic cash".  Then lets see how efficient we can make the blocks. Since the block size was increased to 4MB we could eliminate ordinals and use the full 4MB to store transactions quadrupling the capacity and speed of the network. I am sure these numbers are not accurate but you get the idea.

We can do this if we keep our eye on the ball - Bitcoin is a currency that can change the world as we know it by providing individual sovereignty and financial freedom.  Lets focus on that!!!  

[Troytech]

What are those features?

I think some guys just got into bitcoin not long ago and end up reading one stupid random article and decided to make a topic, I don't see any feature that contradicts the main purpose of what they originally designed bitcoin to be like, maybe your referring to crypto in general thinking its bitcoin, now clear facts bitcoin is crypto but crypto isn't bitcoin, next time be specific.

[legiteum]

Just out of curiosity, in what way can you imagine Bitcoin being improved?

What is wrong with the way Bitcoin is now that you'd want to be different?

In order for Bitcoin to be an electronic cash system it needs to be fast and the fees need to be low enough that it won't be cost prohibitive for smaller transactions.

We need to remove the incentives to pay higher fees. By adding fungible and non-fungible tokens to the network people are willing to pay more in fees then makes sense for a normal purchase where credit card fees are around 2.5%. The fees would regulate themselves properly if Bitcoin was used as a cash system.

We also will need to solve the speed problem as well.  A person needs to be able to commit the funds quickly so that merchants and people receiving funds can be guaranteed that the funds are committed and they can provide the product or service in a timely manner.

If we solve these two problems Bitcoin becomes a real option for decentralized, peer-to-peer transactions.

Okay, so you want Bitcoin to be fast (low transactions latency), and have low transaction fees. Great.

I completely agree that these are barriers to Bitcoin (and decentralized cryptos generally) to be accepted as a means mainstream means of daily transactions.

In fact, I suspect people here in Bitcointalk are probably getting sick of hearing me say this.

Now let's talk about how this will never happen using the blockchain architecture.

The blockchain architecture--implemented as it was designed to be used, e.g. as a massively decentralized architecture--is directly at odds with both cost and latency. Indeed, you could say that Satoshi intentionally designed Bitcoin to be slow and expensive in order to make the decentralized paradigm work.

Insofar as cryptocurrencies have decreased their cost and latency, they have sacrificed decentralization. This is a trade-off that is based on the universal constant of the speed of light.

It will not be solved by optimizing some code.

It will not be solved by making a few changes to the usage paradigm (unless you sacrifice decentralization).

And while I am an experience software architect and I could have told you this shortly after reading the Bitcoin white paper for the first time, even if you aren't a technical person, you'd have to conclude that after 14 years of trying with no solution, the problem is never, ever, EVER going to be solved.

And no, increasing the block size isn't going to help. A mainstream currency would need to the tens of thousand of times faster, it would need to be hundreds of times cheaper, and it would need to handle tens of billions of transactions per day which is absolutely unthinkable with a public ledger.

Repeat after me:

Bitcoin was not designed to be a mainstream currency.

Bitcoin was not designed to be a mainstream currency.

Bitcoin was not designed to be a mainstream currency.

It just. plain. wasn't.

This was never Satoshi's goal. If it was his goal, he would have designed Bitcoin differently (e.g. not blockchain, not decentralized [e.g. he would have created something like Haypenny]).

Be content that Bitcoin does what it was designed to do (well, sorta does): it allows transactions that evade government subpoenas. Thousands of people all over the world need this.

And Bitcoin also does something it was never intended to do, but has become very popular: it works fine as a speculation instrument. Millions of people like this.

Having Bitcoin do any more than that will require that Bitcoin isn't Bitcoin anymore.

[franky1]

The blockchain architecture--implemented as it was designed to be used, e.g. as a massively decentralized architecture--is directly at odds with both cost and latency. Indeed, you could say that Satoshi intentionally designed Bitcoin to be slow and expensive in order to make the decentralized paradigm work.

Insofar as cryptocurrencies have decreased their cost and latency, they have sacrificed decentralization. This is a trade-off that is based on the universal constant of the speed of light.

It will not be solved by making a few changes to the usage paradigm (unless you sacrifice decentralization).

satoshi did not make it slow and expensive.. bitcoin settlements of ~10minutes was faster then visa/debit/wire transfer irreversible settlements
satoshi never made it expensive. a cpu in his day only cost pennies per 10 minutes.. the issue is the transactions per 10 minutes has not scaled with the mining cost.. and thats a fault of CORE stagnation

you speak of costs like a $50 hard drive for 20 years of data is detriment to decentralisation.. yet think a $40 for single transaction is not an issue.. yep its official you fell into the echo-chamber mind trap of the cult of idiots.. escape before its too late

It will not be solved by optimizing some code.

It will not be solved by making a few changes to the usage paradigm (unless you sacrifice decentralization).

And while I am an experience software architect and I could have told you this shortly after reading the Bitcoin white paper for the first time, even if you aren't a technical person, you'd have to conclude that after 14 years of trying with no solution, the problem is never, ever, EVER going to be solved.

And no, increasing the block size isn't going to help. A mainstream currency would need to the tens of thousand of times faster, it would need to be hundreds of times cheaper, and it would need to handle tens of billions of transactions per day which is absolutely unthinkable with a public ledger.

you have fallen into the mind-trap of the echo chamber cult telling you bitcoin should not be a currency at all due to a stupidity narrative that bitcoin will only be a currency if its the "one world" currency all 8 billion people use collectively for everything

..
you do know there are 180 fiat currencies in the world right!
we should not think of bitcoin to need to encapsulate every transactions of all 190 countries of 180 currencies every payment. but instead be more able to atleast enhance peoples choice to use bitcoin when needed as a currency side by side with tradfi fiat currencies

once you can understand that, then we can stop the monotony of stupidity of refraining from scaling bitcoin at all due to stupid diatribes that the only option for scaling is the stupid notion of LEAPING to (as even you are saying) "tens of thousands/billions of" (facepalm)

with only 8 billion people on planet.. your naive trap mind of echoed narrative you fell in, is using the nonsense fallacy that all 8 billion need to do all their multiple transactions of real life on bitcoin and only on bitcoin. in a dystopian world of a "one world currency"

and that is your foolish argument which you have heard from idiots as your only reason to not even attempt to scale bitcoin..
.. i know its not your opinion, just a silly narrative you heard from idiots. but by you now saying it now makes you look like an idiot
.. escape the idiot cult narrative, before you are too trapped in their mind games.. they wont help you later
also bitcoin IS CODE. so you fix bitcoins exploits and upgrade bitcoin, and evolve bitcoin using code.. because bitcoin is code
its not a mineral, its not paper, its not got any arms or legs so doesnt need blood transfusions or organ donations.. bitcoin needs to refine its code and undo some exploits, harden some rules, make every byte count and SCALE(not leap) its growth of transaction handling

the issue with bitcoin code is not technical, its become political. code needs devs, but bitcoin devs have colluded and centralised themselves into one brand to become political government of bitcoins rules and future direction. and right now their decisions are not helping bitcoiners utility, because their political and religious beliefs of their power have decided to want people to abandon bitcoin for other subnetworks they have been sponsored to create and offer to people.. emphasis on the sponsorship, control, decision
bitcoin was designed to solve the byzantine generals issue... to be a system to not require a major general controling it (no-COREporal major(general) in command) yet core have messed with it and positioned themselves to be the major general in command.. and thats where decentralisation has failed and also needs to be fixed.

[DooMAD]

And while I am an experience software architect and I could have told you this shortly after reading the Bitcoin white paper for the first time, even if you aren't a technical person, you'd have to conclude that after 14 years of trying with no solution, the problem is never, ever, EVER going to be solved.

It stands to reason why someone offering... whatever service it is you're peddling... might claim such a thing, so I'm not going to roll my eyes too hard.

Beyond that, you're implying you somehow see the situation more clearly than every other person still believing they can solve that problem and are currently working on it (many of whom are just as qualified as you).  I'm sure you can see how that might come across a little arrogant.

It's an incremental process.  Every release effectively contains new building blocks that move us closer to the next step.  A load of people are obviously now complaining that someone found a way of using one of those building blocks in a manner that wasn't intended, to create a load of bloated crap on the chain, which is unfortunate.  But the fact remains, there was a goal in mind when that ingredient was added to the mix and there is still potential to be extracted from what it offers.

If you can't personally see the big picture, and people can tell that you can't, then those people aren't going to take you seriously when you declare it a failure.

[pinggoki]

Even though we don't agree with Ordinals and all kinds of things in the Blockchain, we have to accept it, because the freedom that bitcoin creates also brings things that we don't like very much... So time and the market itself to say what will survive or not... And not there is nothing we can do but let time tell who is right.

Being free doesn't that we just stand there and let them what they want, that's not being free, that's being a passive person. That's not how you do things when you want to defend your freedom, when there's enough people that have agreed that something isn't right then it's a right that we all bear to correct that error so we can continue having that freedom. As much it's their right to add some of those stupid stuff that's congesting the network then it's also our right to be vocal about how crazy that thing is and that it shouldn't even be part of this network. We can't always be letting things just pass by, some people might be okay with being a human doormat but there's more that aren't okay with that kind of set up.

[Plaguedeath]

Being free doesn't that we just stand there and let them what they want, that's not being free, that's being a passive person. That's not how you do things when you want to defend your freedom, when there's enough people that have agreed that something isn't right then it's a right that we all bear to correct that error so we can continue having that freedom. As much it's their right to add some of those stupid stuff that's congesting the network then it's also our right to be vocal about how crazy that thing is and that it shouldn't even be part of this network. We can't always be letting things just pass by, some people might be okay with being a human doormat but there's more that aren't okay with that kind of set up.

Define freedom.

If you censor ordinals inscriptions, how it can be a freedom? you're trying to make it more centralized because you don't like that transactions. When wasabi is blacklisting certain transactions or Ocean mining pool is blacklisting whirlpool transactions, many people will scream both Wasabi and Ocean Mining Pool are against Bitcoin because they don't support privacy.

So why we have double standard? allow one and don't accept the another.

Freedom is either not to do anything or freedom for each service to choose whatever they like, but a complete freedom is not to do anything.

[AVE5]

Oh yes, bitcoin is a designatory of electronic digital cash system primarily for exchange on a P2P module but with the volatility potentials of the digital currency, it also serves alternatively for inflows of income known for investment.
On the view outage that every nature of investments is due faced with UPs and DOWNs, such is how the volatility nature of bitcoin has also responded with the nature of its volatility where the currency is potential to yield value increments and decrements.
So in as much as it posseses these potentials then it's figured to be nothing else but a digital currency for alternative means of payments in replacement of the traditional currencies and also alternates for source of income.

Bitcoin doesn't gain its grounds by hyping and nothing would change the system on how it's initially designed.
So Op, I don't know the side rumours you've heard about how bitcoin has been falsefully been speculated or hyped that got you had the thought for this thread.

[adpinbr]

Yes, Bitcoin is a master key of electronic Cash that you cannot see physical, Bitcoin is in charge of anything electronic money, so therefore it can never be compared with others,  it just have to be more easy for people to access, but let it be very difficult for someone to steal money from you via bitcoin, but let it be easy, the future that is not necessary on bitcoin wallet should be removed and it should be perfectly arranged, The more easy bitcoin is the easier it get to people.

[legiteum]

It's an incremental process.  Every release effectively contains new building blocks that move us closer to the next step.  A load of people are obviously now complaining that someone found a way of using one of those building blocks in a manner that wasn't intended, to create a load of bloated crap on the chain, which is unfortunate.  But the fact remains, there was a goal in mind when that ingredient was added to the mix and there is still potential to be extracted from what it offers.

If you can't personally see the big picture, and people can tell that you can't, then those people aren't going to take you seriously when you declare it a failure.

I never declared Bitcoin a failure. Not even close. Bitcoin has accomplished what it set out to accomplish. And beyond that, it accomplished something else. That is in no way calling it a "failure".

If I say that it's architecturally impossible that Lionel Messi will ever become a top NBA basketball player, I am not calling him a "failure".