About the myths that Bitcoin is slowier and ASICs are evil

[porcupine87]

hello,

I often read things like "You can't mine Bitcoin easily, so other coins will be more valuable in the future" or "Bitcoin is to slow to get adopted" I want to present my views to that topic.

Speed: no altcoin can beat Bitcoin because it has the most nodes. Confirmation time doesn't really matter. Some argue that you don't wait 10min on the point of sale. Sure, but do you wait 2.5min? 1min? 30sec?
- zero confirmation transactions are highly secure if the recipient is well connected to honest nodes. Honest nodes can be easily identified (i.e. nodes that make more than x blocks for a given time on average).
- you can use trusted third parties like coinbase for transactions. If coinbase says to McDonalds that they got the 5$ McD can be sure. Third party apps might even be the better option and faster than a bitcoin node on a smartphone

There are attacks possible but they are highly expansive and for low volume transactions not profitable. But what is with high volume transactions. For example if you buy a car or a house?
-> How do you buy a car today? Do you go to the car seller with a suitcase with 50 000$ in it? Do you wait 1-2 days at the car seller because the bank wire transaction takes so long? No! You make a fucking contract with personal data and your ID card! Same with Bitcoin. And if you want to buy anything with a large amount anonymously than you just have to wait 20-30min. And even the newbies should now that security is not about confirmations, it is about time! 4 LTC confirmations are not that secure than 1 bitcoin confirmation.


Because Bitcoin might only establish as a internet money 10min transaction time doesn't matter anyway. 

Mining:
What gives a good value? That you can easily mine it? That everyone can mine it? So then dirt has to have much more value than gold. Because dirt can be mined by everyone and it is very easy to mine for everyone. You can mine gold? There you need highly specialized equipment which the averge Joe can't affort. The value of a coin is not derived from how easily you can build it. It's all about the use. Speed is one factor. Low cost is another factor. Security is another one. And security don't gets determined by hashrate or the equipment you use. It's all about the money or time you need to disturb the network. 
If a coin is just CPU an attacker has the chance to use botnets. If it is CPU, what normal PC has a chance to mine for example Litecoin? I make 0.003LTC per day, this is about $0.03. Even in low energy cost countries this is not practicable (I need about 80watt for my 20kH/s). Even with 1 or 2$ profit, I would not run my laptop full power 24/7.
So, but what about the centralisation though ASICs? We cannot know that. Why should less people buy ASICs than a GPU mining rig? In my eyes ASICs have a few advantages:
1. Low electricity cost countries have much less advantage. I had an GPU rig and in Germany the electricty cost was half of the earned coins. In the US this should only be 15-20%. With ASICs the electricty costs are much less relevant.
2. More stable hash rate. Because there is no other use than mining and the electricity costs are much less relevant you would still mine, even if the price drops.
3. No vulnerability through botnets. Trojaners cannot just hope to infect random computer which are running coinsidently ASIC miners.

Other advantages:
Development:
Bitcoin has a active development team behind it. Except of conceptual improvements like proof of stake, the distrubition model and so on, all the upgrades comes from the Bitcoin team. All altcoins have to have a dev team that implements that new features (if they are useful).

Ease of using it:
Bitcoin has many wallet and service providers for PC and phone.

Brand:
People know Bitcoin and accepting it.



-> These are all advantages an altcoin can not simple copy. You can copy the source code, maybe make some conceptual improvements like different proof of work, or prrof of stake, different distribution, different confirmation time and so on. But you can't simple copy this showed characteristics. Further more, Bitcoin is capable to add new feature of altcoins. For example, if people like the darksend feature of Darkcoin, Bitcoin can add this feature and there would be no reason to use Darkcoin anymore(But there has to be a consensus that this new feature is useful to avoid a hard fork).
And therefore it is really unrealistic that an altcoin will surpass Bitcoin in the future which has not some advantages Bitcoin cannot adopt.

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[kelsey]

Thanks Einstein 

Well its obvious Bitcoin could add anything of value that's tested in the alt community, that's the great thing about alts, a live testing environment for things that could be implemented into btc or testing what to do in future btc scenarios.

Having said that and been around btc awhile and used it regularly bitcoin is shite. Completely off track of its own purpose as per initial white paper. Not user friendly at all, slow, bulky and unstable clients on many OS.

Bitcoin team has lost its balls so to speak, more worried about regulations and not damaging btc price in USD, then the true value of the concept.


I've said it once I'll say it 1 thousand times, the only good/useful thing to come out of cryptocurrencies to this point is the idea.

[marine4u]

Thanks Einstein 

Well its obvious Bitcoin could add anything of value that's tested in the alt community, that's the great thing about alts, a live testing environment for things that could be implemented into btc or testing what to do in future btc scenarios.

Having said that and been around btc awhile and used it regularly bitcoin is shite. Completely off track of its own purpose as per initial white paper. Not user friendly at all, slow, bulky and unstable clients on many OS.

Bitcoin team has lost its balls so to speak, more worried about regulations and not damaging btc price in USD, then the true value of the concept.


I've said it once I'll say it 1 thousand times, the only good/useful thing to come out of cryptocurrencies to this point is the idea.

+1

[Thread7]

Good points.  I can't argue with any of them.  I do think the crazy arms race for mining needs to stop at some point.  Maybe a POS coin could make some gains on bitcoin.

[Snail2]

Kelsey is right, the BTC devs won't add anything what would hurt their relationship with the US regulators.

[porcupine87]

Thanks Einstein 

hm do you think I wanted to address people who know that? I my opinion many people don't know. Especially in this sub forum.

Having said that and been around btc awhile and used it regularly bitcoin is shite. Completely off track of its own purpose as per initial white paper. Not user friendly at all, slow, bulky and unstable clients on many OS.

What do you mean? What client do you consider user unfriendly and how could it be made more user friendly?

Bitcoin team has lost its balls so to speak, more worried about regulations and not damaging btc price in USD, then the true value of the concept.

From the eye of an idealist you are right. Fuck the state! From the eye of a consumer I rather like an regulated but adopted Bitcoin than a black market only currency. But you can fork any time you want

[johnmatrix]

Bitcoin will reign for at least some years more, and the confirmation speed doesnt matter, zero confirmation transactions are secure also bitcoin is more used as a store of value not to purchase a soda.

[kelsey]

But you can fork any time you want

yet isn't that what you were coming in here bitchin about