The only reason Bitcoin is more valuable then other altcoins

[BurtW]

A few people have responded more or less "the bitcoin core is fine" implying that concerns such as increasing decentralization, TPS limitations, and blockchain size are nothing to worry about.

I'm sorry those three are all really significant.  Worse, they have been understood for sometime and yet there does not appear to be a consensus on how or when they will be addressed.  Show me the core development road map that lays out in broad strokes the next 12 months...

You mean increased centralization, right?  Do you mean large mining pools?  If the miners care they can move to other pools and spread out the hashing power, but, obviously they don't seem to care.

TPS, need larger block sizes, would require a fork to go past the current limit, but we are not using the current max block size so this is not an issue yet.

blockchain size, checkpointing and pruning, but what is the current size?  How much does a 5 TB drive cost now?  Not a problem yet.

Core development is not happening.  Bitcoin has some amount of critical mass but if they don't shore up the foundation(pun intended) this momentum will be lost.

It is open source so you/anyone who thinks things are moving too slowly can pitch in any time and help out.

[labsbitforum]

You mean increased centralization, right?  Do you mean large mining pools?  If the miners care they can move to other pools and spread out the hashing power, but, obviously they don't seem to care.

TPS, need larger block sizes, would require a fork to go past the current limit, but we are not using the current max block size so this is not an issue yet.

blockchain size, checkpointing and pruning, but what is the current size?  How much does a 5 TB drive cost now?  Not a problem yet.

Core development is not happening.  Bitcoin has some amount of critical mass but if they don't shore up the foundation(pun intended) this momentum will be lost.

It is open source so you/anyone who thinks things are moving too slowly can pitch in any time and help out.

I did mean increased centralization...  I initially got involved with bitcoin as a miner.  I loved the idea of a non-governmental peer to peer digital currency.  I had the technical background to be comfortable building GPU rigs.  At that time things were decentralized and bitcoin was more like a movement.  Something to shake up the status quo as it relates to money transfer fees, banking, and governmental control of the money supply.  Most mining was done by individuals and it was a peer to peer system.  As things have evolved off of the personal computer and on to specialized ASIC devices it has become increasingly centralized with a few large players and consolidation is likely to continue.  This centralization will lead to more and more control by a few large players.  Not at all what was intended.  Why is that not being address? 

I'm sure you know the block chain is currently about 20GB doubling every 8 months at present but will accelerate if their is more adoption.
http://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

[BurtW]

I did mean increased centralization...  I initially got involved with bitcoin as a miner.  I loved the idea of a non-governmental peer to peer digital currency.  I had the technical background to be comfortable building GPU rigs.  At that time things were decentralized and bitcoin was more like a movement.  Something to shake up the status quo as it relates to money transfer fees, banking, and governmental control of the money supply.  Most mining was done by individuals and it was a peer to peer system.  As things have evolved off of the personal computer and on to specialized ASIC devices it has become increasingly centralized with a few large players and consolidation is likely to continue.  This centralization will lead to more and more control by a few large players.  Not at all what was intended.  Why is that not being address?  

I understand your concern but I would almost bet there are more miners now than a few years ago.  Sure there are some big players but the overall number of miners has increased due to the availability of cheap ASIC miners.

I'm sure you know the block chain is currently about 20GB doubling every 8 months at present but will accelerate if their is more adoption.
http://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

Yes, that is my point exactly.  It is only 20GB and will only be 40GB in the next 8 months.  Even 100GB is basically noise and nothing to worry about.  I am currently working on the development of very inexpensive multiple TB drives so, being in the disk drive industry and seeing the roadmaps, I don't see the concern here.

[NapoleonBonaparte]

PoS has been proven to be quite secure by now. The only reason Bitcoin doesn't change, is because miners would not agree since it would make their hundred of millions of dollars worth of equipment obsolete.

Doesn't PoS just make the rich richer?

It make insider and early investor richer. PoS coin also subjected to central authority which can force transaction to reverse.

[labsbitforum]

I understand your concern but I would almost bet there are more miners now than a few years ago.  Sure there are some big players but the overall number of miners has increased due to the availability of cheap ASIC miners.

I don't think you have a good handle on the current state of mining.  Mining is no longer profitable for an average user.  Has not been for at least half a year and unlikely that any company that makes profitable mining equipment will sell those devices to people for less than what they could make mining with them themselves.

Spend some time in this area of the forum and update your understating of mining profitability and decentralization.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=81.0

[BurtW]

I understand your concern but I would almost bet there are more miners now than a few years ago.  Sure there are some big players but the overall number of miners has increased due to the availability of cheap ASIC miners.

I don't think you have a good handle on the current state of mining.  Mining is no longer profitable for an average user.  Has not been for at least half a year and unlikely that any company that makes profitable mining equipment will sell those devices to people for less than what they could make mining with them themselves.

Spend some time in this area of the forum and update your understating of mining profitability and decentralization.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=81.0

I understand mining enough to know that it is a good way to lose a lot of money.  I also understand that in the years I have been here it has always been more profitable to just buy the BTC than to mine it.  That did not stop me from mining in the GPU era and paying for my equipment plus a little bit - but I still lost relative to just buying the BTC and holding them for the same time period.

I never said it was profitable. I said there are more people mining now than a few years ago.  I don't see a way to force it to be profitable at all for people that paid too much for their mining equipment and/or pay too much for electricity.

The best way to make money on mining is to design, build, run, then sell mining equipment.  It might be profitable to do a 14nm miner.  I would just have to convince my boss to divert resources to the project.  Hey, that is not a bad idea...

[labsbitforum]

I understand mining enough to know that it is a good way to lose a lot of money.  I also understand that in the years I have been here it has always been more profitable to just buy the BTC than to mine it.  That did not stop me from mining in the GPU era and paying for my equipment plus a little bit - but I still lost relative to just buying the BTC and holding them for the same time period.

I never said it was profitable. I said there are more people mining now than a few years ago.  I don't see a way to force it to be profitable at all for people that paid too much for their mining equipment and/or pay too much for electricity.

The best way to make money on mining is to design, build, run, then sell mining equipment.  It might be profitable to do a 14nm miner.  I would just have to convince my boss to divert resources to the project.  Hey, that is not a bad idea...

I mined with GPUs and ASICs.  GPU mining was very profitable for me mostly because I was in early enough and had lots of system engineering skills to build good rigs.  I was barely profitable with ASIC (first generation).  After that nothing was viable.  Why would a company make a mining device that can profitably generate $10K over its useful lifespan and sell it to others for say $5,000...  Initially there were a few "community" projects that did it to get the start up capital required.  Not the case anymore.  Big players with financing have moved in.  Individuals are largely out.  Now we will watch the competing chip makers battle it out which will lead to more consolidation with fewer players.  I don't think its healthy for bitcoin.

I get your perspective and respect it.  I still have great concern that several core tenants of bitcoin's original intent have drifted off course and if not corrected will probably open the door to something else that is a 2.0.  Hopefully bitcoin doesn't get stifled by banking and governmental forces.  There are a LOT powerful of interests that would like the concept of bitcoin to go away.

[giveBTCpls]

Well, they came up with the technology first, so they have the trust, they have the big network, they have the powerful mining hashing power already. It's plain dumb wanting to use another coin at this point. At this point is get in or miss the boat type even more of scenareo.

[ajareselde]

Well, they came up with the technology first, so they have the trust, they have the big network, they have the powerful mining hashing power already. It's plain dumb wanting to use another coin at this point. At this point is get in or miss the boat type even more of scenareo.

Agreed,
while some other coins do seam to have some rather intreeding options, you cant deny the bitcoin support, adoption and most importantly the infrastructure behind it.
This being said, its obvious that there is no replacement for bitcoin in the form of another crypt coin.

The main reason other coins have any interest is the fact that short term profits are more easily made on them, but if one is searching for safety, bitcoin is the way to go.

[BTCTIME247]

The only reason Bitcoin is more valuable then other altcoins is first mover advantage. It's the truth if you compare bitcoin to a lot of alt coins on the technical side Bitcoin is lacking heavily. If the Protocol was updated to do something more like a lot of altcoins do I feel this is what would truly make the Bitcoin price sky rocket.

Any body that would dispute this premise has their eyes closed.   All coins at risk of 51% will ultimately be replaced including bitcoin.

Just like all of those beautiful homes in southern California sitting on earthquake faults, it is just a matter of time.

And of our kids will say, "You mean you used to mine virtual currencies??!"

If there was good solution to 51% problem, dont you think Bitcoin would use it already?

PoS has been proven to be quite secure by now. The only reason Bitcoin doesn't change, is because miners would not agree since it would make their hundred of millions of dollars worth of equipment obsolete.

Bitcoin/sha 256 is the Model-t of virtual currencies. What happened to the Model-t? What is going to happen with bitcoin?

[jbreher]

Bitcoin/sha 256 is the Model-t of virtual currencies. What happened to the Model-t?

What happened to the Model T? The Model T spent several decades as the dominant automobile in the marketplace.

[maker88]

OP thinks bitcoin is only big because its first. ha ha ha ha ha

what a narrow minded idea.

the truth is that bitcoin is more successful because more then a few thousand people are being paid wages purely in bitcoin,
the truth is that bitcoin is more successful because more then a 100,000 merchants accepting bitcoin
the truth is that bitcoin is more successful because more then 50 separate ways to get bitcoin<->FIAT
 
its called infrastructure, now name me one altcoin that has this usefulness!!

And that was all made possible because bitcoin had first mover advantage, use your head man.

It's called innovation and sooner or later an altcoin is going to make it big on innovation because bitcoin is to scared to. Some altcoins have already seen very good success, Bitcoin could increase it's worth past the point that it's already at if it just accepted this.

What Altcoin has seen very good success? Keep in mind if I can't spend it without converting to fiat, the success level is still at zero

[kasman5]

OP thinks bitcoin is only big because its first. ha ha ha ha ha

what a narrow minded idea.

the truth is that bitcoin is more successful because more then a few thousand people are being paid wages purely in bitcoin,
the truth is that bitcoin is more successful because more then a 100,000 merchants accepting bitcoin
the truth is that bitcoin is more successful because more then 50 separate ways to get bitcoin<->FIAT
 
its called infrastructure, now name me one altcoin that has this usefulness!!

And that was all made possible because bitcoin had first mover advantage, use your head man.

It's called innovation and sooner or later an altcoin is going to make it big on innovation because bitcoin is to scared to. Some altcoins have already seen very good success, Bitcoin could increase it's worth past the point that it's already at if it just accepted this.

What Altcoin has seen very good success? Keep in mind if I can't spend it without converting to fiat, the success level is still at zero

Couple of alt coins leeching off of of Bitcoin to be able to be spent wherever Bitcoin is accepted. Veribit, Vertverser etc. Bitcoin is absolutely the best coin for storing your wealth, and it will continue to be that. Though there's room for other coins too. Ethereum is exciting and I think the speed of PoS is very appealing. What alt coin has seen very good success?',. Litecoin must be considered a very good success with a 190million market cap?

[BurtW]

The only alt coins that may have a chance to become a possible contender to Bitcoin would be a new alt that is actually much better than Bitcoin and uses this method for its initial coin distribution:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563925.0

In this post Peter may have singlehandedly killed off all past, current and future alts that do not use this method of initial coin distribution, including  Ethereum.  He is my new hero!

His post also has the potential of eliminating almost all of the incentive to make new alts for the "pump and dump of it" and reducing the entire alt space to serious condenders only.

If you want to know if any alt is going to succeed just ask these two questions:

    1) Is it better than Bitcoin in a market defining way?

    2) Does it implement the method of initial coin distribution suggested in that thread?

If the answer is yes to both questions then it has a chance of becoming something.

[BurtW]

By the way these two guys never answered my questions:

There is a laundry list of features that could be safely added to Bitcoin which would make it usable in numerous financial industries.  And the items on that list simply aren't being added.  This is my biggest and only concern about the long term viability of Bitcoin.

Can you list five from your long laundry list that can safely be added with no fork?

I think it's more about actually putting its features to the test. A lot of these new altcoins have tons of awesome and cool features but they are just so new and untested.

Please describe in detail your "top 10 list" of these "awesome and cool features" from among the "tons" of new features "a lot of these new altcoins have".  Thanks.

[MoonTime]

Price is decided by demand in market, and the amount in circulation , not on the basis of what you said

[piramida]

The only reason Bitcoin is more valuable then other altcoins is first mover advantage

No. Price reflects the network strength. Bitcoin hashing network is worth tens of millions. Altcoin - thousands dollars, not dedicated.