Is Bitcoin good enough; there aren't critically important improvements needed?

[benjamindees]

I like the idea of a high latency improvement over Tor.  The internet is ripe for major improvement in privacy.  Paying per packet, or as close to it as feasible, sounds like a dream solution (if it is in fact workable).

I don't like the idea of hiding mining pools.  There will always be sectors of the economy that are prone to centralization.  The solution to managing them is radical transparency, not hiding.  In general, please don't fret over some tendency towards centralization.  We don't have to build a perfect system.  We just need to get close enough, and the rest will be provided.

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[UnunoctiumTesticles]

benjamindees,

I proposed only hiding their IP address (so the authorities can't threaten them with regulation), not hiding their reputation (hidden services have a persistent name). Nothing would change in my proposal in terms of the current state of pool distribution.

Pay-per-packet was a key insight. But there are technical details on how to accomplish that which I keep secret for the time being. Also I keep the "everyone can mine out of the box" algorithm secret for the time being.

Any one or group seriously considering and capable of implementing this, you should talk to me. I have already done a lot of the design and some coding work (on the order of 2000 LOC) on those key aspects in the prior paragraph. I shelved my files while I started to work on an Android app (coded in the Scala language which has been interesting, 2000 LOC thus far also).

[UnunoctiumTesticles]

People love to pontificate without fact checking.

You seem ignorant to the fact, that there are a lot of people who can't even use banks or other payment-systems.

And they can't use Bitcoin either, because it has no use case and they can't mine it.

I am talking to the filipinos about it. My neighbor's brother is developing social media apps (Lifebit) and hobnobs with the local government officials and tourism head. My neighbor said he thought about building a mining farm, but really didn't have enough capital to risk, and he says he just doesn't see what he would use Bitcoin for. He and his wife (they have one son) work virtually from home for American companies, his wife doing CSR for swimwear company in Florida and he does foreclosed real estate listings management. They are paid via odesk.com deposit directly to their local bank account (Google "freelance work online"). Any one who has a legitimate need for a local bank account, can get one. My gosh one visit to the bank here and standing in line for an hour for a teller tells me that rapid expansion in the banked is occurring.

Those unwashed who don't have a bank account, don't really need one as they pay for everything by cash.

I am sorry to inform you that any near-term (before 2024 at least) move to a new currency will be driven by westerners, Chinese, and Japanese. We are still guiding the world (at least until China takes over as the new financial center of the world by 2032). The developing world is ... well developing meaning they are learning from and leveraging us.

Note only because home mining in northern cold climates makes the electricity cost free as the waste heat displaces costs to heat the home (an economic advantage over an ASIC farm).

You also don't realize, that we don't want to convert back to fiat. We want merchants around the world to accept Bitcoin.

But the merchants have no (non-ideological, delusional crap) incentive to follow your desire. The volatility of Bitcoin is extreme compared to their national currency unit-of-account. Unit-of-account is a critical property of money as a currency, less so as a store-of-value which is why you see Bitcoin as a speculation investment predominantly. Merchants are not investors, they have to mitigate anything which impacts the reliability of their (in many industries very thin, thus fragile) profit margin.

I don't want to buy bitcoins with fiat, send bitcoins and the other person sells the bitcoin for fiat. Just because that is the way, it is now, doesn't mean it won't change in the future.

Ah the "change comes from mysterious magic wands" illogic.

Serious software developers don't waste their finite coding years chasing rainbows.

The internet didn't have porn, when it was invented. It developed. The internet today is also not the same as 5 years ago.

More hyperbole that doesn't address the point that the internet has a laundry list of radically improved human benefits use cases. Bitcoin doesn't. Bitcoin was invented 6 years ago. Bitcoin reached critical mass in 2013 when every person in the world heard of it on mass media. I would say the internet reached critical mass by 1997 or 1998 when Yahoo become a phenomenon. By then there was porn and many other compelling use cases.

Your estimate about 5 days to convert and 2-5% fees is also just way of, of what it takes me, to convert bitcoin.

Try moving $1 million through the banking system. He wasn't referring to converting your $3000 transaction.

[Flashman]

But the merchants have no (non-ideological) incentive to follow your desire.

False. The CEO of Overstock.com is pretty pissed at how the conventional financial system scammed him in the past. There are also a lot of merchants pissed off about CC transaction fees and chargebacks.

You are constructing a false reality here, saying imaginary future bitcoin is susceptible to imaginary problems which only you has the imaginary solution for. Could make a good cyberpunk novel.

At this point you sound like someone telling Henry Ford he shouldn't build the Model T, because it would never be capable of cruising the interstates at 80mph, and that there's no place to put the GPS.

What you are conveniently forgetting is that the internet existed for a long time before the 90s, it was the introduction of the WWW and the first webbrowser in 1991, making it easy to use, that spurred public adoption.  We possibly have not found our "Netscape" yet.

Anyway, you'd like to paint imaginary future bitcoin as retard bitcoin, like Henry Ford still trying to sell model Ts in 1960.

Well bitcoin is a bit past the model T stage, we've got a closed cabin, electric start and closed in fenders. Traction control, ABS and airbags will come along as we need them.

[turvarya]

People love to pontificate without fact checking.

You seem ignorant to the fact, that there are a lot of people who can't even use banks or other payment-systems.

And they can't use Bitcoin either, because it has no use case and they can't mine it.

I am talking to the filipinos about it. My neighbor's brother is developing social media apps (Lifebit) and hobnobs with the local government officials and tourism head. My neighbor said he thought about building a mining farm, but really didn't have enough capital to risk, and he says he just doesn't see what he would use Bitcoin for. He and his wife (they have one son) work virtually from home for American companies, his wife doing CSR for swimwear company in Florida and he does foreclosed real estate listings management. They are paid via odesk.com deposit directly to their local bank account (Google "freelance work online"). Any one who has a legitimate need for a local bank account, can get one. My gosh one visit to the bank here and standing in line for an hour for a teller tells me that rapid expansion in the banked is occurring.

Those unwashed who don't have a bank account, don't really need one as they pay for everything by cash.

I am sorry to inform you that any near-term (before 2024 at least) move to a new currency will be driven by westerners, Chinese, and Japanese. We are still guiding the world (at least until China takes over as the new financial center of the world by 2032). The developing world is ... well developing meaning they are learning from and leveraging us.

Note only because home mining in northern cold climates makes the electricity cost free as the waste heat displaces costs to heat the home (an economic advantage over an ASIC farm).

You also don't realize, that we don't want to convert back to fiat. We want merchants around the world to accept Bitcoin.

But the merchants have no (non-ideological, delusional crap) incentive to follow your desire. The volatility of Bitcoin is extreme compared to their national currency unit-of-account. Unit-of-account is a critical property of money as a currency, less so as a store-of-value which is why you see Bitcoin as a speculation investment predominantly. Merchants are not investors, they have to mitigate anything which impacts the reliability of their (in many industries very thin, thus fragile) profit margin.

I don't want to buy bitcoins with fiat, send bitcoins and the other person sells the bitcoin for fiat. Just because that is the way, it is now, doesn't mean it won't change in the future.

Ah the "change comes from mysterious magic wands" illogic.

Serious software developers don't waste their finite coding years chasing rainbows.

The internet didn't have porn, when it was invented. It developed. The internet today is also not the same as 5 years ago.

More hyperbole that doesn't address the point that the internet has a laundry list of radically improved human benefits use cases. Bitcoin doesn't. Bitcoin was invented 6 years ago. Bitcoin reached critical mass in 2013 when every person in the world heard of it on mass media. I would say the internet reached critical mass by 1997 or 1998 when Yahoo become a phenomenon. By then there was porn and many other compelling use cases.

Your estimate about 5 days to convert and 2-5% fees is also just way of, of what it takes me, to convert bitcoin.

Try moving $1 million through the banking system. He wasn't referring to converting your $3000 transaction.

and again, you just show a lot if ignorance. People who don't have bank accounts pay in cash?

I think that people who don't use bank systems earlier like afrika.

In Africa, those who does not use bank are mostly illiterate people. Unless u can educate them, they wont be able to use bitcoin.

Just curious, when was the last time you traveled in Africa?

Most young people I have met in Africa, are literate, own several phones including a smart phone. They are already sending money over the phones with MPesa.

My youngest wife lives in Africa and she is paid via MPesa, she sends money to her parents with MPesa, she pays her electric bill with MPesa.

Where did you learn about Africa...from old national geographic magazines?

There are more "currencies" around the world(mostly third world countries) which work in similar ways.


Merchants have the desire to accept bitcoins, since it gets them more customer. A pretty simple incentive.
I know a bar in Vienna, which accepts bitcoins and the owner doesn't really know anything about bitcoin.

Serious software developers to things that are much stupider/more impracticable than developing software for bitcoins. Do you even know Serious Software Developers? I am one(working in Software Development for 6 years) and I know a lot of them.

btw. I am not cbeast. I just have one account here and no desire to make another one.

[illodin]

Using the concept of having the genesis block of such a currency embodying a point-in-time snapshot of the current state of the Bitcoin blockchain[1] might get me and others past this hurdle. While the Bitcoin protocol has some abstract value, the blockchain itself encodes concrete value.

Yes, a lot of resistance stems from early bitcoiners getting lucky once and not wanting to lose their head start vs new comers. Many of them probably wouldn't care as long as their market share remained the same and it didn't require extra effort such as researching new technologies and what's available. It's hard to step out from one's comfort zone.

I didn't vote btw, because I don't know what you mean by jumping from Bitcoin - is it an all or nothing proposition?

[UnunoctiumTesticles]

and again, you just show a lot if ignorance. People who don't have bank accounts pay in cash?

Hahaha, The pot calling the kettle black.

When did you visit a 3rd world country and see that people pay each other for goods and services with cash. They don't need an ATM to get some.

I think that people who don't use bank systems earlier like afrika.

In Africa, those who does not use bank are mostly illiterate people. Unless u can educate them, they wont be able to use bitcoin.

Just curious, when was the last time you traveled in Africa?

Most young people I have met in Africa, are literate, own several phones including a smart phone. They are already sending money over the phones with MPesa.

And thus are educated enough to have a bank account.

It doesn't make much sense to compare dysfunctional regions of the world to functional ones. How much impact can a dysfunctional economy have relatively speaking?

Africa is different from Asia in that the governments in some cases (e.g. Ethiopia) have restricted access and don't want to promote their countries as open for call centers and freelance online work, i.e. they actively control and restrict the internet. So in this case, yes the people may have difficulty getting a bank account, but this is not the norm for the societies which are prospering and growing at their potential such as the Philippines and much of the rest of the developing world.

My youngest wife lives in Africa and she is paid via MPesa, she sends money to her parents with MPesa, she pays her electric bill with MPesa.

How is polygamy working? I ask not to criticize but to ask if it works?

There are more "currencies" around the world (mostly third world countries) which work in similar ways.

MPesa and Hong Kong's Octopus are not decentralized currencies. They are akin to Paypal or the Philippines' GlobeCash or SmartMoney for Globe and Smart network cell phones.

Merchants have the desire to accept bitcoins, since it gets them more customer. A pretty simple incentive.
I know a bar in Vienna, which accepts bitcoins and the owner doesn't really know anything about bitcoin.

Not much. It is more a novelty. It might work in some yuppie, techie environs as a gimmick, but this isn't a trend that can scale every where.

Serious software developers to things that are much stupider/more impracticable than developing software for bitcoins.

That is why they never attain 1 million users in 2001 as I did. Which is 10 million users in today's internet.

Do you even know Serious Software Developers? I am one(working in Software Development for 6 years) and I know a lot of them.

Myself since 1980, or 1978 if you count when I starting reading books on how to program. So I think I can claim more experience than you.

btw. I am not cbeast. I just have one account here and no desire to make another one.

That was obvious because you are in Europe and he is here in the Philippines where I am. And cbeast, no I never met Art Bell.

[UnunoctiumTesticles]

But the merchants have no (non-ideological) incentive to follow your desire.

False. The CEO of Overstock.com is pretty pissed at how the conventional financial system scammed him in the past. There are also a lot of merchants pissed off about CC transaction fees and chargebacks.

I was similarly pissed off when I had my own merchant account for my CoolPage.com sales. Nevertheless I had a lot of sales that went through that merchant account successfully.

But he is just making ideological rants, probably for the publicity for his business and to gain the sympathy of the Bitcoin crowd hoping they will treat their wives to Bitcoin expenditures on his site.

The main reason for accepting Bitcoin is it brings awareness of your obscure business, e.g. I discovered namecheap.com because they accept Bitcoin. That works only up to the point that you are the first of say 5 or so in your business category to accept Bitcoin. After that, it doesn't scale any more, because the effect is diluted.

The fact is that this is not a sufficient incentive for most merchants because:

1.	Bitcoin represents only roughly 0.1% (1 in 1000) of the people who have a debit or credit card.
2.	Bitcoin costs much more per transaction in customer support due to the long delays which cause errors, such as double payments, lost payments, etc.. I personally experienced this numerous times using Localbitcoins with Bitpay. It is a fucking horrendously crappy system. I wouldn't dare ask my mother or grandmother to use it. I would be extremely embarrassed to put my name on it as core developer, as I pride myself in high-quality work (must be my German ancestry because I am pedantic about the details when I am not too rushed). And don't tell me it is not the fault of the protocol core developers, they need to take responsibility for the useability of the technology (Edit: see mea culpa downthread).
3.	Customers don't like to pay by Bitcoin when they feel they need the protection of being able to issue a chargeback via their credit card company. Until Bitcoin has some "plug and play" escrow mechanism that is ubiquitously available, then it can't address a big segment of the online sales market (and it certainly can't scale in retail due to the 10 -  30 minute confirmation delay, yeah I know the evil of off chain services providing fast transactions). And once it does have this mechanism available, then it will no longer have the same advantage to merchants that you are claiming. I do understand the virtue that I did some somewhat anonymous transactions with Bitcoin, so it was worth the hassle, but that doesn't scale (how many people are going to jump through those hoops). Note there is another insight here. Micropayments for immediately delivered goods such as pay-per-packet are an ideal fit to the advantage of non-repudiable transactions. Do you see where I am going with this? Who is ignorant here?

You are constructing a false reality here, saying imaginary future bitcoin is susceptible to imaginary problems which only you has the imaginary solution for. Could make a good cyberpunk novel.

Blahblahblah. That is what you all said in 2013 when I was saying Tor was not anonymous. Now it is proven to be not anonymous with recent research claiming 81% of the users can be identified and the recent seizure of 100s of hidden servers. Any more excuses?

Why are humans so unable to project non-linear change? Because it is perhaps the greatest shortcoming of the human race.

...In short, you've been in the Philippines during the credit bubble. Everyone is feeling richer. Were you here during the Asian Crisis bust as I was?

Isn't amazing how people get fooled by credit booms and extrapolate that to the future...

At this point you sound like someone telling Henry Ford he shouldn't build the Model T, because it would never be capable of cruising the interstates at 80mph, and that there's no place to put the GPS.

That is not an analogy. KYC exists every where already.

What you are conveniently forgetting is that the internet existed for a long time before the 90s, it was the introduction of the WWW and the first webbrowser in 1991, making it easy to use, that spurred public adoption.  We possibly have not found our "Netscape" yet.

Excuses. Critical mass is obtained when most people have heard of a new technology, which was 1997 or 1998 for Yahoo and the internet (which is when I launched Art-O-Matic and CoolPage). At that point, you know the potential the adoption curve. And we reached that in 2013 for Bitcoin (which is when I entered the Bitcoin space). It was plastered on every major news site the entire year. No wonder it went to $1000.

Anyway, you'd like to paint imaginary future bitcoin as retard bitcoin, like Henry Ford still trying to sell model Ts in 1960.

It is only imaginary to those who couldn't for example see in 2013 (and were making the similar accusations as you are now against me) why Tor was not anonymous, but I could.

The internet didn't have porn, when it was invented. It developed. The internet today is also not the same as 5 years ago.

More hyperbole that doesn't address the point that the internet has a laundry list of radically improved human benefits use cases. Bitcoin doesn't. Bitcoin was invented 6 years ago. Bitcoin reached critical mass in 2013 when every person in the world heard of it on mass media. I would say the internet reached critical mass by 1997 or 1998 when Yahoo become a phenomenon. By then there was porn and many other compelling use cases.

[Beliathon]

Is Bitcoin good enough?




It doesn't matter, the game is already over. Bitcoin won, every other crypto lost.




Why? Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

Needless to say, this argument can be easily made against bitcoin in favour of existing fiat money institutions. And yet we still believe that a superior technology can rise and overcome, no?

No, that argument cannot be made against bitcoin in favour of existing money institutions because central banking is tremendously inefficient when compared to cryptocurrency.

Efficiency trumps all, even network effect. Altcoins will never be meaningfully more efficient than Bitcoin, because they are built on the same technological foundation.

[Flashman]

Critical mass is obtained when most people have heard of a new technology, which was 1997 or 1998 for Yahoo and the internet

Sorry, you don't get to invent your own facts.

Worries that internet was overhyped in 1994. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/10/business/business-technology-doubts-raised-on-number-of-internet-users.html

Meaning, a lot of people had HEARD of it by then, they just didn't know what was in it for them, and how actually to get on it, until the AOL disks started dropping in the mailbox practically weekly.

[UnunoctiumTesticles]

Critical mass is obtained when most people have heard of a new technology, which was 1997 or 1998 for Yahoo and the internet

Sorry, you don't get to invent your own facts.

Worries that internet was overhyped in 1994. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/10/business/business-technology-doubts-raised-on-number-of-internet-users.html

Meaning, a lot of people had HEARD of it by then, they just didn't know what was in it for them, and how actually to get on it, until the AOL disks started dropping in the mailbox practically weekly.

That is right you don't get to invent facts. Porn was on the internet in the early 1990s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_pornography#Usenet_Groups

Usenet was already a killer application that couldn't be done in any other way.

Didn't you read DannyHamilton confirmation upthread that none of the innovations I suggested will be coming to Bitcoin any time soon.

[cryptogeeknext]

I voted no (means Bitcoin is perfect as it is)

The government in general is not a problem, it is an obscure financial system currently in place that allows corruption on a large scale to go on unnoticed by the general public.

Keeping blockchain open and transparent will make government more accountable and democratic.

[jyakulis]

Why does this forum constantly devolve into threads of people saying bitcoin is not the solution to the problems of the world. You know what? You come up with a solution then. Find the people to go with it and do it. If bitcoin sucks so bad why are you people so obsessed with it? It's just annoying. Not saying we should ban dissenting voices but what is the motivation of these people? If you hate why are you here. If you think it sucks why are you here?

I come on here for news about the community and future development. Not for every thread I open to either be 1) satoshi should do this 2) is this satoshi 3) bitcoin sucks here's a better system 4) bitcoin failed us

[UnunoctiumTesticles]

If you think it sucks why are you here?

This thread is a marketing survey so that before some developer wastes a lot of time implementing, he is already sure there is a market for his effort.

I do think there are some virtues to Bitcoin. For example, if someone does create the killer altcoin, then all those Paypal accounts can get Bitcoin, then trade on a decentralized exchange for that altcoin. Bitcoin has a purpose and probably not only that one. I think of Bitcoin as the reserve currency of crypto. In that capacity, there is nothing wrong with its design. Slower transactions makes it technically less risky. Transparent blockchain makes it amenable to government, Paypal, etc..

Apologies I forget to reiterate the virtues of Bitcoin. Normal myopia of a (high strung, hyper-competitive) developer who is focused on making his own baby (especially when in the mode of defending against criticism). Mea culpa.

[jyakulis]

If you think it sucks why are you here?

This thread is a marketing survey so that before some developer wastes a lot of time implementing, he is already sure there is a market for his effort.

I do think there are some virtues to Bitcoin. For example, if someone does create the killer altcoin, then all those Paypal accounts can get Bitcoin, then trade on a decentralized exchange for that altcoin. Bitcoin has a purpose and probably not only that one. I think of Bitcoin as the reserve currency of crypto.

OK, but applications for bitcoin are largely rolled out to other cryptocurrencies. At least eventually. I think it's unwise to put all your eggs in one basket so to speak as well. But to say that development in bitcoin is a waste is naive at best. These ideas will flow to other cryptocurrencies. And additionally, some of the add ons to other alt coins (dogecoin) in particular that I currently really like have flowed back into bitcoin (tipping features).

[Flashman]

Didn't you read DannyHamilton confirm upthread that none of the innovations I suggested will be coming to Bitcoin any time soon.

And I don't need augmented reality tech to do everyday shit like put the garbage out, what's your point? It may be years before I get a laser guided GPS locatable garbage can, with sights on a headsup display, OMG tech is failing us. We've hit peak tech because eveyone has heard of laser guided stuff and GPS and headsup displays, but I can't get it on my garbage can, it's all downhill from here, sell Intel, sell Apple.  

Of course it's not going in there any time soon if it's not needed any time soon.

[UnunoctiumTesticles]

jyakulis, again mea culpa. You are correct.

[UnunoctiumTesticles]

Of course it's not going in there any time soon if it's not needed any time soon.

Exactly. If.

Have you ever considered that those advances which you speak ("Model T" versus LamborghiniToyota Prius) may come from altcoins with Bitcoin as the reserve currency at the center of the crypto-currency universe?

Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf didn't create the entire web. There were millions of innovators.

As an analogy in the gold mining world or even for Facebook, the smaller mines or startups make the innovations, then they are acquired, e.g. WhatsApp. The humongous returns on investment are made on the earlier stage riskier investments.

Uh oh, I feel gold rush fever may be returning soon again to cryptoland, once we bottom and start the next leg up. I'm sure many of you share the same sentiment.

[Flashman]

Have you ever considered that those advances which you speak ("Model T" versus Lamborghini) may come from altcoins with Bitcoin as the reserve currency at the center of the crypto-currency universe?

Partially my point was, that when the Model T was rolled out, Henry didn't know if 25 years down the line, he'd need to be making cars with high speed freeway tires on, or large mud bogging tires because there was no road investment.

The blockchain is bad enough, last thing we need is a 50 Gigabyte bitcoin core monstrosity programmed to deal with all possible futures.

[UnunoctiumTesticles]

Agreed, spaghetti rigor mortis can set in if too many (failed and cross-conflicting) experiments are made on the production system.

One of the principles of hackerdom is to scrap-and-rebuild every so often. We can't be doing that in the production system. The production system can only justify incorporating successful experiments that have demonstrably (i.e. proven) unavoidable and critical significance.