Why the constant push to have only the one blockchain?

[Jakesy]

The main thing is that Bitcoin constantly promotes itself as "decentralised" yet wants to be the "one and only block chain" of the world.

If people can't see a slight problem with that then I sincerely wonder about their thinking.

It is still decentralized (agreed upon ledger by multiple nodes) and still trustless.  Using the blockchain for everything would make it more powerful with all the added computation.  Why not have a backbone blockchain for every project?  Are you afraid it will fail?  Certainly nodes will prevent that and the added computation will make it that much harder for attackers.

I get that you think one blockchain is "centralized" - but that's misleading.  It's set up in a decentralized environment from the beginning.

[CIYAM]

I get that you think one blockchain is "centralized" - but that's misleading.  It's set up in a decentralized environment from the beginning.

Trying to tie everything to that one blockchain *is* in fact centralising as it puts all them all at risk if there is a failure (such as its crypto being broken).

Having multiple blockchains that work in different ways is just a "sensible" approach or do you keep all of your assets in one single bank account?

Also Bitcoin is simply not suited to many, many things mostly because confirmations take too long.

[R2D221]

Also Bitcoin is simply not suited to many, many things mostly because confirmations take too long.

For most stuff, it's safe to accept an unconfimed transaction and be happy with it. I don't understand why people argue about this non-issue.

[Elwar]

One blockchain for currency is ideal.

If you want other blockchains, there are plenty. They are called alts.

I like Bitcoin for the BitPools voting because it is the most secure protocol in the world. That is kinda handy for voting.

[R2D221]

Having multiple blockchains that work in different ways is just a "sensible" approach or do you keep all of your assets in one single bank account?

I have more than one bank account, but all of them are in the same currency (MXN). I don't want to have to exchange currencies just to be able to buy a cup of coffee.

[CIYAM]

For most stuff, it's safe to accept an unconfimed transaction and be happy with it. I don't understand why people argue about this non-issue.

Really - if we end up adding transaction fee replacement (which is expected to occur) then a lot of people are going to be stealing an awful amount of stuff if vendors are silly enough to accept unconfirmed transactions.

[CIYAM]

I have more than one bank account, but all of them are in the same currency (MXN). I don't want to have to exchange currencies just to be able to buy a cup of coffee.

Clearly you don't have much in the way of serious investments (where are your stocks and property?).

[CIYAM]

One blockchain for currency is ideal.

If you want other blockchains, there are plenty. They are called alts.

The whole "currency" thing is what tends to blind people (and cause most of the silliness).

Blockchains are going to have a hell of a lot more to offer us than currencies (and you should know this better than most).

[R2D221]

I have more than one bank account, but all of them are in the same currency (MXN). I don't want to have to exchange currencies just to be able to buy a cup of coffee.

Clearly you don't have much in the way of serious investments (where are your stocks and property?).

I, like most people in the world, do not have such things as stocks. Why would this be relevant?

[R2D221]

For most stuff, it's safe to accept an unconfimed transaction and be happy with it. I don't understand why people argue about this non-issue.

Really - if we end up adding transaction fee replacement (which is expected to occur) then a lot of people are going to be stealing an awful amount of stuff if vendors are silly enough to accept unconfirmed transactions.

Because double-spending is the easiest thing in the world.

[CIYAM]

I, like most people in the world, do not have such things as stocks. Why would this be relevant?

Because in the future stocks will be on blockchains also as will property titles, etc.

I would rather that we don't have the world's entire assets relying upon one single blockchain.

[CIYAM]

Because double-spending is the easiest thing in the world.

With fee replacement it actually would be extremely easy for nearly anyone to do (as tools would be created to do it for you).

[R2D221]

Because double-spending is the easiest thing in the world.

With fee replacement it actually would be extremely easy for anyone to do.

How come?

[CIYAM]

How come?

Because it would allow you to create a tx with a very low fee (that would have little chance of confirming in days) and then replace it with another tx with a higher fee.

Easy money!


It is already possible to effectively do this at the moment (but it's not very easy to do which is why we don't really see this happening much now).

EDIT: removed "brainfart"

[R2D221]

I, like most people in the world, do not have such things as stocks. Why would this be relevant?

Because in the future stocks will be on blockchains also as will property titles, etc.

I would rather that we don't have the world's entire assets relying upon one single blockchain.

Ok, so you can have your Stockchain for things like this, but for people who use Bitcoin as a currency, it would be a headache to have to constantly exchange currencies just because you can't have all of it in the same chain.

[R2D221]

How come?

Because it would allow you to create a tx with a very low fee (that would have little chance of confirming in days) and then replace it with another tx with a higher fee.

Easy money!

What? Fee replacement only allows you to replace the fee, how can that bring a totally new transaction into play? Also, when I said you can accept unconfirmed transactions most of the time, I said “most” because you can predict that a transaction won't be confirmed and reject those.

[CIYAM]

Ok, so you can have your Stockchain for things like this, but for people who use Bitcoin as a currency, it would be a headache to have to constantly exchange currencies just because you can't have all of it in the same chain.

For certain I am not advocating that one should be constantly having to shift funds around from blockchain to blockchain but just that having more than one kind of blockchain is a form of "insurance" against the failure of any particular one.

[CIYAM]

What? Fee replacement only allows you to replace the fee, how can that bring a totally new transaction into play? Also, when I said you can accept unconfirmed transactions most of the time, I said “most” because you can predict that a transaction won't be confirmed and reject those.

Yes - sorry - I forgot that fee replacement is supposed to check that the UTXOs don't change.

But even Gavin firmly advises no-one to accept zero confirmation payments with anything of more than trivial value.

[R2D221]

Ok, so you can have your Stockchain for things like this, but for people who use Bitcoin as a currency, it would be a headache to have to constantly exchange currencies just because you can't have all of it in the same chain.

For certain I am not advocating that one should be constantly having to shift funds around from blockchain to blockchain but just that having more than one kind of blockchain is a form of "insurance" against the failure of any particular one.

How can the Bitcoin's blockchain fail, considering the amount of nodes and miners connected today? You would need a meteorite or something to make it fail.

[R2D221]

What? Fee replacement only allows you to replace the fee, how can that bring a totally new transaction into play? Also, when I said you can accept unconfirmed transactions most of the time, I said “most” because you can predict that a transaction won't be confirmed and reject those.

Yes - sorry - I forgot that fee replacement is supposed to check that the UTXOs don't change.

But even Gavin firmly advises no-one to accept zero confirmation payments with anything of more than trivial value.

But we're talking about things of trivial value, aren't we?