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Comment by kylebenzle | Hacker News Reader

I hate myself for trying to be "that guy" but I can't believe the author doesn't mention Bitcoin/Monero in an article about digital payments in 2023.

The combination of XMR for saving and something like BCH for spending is such a dead simple solution to 99% of the world's money issues it boggles my mind that it's taken 10 years for us to get to where we are now, I thought it would have been 2-3 years at most.

And still, 10 years in, a near perfect tract record, people are still unsure about Bitcoin. What's the issue exactly, people are just scared?

I will never understand it. Ive said since 2012, I will either be proven to be the biggest idiot in the world if/when crypto get regulated or hacked and comes tumbling down, or people will be begging to know how I saw it coming when Bitcoin swallows up the worlds financial system black hole style. Either way, I'm enjoying the show immensely.

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Bitcoin has extreme scalability and privacy problems.

Over the course of 20 minutes, the maximum number of people who can engage in transactions is somewhat under 50,000. This is obviously unworkable as a global currency; if the user base and transaction volumes rise, you might be waiting hours or days for a transaction to complete.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem

The blockchain also records details of your transactions forever, and unless you carefully obfuscate your activity, every bitcoin user will have the entire blockchain and your entire history on it. Forever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_and_blockchain

This certainly gives me pause.

No, it doesn’t have scalability problem, neither privacy issues. I’m tired of saying always the same stuff.

Do. Your. Own. Research.

You already have did it, so that’s just bad faith.

Please enlighten us; how is this statement incorrect?

"The maximum throughput is the maximum rate at which the blockchain can confirm transactions. Today, bitcoin's maximum throughput is 3.3–7 transactions/sec. This number is constrained by the maximum block size and the inter-block time."

Google "Lightning Network". It allows for "off-chain" transactions that aren't included in the "7 tx/sec" limit.

The Lightning Network is in the Wiki's Stage 2 section:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_scalability_problem#%2...

"The Lightning Network requires putting a funding transaction on the blockchain to open a payment channel."

Now, if we put the whole world on Bitcoin, how long does it take to open that channel? Days?

Valid point, but we are decades away from putting the whole world on Bitcoin. In those intervening decades lightning alternatives and/or derivatives will likely be developed that can allow the entire world to use Bitcoin.

Yes, LN is a pretty dead idea from first principals since Blockstream hijacked the GitHub repo.

But of course LN makes no sense if you just did what Satoshi said and incrementally increase the block size as needed, but then of course Blockstream cant sell you their SideChain(tm) products.

The whole thing became really convoluted and dumb once Adam Back got involved.

You should’ve started the discussion stating your personal drama with Adam Black so we wouldn’t waste our time.

Satoshi had the "solution" from day one, just incrementally increase the block size as needed, the road map BCH has chosen to follow, its really no big deal.

Lightning network (which admittedly has its own set of flaws) does a reasonably good job of improving privacy and increasing scalability. It's reasonable to assume that Lightning and other "layer 2" technologies will continue to develop if the Bitcoin user-base continues to grow.

Bitcoin and Lightning solve many of the issues in the article and will improve.

As a society we should encourage both the use of physical cash and decentralized cryptocurrency as alternatives to the centralized banking "cashless" system.

As far as I can tell LN has been failing 18 months at a time for like 5 years now. Its never going to work is what people seem to be saying.

Satoshi had the simple solution from day one, it is just to incrementally increase the block size as needed, like the BCH fork is doing, its really no big deal.

With the caveat that my knowledge of Bitcoin is limited, I know I can't be bothered to use it because

- Stories about transaction fees that are more than the cost of something you would buy with it ($25 at on point)

- Stories about Bitcoin exchanges (if I have that term right) where the person in charge just... took everything and ran; and anyone with money in it just flat out lost it

- No way to reverse a transaction if you are scammed (vs a credit card where you can almost infallibly get a transaction reversed)

- Stories of exchanges failing and everyone losing out... whereas in a bank, the FDIC handles it for you and you get your money back

Now, I may be wrong about some of that... but those are the stories I hear. And, given them, why would I even bother to try Bitcoin?

With Monero, the fees get smaller (sub 0.01 USD) the more transactions there are.

Why aren't banks subject to taking the money and running? Banks could handle crypto.

Reversable transactions could probably be programmed in certain conditions.

Banks/laws/policy/etc.

I wouldn't try Bitcoin either. Monero is a lot better, but even then it's just a stepping stone of what could come if enough people cared.

Are Bitcoin and Monero decentralized?

Do the server providers take Bitcoin and Monero?

A currency is only as good as the stuff that can be bought with it, which is why most petroleum is sold in dollars, not in gold, bitcoin, or whatever.

Does your local shopkeeper take Bitcoin for goods?

Do you know how long it takes a Bitcoin transaction to be confirmed and completed?

It is possible to pay with Bitcoin for a wide variety of internet services like VPN/VPS and domain names, although rarely possible for the popular providers.

Most local shops do not take Bitcoin, although there are some places where it's more recognised. Some specialist online-order retailers now take Bitcoin, such as Pimonori for hobby electronics materials.

Bitcoin transactions are typically confirmed within a minute, compared to hours or days in traditional banking. However, Bitcoin does not have credit like traditional banks do, so can't provide 'instant' payments.

>BCH

Lol'd BCH will hit the same scaling issues as actual bitcoin if it becomes as popular as bitcoin and increasing the blocksizes will lead to the very centralization it purports to be against while only marginally fixing the scalability.

People prefer currency that will be worth roughly the same tomorrow that it was today.

Even forgoing all the (very many) other arguments for why someone might not be interested in crytpo, it's not a very stable currency.

It was BTC, not BCH, right? :)

BTC: the original Bitcoin, whereas BCH: Bitcoin Cash. Or was a disambiguation between the two abbreviations not what you were asking for?

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