📅 Original date posted:2015-08-11
📝 Original message:On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 11:35 PM, Michael Naber <mickeybob at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bitcoin would be better money than current money even if it were a bit
> more expensive to transact, simply because of its other great
> characteristics (trustlessness, limited supply, etc). However... it is not
> better than something else sharing all those same characteristics but which
> is also less expensive. The best money will win, and if Bitcoin doesn't
> increase capacity then it won't remain the best.
>
If it is less expensive, it is harder to be reliable (because it's easier
for a sudden new use case to outbid the available space), which is less
useful for a payment mechanism.
If it has better scale (with the same technology), it will have higher
centralization pressure. The higher price you potentially pay (in fees) to
get your transactions on a smaller block chain is the price of higher
security and independence. Perhaps the compromise is not at the optimal
place, but please stop saying "below what the technology can do". The
technology can "do" gigabyte blocks I'm sure, If you accept that you need a
small cluster to keep up with validation, and all blocks are produced by a
single miner cartel.
IMHO, Bitcoin (or any cryptocurrency) on-chain as a payment system is:
* Expensive: there is a (known in advance and agreed upon) inflation that
we're using to pay miners. But by holding Bitcoin you're paying for the
security of the system, even if it is not in fees.
* Unreliable: you never know when suddenly there will be more higher-fee
transactions that outbid you.
* Slow, unless you already trust the sender to not double spend (in which
case you don't actually need the security of the blockchain).
I don't know the future, and I don't know what use cases will develop and
what they'll want to pay or what reliability they need. But let's please
not throw out the one quality that Bitcoin is still good at: lack of
centralized parties to trust.
--
Pieter
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Pieter Wuille [ARCHIVE] /
npub1tj…jtl6r
2023-06-07 15:45:57
in reply to nevent1q…9e8z
Author Public Key
npub1tjephawh7fdf6358jufuh5eyxwauzrjqa7qn50pglee4tayc2ntqcjtl6rPublished at
2023-06-07 15:45:57Event JSON
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"content": "📅 Original date posted:2015-08-11\n📝 Original message:On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 11:35 PM, Michael Naber \u003cmickeybob at gmail.com\u003e wrote:\n\n\u003e Bitcoin would be better money than current money even if it were a bit\n\u003e more expensive to transact, simply because of its other great\n\u003e characteristics (trustlessness, limited supply, etc). However... it is not\n\u003e better than something else sharing all those same characteristics but which\n\u003e is also less expensive. The best money will win, and if Bitcoin doesn't\n\u003e increase capacity then it won't remain the best.\n\u003e\n\nIf it is less expensive, it is harder to be reliable (because it's easier\nfor a sudden new use case to outbid the available space), which is less\nuseful for a payment mechanism.\n\nIf it has better scale (with the same technology), it will have higher\ncentralization pressure. The higher price you potentially pay (in fees) to\nget your transactions on a smaller block chain is the price of higher\nsecurity and independence. Perhaps the compromise is not at the optimal\nplace, but please stop saying \"below what the technology can do\". The\ntechnology can \"do\" gigabyte blocks I'm sure, If you accept that you need a\nsmall cluster to keep up with validation, and all blocks are produced by a\nsingle miner cartel.\n\nIMHO, Bitcoin (or any cryptocurrency) on-chain as a payment system is:\n* Expensive: there is a (known in advance and agreed upon) inflation that\nwe're using to pay miners. But by holding Bitcoin you're paying for the\nsecurity of the system, even if it is not in fees.\n* Unreliable: you never know when suddenly there will be more higher-fee\ntransactions that outbid you.\n* Slow, unless you already trust the sender to not double spend (in which\ncase you don't actually need the security of the blockchain).\n\nI don't know the future, and I don't know what use cases will develop and\nwhat they'll want to pay or what reliability they need. But let's please\nnot throw out the one quality that Bitcoin is still good at: lack of\ncentralized parties to trust.\n\n-- \nPieter\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20150811/a9e6e3a9/attachment.html\u003e",
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