Do you want to see a financial revolution? Stop using Bitcoin
I'm starting to lose my patience with Bitcoin. I want to see a full cryptocurrency revolution in the world but Bitcoin isn't bringing it to us.
The price is going up, it just made the all time high record, but why? Currently, it's mostly an investment, not a real currency. It's difficult to use, it's slow, it's unreliable, it's expensive. It can't be used as a currency for the masses.
Is it getting better by development? Not really. The development has been really slow because Bitcoin lacks governance system. It's really hard to make any decisions what should be done and how. Developers, heavy users, and miners have been arguing and fighting for a long time. Time and money are being wasted.
Even if SegWit will be implemented, it doesn't bring much immediate help. Blocks get a little bit bigger, but not as big as a real financial revolution needs them to be. Lightning Network may be a solution, but it's still being developed and nobody knows how it will actually play out when implemented. Even if it works, there are high chances that it will centralize Bitcoin even more because payments will be routed through a handful of hubs.
If we want to have a financial revolution, we need to stop using Bitcoin and prefer better alternatives.
Steem is a great choice because it already has reliable three-second blocktimes (Bitcoin has unreliable ten minutes) with zero transaction costs (while Bitcoin is getting more and more expensive). Currently, Steem is not perfect, lack of privacy being one of the problems. But the development is in good hands and after the blockchain architecture has been updated with multi-chain parallelism (as described in the roadmap for 2017), anonymizing features can be added easily.
Bitcoin might be a good investment, at least for a while. But all of you who want to change the world to a better place should think twice if you really want to invest in it. Do you want to help the world to see a meaningful financial revolution or do you want to just make a good investment for yourself?
I'm also skeptical of Bitcoin's long-term success. There are limits how big it can grow. It's actually very simple, but most hardcore fans don't want to understand it. You can read more from my earlier post: Simple economics prove that Bitcoin will fail.
It already exists. It's called TradeQwik on here as @tradeqwik feel free to join!
I haven't given up on Bitcoin yet but I must admit the inertia and lack of progress is a definite source of frustration to me.
A lot of the arguing in the BTC community seems to be based on people putting more importance on being right and ideology than what is best for the community as a whole.
We see this in many areas of life and it is a general human failing.
Whilst I would love for Bitcoin to become a replacement reserve currency the problem is that it is just not technically in a place where it can do that.
I would love for Steem to take it's place but for similar reasons it is unlikely to happen any time soon UNLESS we can implement direct fiat to Steem gateways.
If someone could figure that out without ending up in jail then it would be a huge boost as we would remove the need to funnel money via Bitcoin.
I have spoken to a number of people who wanted to power up using fiat currency and couldn't figure out how to do it.
When I explained they said it was too much hassle and they wouldn't bother or they might do it when "they have time".
How much new money coming into the Steem/Steemit ecosystem are we missing out on as a result of this?
Even if it isn't a lot now it could be huge in the future.
I suspect any crypto that does solve this issue will be well ahead of the pack when it comes to taking on Bitcoin directly.
I hope that Steem can do it.
(BTW if anyone is one Twitter I have shared here: https://twitter.com/Soul_Eater_43/status/838753569599795201)
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
I'm not really worried about the lack of fiat-gateways. When there is real demand, they will pop up.
We just have to build the demand first.
BTW, Openledger has a fiat-gateway for Bitshares. I haven't checked for a while but I'd guess it still lacks liquidity. If you are not ina hurry, you can use that by leaving an open order and hope that somebody will take it.
I think it is partly a chicken and egg scenario though. We won't get greater demand unless there is an easy way to do it. I believe it acts as a break on the flow of money into cryptocurrencies in general.
Thanks I wasn't aware of that.
Yes and even if it had that I'm not sure if it is the best way for less crypto-literate people to get onboard.
Let use Grantcoin instead
Why? Can it be scaled for the masses?
It is a basic income scaled for the masses.
http://grantcoin.org
The financial revolution has just begun. Most people don't even know what bitcoin is, not to mention altcoins.
The Bitcoin "trademark" is a strong one. I think it could be useful to describe the better altcoins as "Bitcoin 2.0" for people who aren't into cryptonomics.
It's a matter of branding and making a name that will make some crypto top the charts, regardless how practical it is. Just look at the most expensive brands. It's often the case a product's value is measured by its brand. Take Apple for example, Coca cola, or Facebook. There are better products out there, but...
seriously. chill out, this is like, the start of the start. when the usa dollar collapses this year, you will be super pleased you didn't get bored or whatever.
bitcoin will solve, and is already solving these issues. lighting network, for transaction fees and anonymity, streams of money, other updates.
bitcoin is not a static thing, it changes and updates, and will deal with technical issues don't worry. There are other crypto currencies, but bitcoin is a golden opportunity, like owning silver right now.. just magical, and you won't get a better one in your life. I can promise I know a lot more about this than you do, and you should hold your bitcoin. Double this year, 50-100k? in 4 years. 6 years, 1 million? bitcoin will be a method of wealth transfer between large institutions. other crypto will be used day to day lower fees, etc. bitcoin will be digital gold, the original store of wealth. get rich, sell to a big bank, move on.
One million in six years? So you didn't read the post I linked in the end? If price of bitcoin will be one million with block reward of 6.25 BTC, it will mean that Bitcoin mining will spend approximately 1/4 of all electricity consumption in the world.
Because block reward changes are fixed (nobody can change the rate of rewards), the price of bitcoin simply can't go very high in a short time. There will be a point when enough people say that Bitcoin uses too much resources and they attack against Bitcoin miners and users.
But I'm skeptical if we ever get to that point, because Bitcoin seems to be unable to develop fast enough. For years we have been hearing promises but none of them have been implemented. If the dollar collapses this year, Bitcoin is not going to help because the transaction capacity is already full. Only a very few individuals will be able to use it and that doesn't help the majority of the people.
you are not factoring in the fact that bitcoin is not static, and when mining becomes prohibitive, they will solve the issues. You folks are too wrapped up details of the technology.. remember software gets upgrades... even bitcoin!
it's going to end up as a major country to country and bank to bank transfer mechanism.
There will be other blockchain solutions that in day to day, but the estimates for bitcoin are still valid, and I'm nowhere near the only one suggesting this.
I used to argue that point but the last three years have proven it wrong. Bitcoin is now extremely slow to change, too slow to survive.
I don't think you are right. Once this block size/segwit fork is resolved, and the lightning network is enabled, you will see a far more usable bitcoin.
My expectation is that Lightning Network will be very user unfriendly in practice if not centralized to a few trusted hubs. Needing to be always online (to prevent channels being closed on you without you knowing) and the unreliability of channel closing transactions when there's a Bitcoin transaction backlog are a usability nightmare.
again, software evolves, and if your concerns are founded, solutions will be found.
If your expectation is based on deep knowledge, I would love to read or hear your argument, otherwise, I wonder what makes you have that opinion?
Software evolves, but Bitcoin doesn't. Not any more. The whole point of this 'layering' system is to allow new functionality to happen without evolving the layers below. This puts fundamental limitations on the system, layers above can only work within the constraints of the layers below, and I see it as a flawed approach.
I described my usability concerns about Lightning Network in my post above. Lightning Network requires that users be able to open and close channels at will in order to facilitate the 'pseudo-trustless' nature of the system. When lower layer transactions cease to be reliable, the network loses that trait. Lightning Network also requires that users remain always on, because they need to be able to identify when a channel is closing or again the pseudo-trustless nature breaks down.
Anyone who cannot run an always-on server will be forced to trust a provider in the same way people trust email providers today. An SMTP server must always be on, but most people don't run one, they just use a provider like Gmail or Hotmail etc. This would be functionally equivalent to banks today, except perhaps with faster transactions. It would be a trust-based system, exactly what Satoshi was trying to get away from.
even bitcoin evolves. See Bitcoin Unlimited vs Bitcoin core, the updates being discussed right now, which discredit your core assertion.
If either of those actually come into effect on the network, it will. They have both been stuck with below 30% network hash power each for months. Both of them require enormous levels of consensus to actually activate (95% hashpower for Segwit, broad economic consensus + significant hashpower majority for Bitcoin Unlimited). There are major players on both sides who see the other as an attack on the network and are unlikely to concede their position unless something drastic happens. ViaBTC and other miners will not accept SegWit and those players easily have enough to block it even if it did somehow manage to gain traction with other miners. Some significant Bitcoin businesses are vehemently opposed to Bitcoin Unlimited, and other Bitcoin businesses are naturally conservative and unlikely to switch over if it appears that it will cause a genuine split.
I would love to be proven wrong, but short of a total collapse in the Bitcoin price I don't see either being adopted in 2017.
But when it's going to happen? So far we have been waiting for important updates for years and nothing seems to get done. And even if all that gets done, there is still the blockchain reward problem.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/gavin-andresen-run-bitcoin-unlimited-to-solve-destructive-congestion
There are more solutions coming online all the time. Software like this is constantly evolving. To look at it as a set in stone static thing is invalid. You have to envision it as a flowing progress over time, and attempt to ascertain where it will end up, based on the knowledge of constant change, and the actors that affect such change.
Yeah, there are lots of proposals. But none of them are being implemented.
Problems of Bitcoin have been known for years but we still haven't seen any real solutions. Bitcoin has stopped evolving.
It's pretty neat waiting a couple of hours for a confirmation.
I've been waiting for a confirmation on a transaction since 28 Feb 2017 19:02. Haha, couple of hours is nothing compared to that.
I would recommend patience...
It took people TEN YEARS or more to truly start fully trusting PayPal... and that isn't even a separate currency, just an alternative form of banking and receiving payment in standard fiat. Right now, we're just at the edge of people hearing the word "BitCoin" and not automatically going... "Thats's just a weird scam for deep nerds."
That aside, I do think Steem has great potential in that it offers a "soft" and "non-techy" entry for a broader audience to be exposed to cryptocurrencies. We just need more "real world applications" like this blogging platform... maybe an Etsy/eBay like marketplace, a Steem based crowdfunding platform... people aren't going to flock here "simply because it's here." There has to be "something" here.
No patience! Revolution can't wait! We should have had it already last year.
I have many different Cryptos and I hope that one of them takes the lead. There are many in the works and maybe one of those could be the world changer. I hold Bitcoin and Steem. Both are good in my opinion but Bitcoin is where I store my value and Steem is a speculative play at the moment.
How you can trust Bitcoin as a store of value when its fundamentals are so bad?
I say this respectively.... If you don't like it don't use it. The whole purpose of Bitcoin is to give people a choice.
It's not a good thing to give people a really bad choice and then encourage them to choose it.
Your entitled to your opinion.
For now the only cryptocurrency I can use to buy food with is Bitcoin. Once I can do that with Steem or Ethereum, I'll gladly ditch Bitcoin. ;)
Yeah, you can buy food if your transactions just get confirmed. =P
Well I can buy food because the grocery store I frequent uses Bitpay. Haven't had confirmation issues with them.