How do you know there is no other way? Which ways have we tested on a large scale already so we can be sure this is the only way? Serious question
Discussion
Because every blockchain with meaningful adoption that has tried to do more txns on the base layer has still ended up with massive txn costs & because of their choices about base layer capacity they became centralized.
And the only reason it hasn't happened to bitcoin is that it is much harder to change. So how else are you going to add capacity if not in layers?
Even Hal suggested bitcoin banks would be necessary. But hopefully we will have something like shared UTXOs backing L2 blockchains which are networked via Lightning, so that everyone gets their own virtual UTXO & doesn't have to depend on trusting people too much.
That is just not true. Monero has adaptive block size and works very well. Even BCH works well and has low fees.
I am not proposing scaling on chain only, but sticking to the 1MB limit while technology progresses is just stupid and in the end, will make BTC a failed project.
The reason Monero & BCH work is because no one uses them. The more people do, the more centralized they become, just like we saw with ETH.
Bitcoin fairly regularly has blocks larger than 2mb. And the amount of transactions made in bitcoin is orders of magnitude larger than any shitcoin, most transactions just take place on Lightning & other layers.
Not necessarily true. All depends on rate of adoption and rate of consumer tech advancements/protocol improvements which is a risk for any crypto if the former surpasses the latter.
If Bitcoin ever has a steep enough rate of adoption it would fail too. We get glimpses of this every time transactions go crazy like a few months ago. Even Lightning barely works when that happens.
Last part definitely isn't true. Litecoin and Doge regularly surpasses Bitcoin in transactions and Ethereum is always way ahead.
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactions-btc-eth-doge-ltc.html#1y
Except that I make 100x the number of txns on Lightning as I do onchain (as do most regular users & major businesses now) & that doesn't show on the chart you posted. Hedgehog channels are being added which will improve LN performance in all conditions. Eventually most transactions will be happening in fediments or arks that are networked via LN so onchain fee conditions won't matter for common use.
The interesting thing about that chart is that ETH has completely centralized even though they only process about double the number of transactions as base layer BTC. And in terms of the global txn capacity issue they haven't solved anything. That chart actually looks to me like proof that Bitcoiners are right.
Didn't you just mention Ecash as the solution in your last reply? Isnt ecash centralized and ruggable?
You guys are blinded by hate for other crypto without seeing trade offs (EXCEPT WHEN IT COMES TO BITCOIN LAYERS!!! THEN ITS OK!!!). If I slapped on the word "Bitcoin" onto anything piece of trash and started making the podcast rounds and spitting buzzwords yall would gobble it up whatever it was
Competitive ecash pools where no one needs to hold any money for any length of time & no one ever needs to put all of their money, are a great additional options. Why is it that you can't tell the difference between a weak foundation & some optional thing that makes reasonable tradeoffs?
Oh now trade offs are okay just not with an other crypto lmao
All your caveats sounds like this
Foundation vs an extra option that isn't required
Comments like this make it clear none of you are arguing in good faith. You aren't even trying to understand.
Yea, they even cheer for Liquid, a privately owned sidechain which is under full control of a federation and which earns all the fees..
Gigablockers: will centralize because few are willing or can afford to run a massive node
Microblockers: will centralize because why would anyone run a node for a network they can't afford to use?
Hal said a lot of things
Nonsense. If it's easy to run a node & doing so allows people to ensure that the rules of our monetary court system cannot be changed, then even if it costs $1000+ dollars to go to court people will run nodes.
If your vUTXOs or L2 txns depend on the validity of base layer UTXOs then it still makes sense to run a node which monitors the entire Bitcoin stack relevant to your money.
If you could run software that would audit the Fed or financial system today, you wouldn't?
Why tf is someone going to run a node for a network they can't afford to use?
Do you guys ever listen to yourself?
Not even most Bitcoiners run their own nodes and fees are relatively cheap right now (imagine if global adoption ever happens). There are only ~20,000 bitcoin nodes (or ~50,000 depending how you want to measure it). Unless you think there are only that many Bitcoin users in the world?
So you wouldn't run a node to audit the Fed right now?
The problem is that retards like you don't understand that bitcoin is trying to solve a $200trillion global money supply problem, not a fucking coffee txn problem. The coffee txns may be solved with other layers, but making coffee transactions better isn't going to set the world free if govts can still enslave everyone by printing trillions of dollars.
The higher value problem gets priority if we want to make the world better in the biggest way.
You don't have to call me a retard just because I don't agree with you
No I wouldn't run a node to audit the Fed because I wouldn't be using the US Dollar if every transaction was hundreds of dollars in fees to use it (Bitcoins future with more adoption as we see EVERY TIME USAGE INCREASES). No one would.
So do you think there are only 20,000-50,000 or so Bitcoin users in the world right now?
If no, then why isn't even a fraction of them running a node right now? Why is Bitcoin considered to still be decentralized right now even though hardly any of them run a node? Not anywhere close to all users wants or needs to run a node for a network to avoid capture and be decentralized.
Ironically the coffee txn is what 99% of the world cares about. How cheaply and easily they can use their money. That's why most of the global south is using USDT on cheap networks.
Not understanding that preventing monetary debasement is the whole point actually makes you literally retarded. Your ignorance seems to be so complete that you don't even know that you don't know enough to have an opinion.
Go read Meltdown by Tom Woods or The Creature From Jekyll Island or Layered Money or The Bitcoin Standard or The Fiat Standard or anything about Austrian Economics & money.
The genisis block message about Bitcoin being in response to bank bailouts wasn't some sort of random accident. Jfc.
The headline of the whitepaper says p2p digital currency, that wasn't some accident either...
If we rely on trusted third parties, we will have monetary debasement.
No one is saying we should rely on trusted 3rd parties
Insults are not arguments I thought Jeff Swann would know better than that
Yes, I know plenty about monetary debasement and austrian econ and I listen to Tom Woods regularly. You don't have some special esoteric knowledge. You can have decentralized, predictable, and PoW issuance that has none of those things in common with fiat.
Bitcoin is a global court system for proving ownership of wealth. Going to court may cost $1000+ but a court that cannot be cheated & provides a receipt with millions of dollars worth of protection almost immediately & billions pretty quickly is not for doing things where you would naturally just throw the receipt away.
You are not thinking about these things properly & you do not seem to understand the scope of the problem.
There will be as many more transactions in bitcoin as there are individual internet requests today vs phone calls in the 80s. So making blocks bigger CANNOT even begin to solve the problem. It's like standing in front of the ocean & I have a cup & you have a bucket & you are talking about how much more of the ocean yours holds. It makes no difference.
Bitcoin is a broadcast network. The overwhelming majority of payments MUST be done on a unicast layer. This is not up for debate. It's just basic reality. Whether you understand it or not is your problem.
You still havent answered the question either
"So do you think there are only 20,000-50,000 or so Bitcoin users in the world right now?
If no, then why isn't even a fraction of them running a node right now? Why is Bitcoin considered to still be decentralized right now even though hardly any of them run a node? Not anywhere close to all users wants or needs to run a node for a network to avoid capture and be decentralized."
I don't want everyone to run a node, I want most to be able to run a node so that the ratio of users to node runners improves rather than gets worse.
BTC number go up people think its necessary to run a node on a $50 raspberry pie while paying $80 for a transaction.
Also who cares much about nodes when 12 entities control BTC mining and transaction templates?
Or that people can not self custody their coins because of way too high fees? Without that, BTC is worthless.