Topic: Bitcoin Long-term Viability/Improvement Discussion (Read 4504 times)

That would be a very good idea. Trying to suggest improvements to something when you don't even know how it currently works is a rather silly idea.


You are mistaken.  Why did you think this?

The purpose of the difficulty adjustment is to maintain a ratio of 2016 blocks per fortnight. If blocks are generated too fast there are likely to be some issues due to the time it takes to propagate new blocks through the network.  If they aren't generated fast enough, then transactions that require confirmations take longer to receive those confirmations.  2016 blocks per fortnight was chosen as a reasonable compromise and difficulty adjusts to maintain this.  If total network hashpower were to drop (miners turn off their rigs due to reduced profitability) then the difficulty would decrease (which it has done in the past).


Then don't tell them that.  Let them figure that out for themselves after they already understand the usefulness.


Bitcoin won't be deleting old blocks from the blockchain.  They are necessary for the trust-less design.  Some nodes may be able to trim out the spent transactions leaving only transaction hashes, but miners and full nodes will most likely always need the full blockchain.

9 GB really isn't much to secure the most significant development in electronic currency. I have more than 9 GB of family photos on my computer.  I have more than 9 GB of RAM in my computer (meaning theoretically the entire blockchain should fit in RAM).  I just don't understand why people are so concerned about 9 GB of data.  Would it sound better if we said that it was only 0.009 Terabytes? How about if we just call it 0.000009 Petabytes?


It appears that there is more about bitcoin that you don't understand than just what a merkle root is. Heck, there's more about bitcoin that I don't understand.  For example, can you explain to me the communication protocol that is used to synchronize the blockchain between two clients that have differing blockchains?  Do clients request blocks/transactions from other clients or do they just sit around and wait for the blocks/transactions to be pushed? Bitcoin is a rather complex system, and to assume that you fully understand it is to set yourself up for confusion and false assumptions.

As for the merkle root:
The merkle root is the top hash in a merkle tree ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree ).

Sorry, posted that when I was half asleep and didn't think it through very much. In relation to Fastcoin the have a system that deletes blocks over a year old or something. When I said bloat have you seen the size lately it's like 9 GB or something, I feel sorry for those who run full clients (which until recently most people did). I did explain all about HashCash and the SHA256 stuff. I also told them that the difficulty increase is to maintain a ratio between between miners and non-miners. This reason they think scam is because, well, who got rich from bitcoin, early miners, and I know that, as with most things, the early adopters make the most money, but I think that many people think Mr. Satoshi only started it as a get rich quick model and immediately discount it as useless.

Also, the BetterInRealLifeThanBitcoinSorryNakamotoButYourCoinHasIssuesThisCoinIsBetterCoi n was made up when I was sleepy and sounds really cheesy now.

I try not to be a troll and your "should know better than to feed the trolls" advice is good. One last thing, I get everything about bitcoin except the "merkle root". Can someone explain this? Ok, I'm off to read that thing I should have read already, you know, the bitcoin whitepaper.


!!!!Must stop acting like a troll!!!!

Why would they think scam?  Perhaps they need to better understand how a Proof-of-Work system functions.  Make sure you explain that before moving on to difficulty next time.


Explain what you mean by bloat.  The blockchain is performing a necessary function.  There isn't much "bloat" in there.  Pretty much everything stored in the blockchain is necessary for the operation of the miners and full nodes.


I don't know anything about FastCoin, so I can't tell you if any features of it will be implemented in Bitcoin.  I thought this was going to be a bitcoin discussion, not a FastCoin discussion.  When you understand which features of FastCash you want implemented in Bitcoin, come back and explain so we can have a discussion about it.


No.


Other?  You haven't suggested or asked about any improvements yet.  Lets find one improvement first, then we can talk about "others".


What?

These are all really basic questions which have been asked and answered here many times before... some of them have their own sections in the original Bitcoin whitepaper. Please search for a bit before creating a new thread asking the same things over again.

Hey Guys,

So the other day I tried to explain Bitcoin to someone and ... that went well ... not ... All I have achieved is a brand-new Bitcoin Skeptic\Scam-thinker. So I would like to discuss a few things.

1. Difficulty increase - I understand this but people think scam at the first mention of this.
2. Blockchain -  Blockchain bloat (not just *cough* SatoshiDice *cough* but normal transactions too), firstly how does FastCoin work? Someone mentioned that this was going to be implemented in Bitcoin soon.
3. Is there a way to verifiably confirm the location of coins without needing all the blocks?
4. Any other bitcoin improvements.

Probably other things but this is just a starting point for BetterInRealLifeThanBitcoinSorryNakamotoButYourCoinHasIssuesThisCoinIsBetterCoi n.