Topic: How can we make Bitcoin simpler? - page 2. (Read 810 times)

Thought this was an issue too.  But realistically you only need around a day or two of research and you get the basics plus a few extras very well.  Bitcoin is not that hard to understand.  If anything, it is harder maybe to learn maths or a hobby than to learn basic functions of Bitcoin.

I think it is about interest.  People do not care and are not interested.  Who ever is interested learns quickly.  More over.  The more years pass, the more familiar people will be with Bitcoin so the easier it gets to learn about it.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

This won't achieve anything. If you try to send to an invalid address, the network will already reject your transaction. And if you are sending to a valid but malicious address, then simply checking the address exists won't save you.

Vanity generators can brute force 6 characters very easily. You should double check the entire address.

There exists malware which can alter the contents of a QR code. You should still double check everything manually.

Then either use your hardware wallet with Electrum and not with their native software, or buy a bitcoin only hardware wallet.

I hope that Core continues to make it more simple for users because I am concerned. Hardware wallets now are trying to accept as many shit coins as possible and it complicates the process of storing Bitcoin and a lot of hardware wallets have a exchange built in and I do not like that. I just want a hardware wallet that stores my Bitcoin without being advertised their exchange service.

here a idea in my head, maybe it is also available or it may not possible ,
idea :
anyone can build a software which will check they address by searching somewhere if it address exit or not,

2. cross checking will help lot of times, in my case copy pasting works better and i transacted many many times but not faced issue , i cross check 2 to 3 times ,
and double check first 3 and last 3 letter of address,

3. sending by scanning qr code is very easy and beginner friendly it never make mistakes ,

I agree that new users will not need to know the history of btc or what scripts were used in the past but do you think the software for Bitcoin will get more complex or user friendly? We should be aiming to make it as user friendly as possible.

This is a problem though right? The more complex we make Bitcoin the less people who will adopt it. I do not want to see Bitcoin become a currency only used by computer programmers or people with degrees I want it to be inclusive but most people are not willing to research new technology and prefer to be spoon fed and we might need to be prepared to spoon feed them if we want more adoption.

I agree with you, but most people don't. Most people have no interest in understanding that fiat banking is a giant scam - all they want is to type in their PIN and make the transaction. Most people have no interest in understanding the basics about car maintenance - they are quite happy to fork out a hundred bucks for a simple issue they could fix themselves at home in 15 minutes. Most people have no interest in understanding how to read the mempool or how to use RBF - they just want to make their transaction and be done with it.

I do of course think it is worthwhile learning about change addresses, RBF, proper wallet management, proper fee selection, and so on. But that is not the discussion at hand. The discussion at hand is how to make bitcoin as simple as possible. And just as I can use a credit card without understanding the fees involved, the clearing process, the settlement process, and so on, someone can make a bitcoin transaction without understanding the fees involved, RBF, change addresses, and so on.

It's not the best method by any means, but it is certainly as simple as it can get. Paste an address, type in an amount, pay.

It's not nearly as complicated as you might think, because it's just that there is an option to increase (bump) the fee for your transaction in case you set too low a fee and the transaction got stuck because the mempool found itself under a much higher load than it was that was the case when you sent the transaction. In that case, you will simply select RBF (replace by fee), enter a new fee and broadcast your transaction - and the miners will confirm the new transaction before the old one, which becomes worthless.

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I am more in favor of the approach that if you want to do something, do it the right way, because you will save yourself a lot of time later. Many times using Electrum, I experienced that the wallet itself offers a fee that is not quite in line with what mempool shows, and I think there was also a discussion on that topic in the Electrum board. That's where you're in trouble, because if you made a transaction with a low fee and you don't know about RBF, you'll think that Bitcoin is slow or you'll panic and come to the forum to ask why the transaction got stuck.

I may have an approach that is not the simplest, but some people later thanked me because they understood much better how Bitcoin works and of course they pass that knowledge on to others.

Explaining those terms to someone close to us is more like a discussion class. They can throw such easy questions often, which can be explained to them without wasting much time or referring them to an article that can distill the term down to their understanding. Even though the person cannot read to understand, carrying out the actions practically in front of them can ease their stress. Unless the person is far away then it may not be necessary, just follow the normal routine as you pointed out. But, if he's a neighbor, family member (old), or flatmate; those we have daily facial interaction with, explaining those terms is indeed simple and necessary.

You don't need to explain most of those things. A person does not need to know what a change address is - a good wallet will take care of this for them. They should have some awareness of the fee, but again, a good wallet will pick an appropriate fee. They definitely don't need to know what RBF is, and many people still don't. Sure, it is good to learn about all these things, but if you are looking to keep things as simple as possible then they are not absolutely necessary in order to make a transaction. Paste in an address, double check it, choose how much you want to send, confirm. That's all that is absolutely necessary in order to make a transaction.

There are a couple of merchants I use who offer a discount of a few percent (the highest goes up to 10%) for paying with bitcoin, presumably exactly because they can avoid the credit card company taking a cut of every transaction.

Interesting concept.


I partially agree. You could still deprecate complexity that can be implemented in a separate layer and make it invalid after a certain block depth. Older blocks still need to be verifiable, but the removed complexity will be static at this point, so the logic needed to verify it doesn't need to have a first-class seat in the codebase. Not an incredibly aesthetic approach, but maybe better than having to start a completely new blockchain.


Yes, although exciting things are being done on Ethereum, the seemingly lacking sense of proportion when it comes to adding complexity is one of the things that makes me sceptical about it. Apart from the decision to remove the consensus algorithm.


Exactly. It's a pity that there don't seem to be any legit smart contract platforms layered on the top of Bitcoin.

Make it an official currency, so that people will be attracted to it, then it will be easier, I think

I think you understand. Bitcoin is alien to every one when they 1st start and because it is difficult and not like a normal bank they could be put off by it and not use Bitcoin. I do not think addresses are a good way of explaining something because when I 1st used Btc I thought it was a location or it was stored somewhere. I have explained it to friends that thought the same and were confused that it is like a bank account number and they understood better. RBF is very hard to understand and I am not sure I understand it all now.

I think there are a lot of complicated things in Bitcoin that are not in normal money systems and it can lead to less adoption because people are scared that it is complex and they have to host their own money and not be protected by a bank. I think if we can make it simpler it would increase adoption and decrease the worries new people have.

Another obstacle is fees. People don't realize fees in electronic fiat in the same way they do in Bitcoin. In Bitcoin, fees are direct. You make a transaction, you set the fee, you have a pretty clear understanding of where this fee goes, and the like. In fiat, there is usually no fee projected. The merchant has agreed with the credit card company to pay the fee, but this fee isn't apparent from a customer's point of view. The average customer doesn't know that there is a fee, but there is. And the funny part is that whether you pay with credit card or with cash the price is the same; obviously, it's not in favor of the merchant to have different prices with different payment methods, so it gets more complicated, and cash users pay part of that extra credit company cost too.

Backup is only part of what we are talking about, and that part is of course not too demanding, unless you are going to explain to someone how those 12 or 24 words have a backup function at all - because 99% of people think that words are just words, and yet it is a visual presentation of something much more complex.

On the other hand, try to put yourself in the position of someone who installed a wallet, had a backup and now wants to learn how to make transactions. You have to explain to that person what a public address is, what a change address is, what clipboard malware is, what a fee is and how to set it up correctly, what RBF is and how to use it in case the transaction gets stuck... In addition, if the wallet is not localized in a language that the person understands, you only have one more problem on top of everything else.

I don't see how using Bitcoin can be simpler than it is now, but let's be honest, it's not for anyone no matter how hard we try to make it.

This is the simplest explanation of the discussion of this topic. Indeed, if a person knows how to read, given that he understands what he reads, knows how to be attentive and accurate, and is not a user who has just discovered the Internet but knows how to surf the net in order to find the right information, difficulties in mastering information about bitcoin and its storage should not be an issue.
If we talk about the elderly, then it is somewhat more complicated, given their age, memory, attention, and again, their ability to use digital devices. Well, we can say that attention and responsibility should always be present in our lives, so it will not be a problem for older people if they have someone nearby who can explain everything to them in an accessible and understandable way.

What about Bitcoin do you think that it could get more complex and that could be the down side for Bitcoin which stunts growth? Altcoins tend to put worthless features in a lot that make it more complex and not adding much to the functionality. Bitcoin does not do that and only adds features which revolutionize the currency like segwit etc.

I think BlackHatCoiner is onto something. Accessibility is probably what we lack, trying to get started into Bitcoin is pretty hard because a quick search via your favourite search engine could send you to an array of different sources, all varying in terms of accuracy.

Obviously, we have some decent documentation out there, however I don't think it's dominating the search results too much, and it's usually news, and sensationalist websites about Bitcoin that actually occupy the top spots, which is a little troublesome.

Given enough time, Bitcoin is probably just as easy as fiat currencies, it's starting off that is the problem. Whereas, fiat currencies are taught in school; Bitcoin is pretty much self learnt. Even if the documentation is readily available, and somewhat easy to find it's then the difficulty of convincing people to self learn something.

You have to define what's simple. Bitcoin is very simple to me. You download a lightweight wallet, generate a seed phrase, write it down, and you can now send money overseas via the Internet, with an easily accessible backup. The backup isn't even some complex series of numbers, it's just 12 words. It literally doesn't go more simple than that.

What you're trying to figure out is how we make Bitcoin more accessible. In my opinion, more responsibility and education is all we need.

The only coin focussed on simplicity seems to be Grin [1].

The biggest simplification relative to Bitcoin is the absence of script. Yet nearly all commonly used script functionality is still available through "scriptless scripts".

The problem with complexity in the consensus model is that once you have accumulated some, you can never get rid of it, as it will always be needed to verify past history. So a blockchain's complexity can only increase over time. In that sense no blockchain can be made simpler.

Odds are that something like Ethereum will be so complex in a century that no-one can understand all of it (some would argue that's already the case right now:-).

That also means that the best way to improve functionality is outside of the consensus model. Lightning is a great example of that.

[1] https://np.reddit.com/r/CryptoTechnology/comments/kyhgcv/are_there_any_public_cryptocurrencyblockchain