Topic: Limitations or scalability issues with the Bitcoin network (Read 290 times)

Environmental impact is not an issue that requires an immediate solution, it has just been made and shown as a big problem by the governments and authorities because they don't want Bitcoin to prosper and grow, so they will do their best to stop the adoption and development of it. Otherwise, there are bigger industries than this, and they use way more computational power and consume way more energy than the Bitcoin network but they are never mentioned.

So, the issue that is mentioned on every forum and spread everywhere by officials and government institutions, it is not an issue but it has been made an issue just to make the general public think that Bitcoin is creating problems for the world or the environment or that it's affecting ozone layer, etc.

   Bitcoin scalability is the lowest amount at which Bitcoin network is being able to manage and control large quantity of transaction data within a short period of time on its platform,it is associated with the records of Bitcoin blockchain which are  limited in size and frequency , the Bitcoin network has the transaction in the block when it has been verified, and verification has to take place in the decentralized system among each node for every transaction.
    Only few numbers of transaction within a short period of time that the Bitcoin network can process like one block . The reduction of the block size acts significantly on Bitcoin scalability, because it will be made known the maximum quantity of data which will be added in  a single block and when you increase the size of the block limit can make the transaction better throughput and reduce congestion but also make the storage to be high and need the capacity  for data transfer on an electronic communication to run a full node.

   The scalability of Bitcoin challenge comes as the network increase and deals with more transaction giving rise to higher fees.

Bitcoin community is not actively working on addressing these challenges, we couldn't even deal with the simplest problem, to kill bitcoin ordinals. There is a bug in the code that allows people to create NFTs on Bitcoin blockchain and it skyrocketed fees.
I think that Bitcoin Community is very conservative, if we don't fix that, then we aren't going to be a competitive in the near future because Bitcoin today has many limitation for widespread usage. So, I don't agree with your opinion, community is very shy to talk about problems but it needs to be fixed.

i would suggest to clarify, miners that just use grid electric cannot be blamed.. instead its the power plants allowed to be on the grid that are to be blamed. grid users have no voting rights of the grid, they are just receivers/customers

but if there are a couple asic farm that bought land that has its own fossil fuel generators(on-site) then they can be blamed for purposefully using fossil generated electric. thy chose to buy fossil power plants as their source.. emphasis only a few asic farms. not a majority

most asic farms however actually have previously set up their asic farms in zones known to be powered by green energy(hydro, nuclear) so many do try to avoid fossil zone power that goes to the grid, although it does require asic farms moving to these prefered zones.

in short people mining from home states, where they cant afford the extra effort for moving to greener zones cant be blamed, but those that can afford to move to greener zones should be applauded for that effort


green energy has huge initial infrastructure costs to have power plants that are effective at covering future growth demands for decades. and so have alot of untapped excess initially yet to be used, but available to cover the progress of population growth over decades.

by asic farms tapping into this excess means it helps fund that initial infrastructure earlier than expected, thus reducing the cost over time. so by allowing asics to take up this untapped excess helps not just the environment, but the progress of expanding greener energy and making it cheaper for other too sooner

OP, why do I feel that your generic forum post has been copied from somewhere?
The so called "environmental impact" of BTC mining has nothing to do with BTC mining. The BTC miners cannot be blamed for consuming electricity, which is was produced by burning coal. The "negative environmental impact" of BTC mining would be zero, if all BTC miners start buying and consuming "green energy" only. Green energy is getting cheaper year after year.
Yes, the BTC blockchain can't handle the same amount of transactions as the fiat payment systems. And so what? Bitcoin will keep serving as a "digital gold" rather than a digital currency. I don't see this as a problem. You have alternatives. Use them instead of BTC.

Well, tell that to the industrialists that are profiting off the destruction of the environment, that's probably the only way that they can make money and they don't have any kind of plans to ever go sustainable despite them telling you that they'll do it eventually. I feel like a lot of media outlets have stopped blaming bitcoin mining though, I haven't seen a lot of big news stories in a while about the climate change and the global warming being attributed to the mining operations. Also we can't really all directly challenge these big polluters of the environment because doing so would disrupt global trade and since there's a lot of products that are reproduced in those countries, the price of goods will definitely be skyrocketing, of course I'm talking about China.

not true
LN allows the ability to set up channels unfunded. and users given "inbound balance" not funded/controlled by the user
(this is a security risk for those unaware of the flaws of LN that are recruited into using it but not realise what they are getting)
(though some advocates call it a 'rented channel' feature rather then a flaw.. (they dont want people talking about how such can be abused))

yes smarter people can honourably lock up their own coin and create a channel and then hope said channel has a good cheap path to all possible destinations it wants. but usually find out they need to open 3-4 channels to get best chance of routing. and best chance of low fee paths
whereby when locking coins to use LN does come with onchain fee's thus they have to pre-plan spending expectations of long term locks to make it a viable method to save on fee's.. EG you cant jsut lock make a payment and unlock to save on fee's you actually end up paying 2x-4x .. instead you need to plan to lock, negotiate the best positioned/ propositioned partner. and stay with them for a period of atleast several payment needs just to break even compared to onchain fees

LN also suffers the liquidity bottleneck problem where 'payment success' rates are not guaranteed and only small amounts have higher chance, so its not even suitable for all people even if the LN network was to act honourably

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i do stil laugh when i see LN advocates scream that bitcoin should not be used for peoples coffee/pizza payments (values that could then be consolidated and moved on). but also state that junk meme transactions leaving 330sat unspendable sat utxo's should not be stopped from being used on the bitcoin network. its hilarious to watch them promote they want bitcoin to be annoying to use for actual spending of goods and services..  just to promote their other networks as solutions to the annoyances they want to create for bitcoiners, whereby their prefered subnetwork has more flaws and issues

Payments through Lightning Network is off-chain but before being able to use off-chain payment channel, people will have to make an on-chain transaction to open a Lightning Network channel.

It is a big disadvantage for people will small bitcoin amount and are not afford to use on-chain transactions when fee rate is high and expensive.

If they don't want to pay expensive on-chain transaction fee, just to open a Lightning Network channel, they will have to store their bitcoins on centralized platforms that support Lightning Network. However, this practice is risky and not recommendable.

Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts

i see many people promoting LN without understanding LN..
LN is not a solution. even the LN devs admit to its flaws, bugs and issues.

LN payments are not even the same(unsettled and can be replaced/lost/tricked, dropped) as bitcoin unconfirmed transactions. LN payments are far more easily(unsettled and can be replaced/lost/tricked, dropped) than unconfirmed bitcoin transactions that relay around the actual bitcoin network

bitcoin USED TO (before RBF) be used where people could make unconfirmed payments to someone on the bitcoin network and it was deemed as a payment waiting to be settled in next 10mins-hour(but RBF made onchain unconfirmed payments less trusted than previously (purposefully))
LN system is unconfirmed payments that MIGHT settle in 1 month-1 year. (co-operative close session)

LN liquidity has sat at around 5000btc for years... now compare that to blackrock that went from 100btc to 87,000 btc in a month
more people prefer to play with shares than msats

LN's flaws have caused it to not adopt huge userbase of self controlled funding allocation.. the node count and liquidity numbers have not shown progressive growth in years, instead its the same big hub businesses sitting idle with THEIR locked value offering channel rented balance to its customers. thus not really a network of individual control of real bitcoin value

remember. if your not the keyholder of the funding lock of coins confirmed on the bitcoin network... they are not your coins
majority of LN users are not people that carry around a fullnode. they are renters of hub services 'inbound balance' which is what is deemed IOU unsettled balance, rather then value owned/given to the user

I think it's a rather concerning issue because LN doesn't replace on-chain BTC, you can't track LN transactions on blockchain explorer, you can't safeguard your funds with one single key or a seed and if something bad happens to your wallet or your device funds lock in channels won't be able to be accessible anymore.

BTC tx's are not instant, but it is safe. BTC blocks are found ~ 10 minutes on average and once a block has at least 1 confirmation it becomes irreversible, however in other networks or centralized systems that are almost instant, tx's remain reversible after a very long time, and those who control such networks can reverse tx's and confiscate funds.
The BTC community is not exploring an option like this, BTC would never switch from pow to pos.

Bitcoin's got a hiccup with handling transactions quickly, causing delays and pricier fees when things get busy. The lightning network is like its superhero sidekick, swooping in to speed up and cheapen transactions by doing some off chain magic. But Bitcoin mining's a bit of an energy guzzler, making it not-so-eco-friendly. But the Bitcoin gang is hustling to find greener alternatives and make things more efficient. They're exploring stuff like proof of stake and pushing for miners to go green all in the name of a better, faster and more eco conscious Bitcoin network

If you want to have faster transaction speed, use altcoins but their blockchains are smaller in total hash rates or more vulnerable to smart contract exploitations.

If you want security, use Bitcoin and accept slower transaction time but let's say you will surely get more security for your on-chain transactions. Asking Bitcoin developers to change the protocol, community to vote yes on it, to make Bitcoin blockchain less secured like altcoin blockchains is bad proposal.

Bitcoin Mining Industry consumes less energy than other industries and it uses more renewable energy resources than other industries and nations too.

If anyone tell you Bitcoin mining industry has a big threat for global environment, they tell you fud.

Debunking the "Bitcoin is an environmental disaster" argument
https://endthefud.org/energy

Lightning Network shows the community's proactive scaling approach. Its a unique move to reduce congestion and fees by decoupling minor payments from direct on-chain transactions.

Environmental rhetoric is sometimes simplistic. Although energy-intensive, Bitcoin mining spurs the implementation of sustainable energy solutions in the mining industry. The discourse should shift from criticism to sustainable Bitcoin growth and environmental solutions. My prediction is that Bitcoin mining will become greener as technology advances and society demands cleaner energy.

My optimism-realism perspective shows that Bitcoin's issues are non-trivial but not insurmountable. Innovation, community consensus, and balancing scalability and environmental considerations are crucial.

But isn't it now some way better than it was back then, i don't think scalability should be a thing of problem anymore like before when theres bitcoin lightning network that deals and handles such, in case you don't know.



you're just taking yourself a bit backward on what has already been dealt with, almost eevryone knows about this, then why bringing it up again, thortology?.


Bitcoin is not environmentally unfriendly on us, read more from this.

debunking bitcoin energy in mining bitcoin by fillippone
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.56613804

That's because it is. I just checked two AI detectors, and both returned 100% score.

I admit the transaction issues arise due to limitations, and transaction fees become high when the network is congested. But the environmental issue was just raised by haters. There are a lot of power consumption sectors where no one is talking, even though they pollute the environment. But they talk about Bitcoin, which uses less power and causes less environmental pollution. However, it would be solved by using renewable power sources, which is happening. But developers should find a solution for the transaction issue outside of the lightning network. Due to the complex system, not many consumers want to use the Bitcoin lightning network.

OP, those aren't problems with Bitcoin, they are just facts about how Bitcoin works.

Low scalability on the blockchain, that's what higher layers are for (as you mentioned).

Bitcoin mining consuming lots of energy, yeah that's literally just how it works, and that is never changing, and nobody who understands how Bitcoin works would want it to change because it is VERY powerful. This isn't something that needs solving. For many years a lot of mining has already used renewables, and the mining industry should be pushing itself of course to keep using a higher and higher percent of renewables. But that has nothing to do with Bitcoin itself, that has to do with the operators of mining machines. And there are plenty of people in the world who simply don't care about climate change because they are small, short term, naive thinkers, and of course some of them are going to exist in the Bitcoin mining industry. Hopefully the industry keeps pushing itself toward more renewables and hopefully the govt instead of just saying "mining is bad" or "energy use is bad" (which is of course preposterous) starts looking into how they can work with the mining industry to help it more ever more to renewables and only use energy that doesn't disrupt consumers. But any energy issues has nothing to do with the Bitcoin network itself. It's an external issue.

Tbh, it sounds like chatgpt or any AI text when you read it. I felt it was AI generated when I read it too so you should take it easy with the all caps. Also, The issues mentioned in OP have been discussed here on the forum thousands of times — Bitcoin is not scalable (yet) and transaction fees are on the high side and some times, the highest.

You should add more flow to your content next time so that it wouldn't be flagged easily as an AI generated content.

Limitations or scalability issues with the Bitcoin network


ChatGPT
The Bitcoin network faces several limitations and scalability issues:

(*Transaction Throughput: Bitcoin's block size limit restricts the number of transactions the network can process per block, leading to congestion during times of high demand.
Transaction Fees: Congestion often results in higher transaction fees as users compete for space in blocks, making small transactions less economical.
Confirmation Times: As the network becomes congested, transaction confirmation times can increase, leading to delays in processing transactions.
Energy Consumption: Bitcoin mining requires significant computational power, leading to high energy consumption, which has environmental implications.
Centralization Concerns: The concentration of mining power in certain geographic regions or within a few large mining pools raises concerns about the decentralization of the network.
Layer 2 Solutions: While solutions like the Lightning Network aim to alleviate some of these scalability issues by enabling off-chain transactions, adoption and usability challenges remain.
Addressing these limitations requires ongoing research and development efforts within the Bitcoin community to improve scalability while maintaining the network's security and decentralization principles)* THIS IS CHAT GTP, DO PROPER FINDINGS BEFORE TRYING TO IMPLICATE SOMEONE

What we think about what? ChatGPT? It is impressive!

bitcoin miners do not generate energy. they generate sha256 hashes
they use energy, but that energy is generated by power stations

its the power stations that should be instructed to improve
i as a user of electric have no power/control/voting rights of how my power is generated. i jsut use what the grid provides. so its the grid that needs investigating and blaming

..
its much like politicians blame people for using grocery bags.. um.. no go complain to the plastics factory that make the grocery bags. go to the oil refineries that sell processed sludge into plastics.. go to the oil fields that sell oil to oil refineries

users can only use whats available.. so go to the source. change the source, problem solved

..
its much like governments allow money printing and cause the national debt.. but then stupidly pretend its the peoples debt
um no. i dont do credit cards or mortgages i have no debts thank you so dont blame me.. go to the source of who created the national debt

Realistically speaking, it is troubling that people think that bitcoin mining has an impact on the environmental when in fact, the real environment impact of the energy it costs in printing the dollar, euros and yuan from is a cause for concern from physical materials. But then no one is saying anything about that. Everyone(Fed) is turned to bitcoin, the orphaned child with no one to speak for her.  If you doubt this and want to know more, read this article - Here’s the one currency worse for the environment than bitcoin
Less and less bitcoin is being mined per day but more energy is expended in mining gold, silver and other precious metals including those of the already mentioned currencies.

transactions per block are not a technical limit of physics, nor cost essentially.. its more of a developers politics decision

electric usage is actually more efficient per has each year..

electric generation is more of geo politics of energy companies and politicans plans and budget, not the fault of bitcoin
there are only 2.5m devices around the world powering the security insurance of the blocks confirmation strength

EV cars are a less stable, less controllable utility of the national grids source and utility of electric, and there are more EV's

People are the problem themselves. The world has been the hottest this year while bitcoin miners are producing less carbon dioxide than what critics depicted about bitcoin in comparison with the total gases release to the environment that can cause global warming from tiger human activities. The reason the world is getting warmer day after day is not because of bitcoin mining but because of how the world are generating electricity, industrial chemicals released to the environment, deforestation and transport emissions of the gasses that can cause global warming.

One of the main challenges is the transaction processing capacity. Currently, the Bitcoin network can handle a limited number of transactions per second, which can result in delays and higher fees during periods of high demand. This limitation has led to the development of solutions like the Lightning Network, which aims to improve scalability by enabling faster and cheaper off-chain transactions. Another challenge is the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining. The process of mining requires a significant amount of computational power and energy consumption, which can have negative implications for the environment. However, it's important to note that the Bitcoin community is continuously working on addressing these challenges to enhance the network's scalability and overall performance.what do you think?