Topic: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion - page 19192. (Read 26608802 times)

Why Bitcoin's Decentralization Matters

Bitcoiners, from Bitcoin Core developers to long-time Bitcoin enthusiasts to recent /r/Bitcoin discoverers, love to talk about how Bitcoin’s decentralization is its ultimate feature. Rarely, however, do you see anyone explain why decentralization matters - surely it’s an interesting property from a computer science perspective, but why should consumers, businesses or investors care? This post is an attempt to write out why decentralization is foundational to Bitcoin’s utility ...

Adam told you it wasn't. Close to a month ago, but don't mention that,
'Course (iirc) he also offered a fix for the issue, but don't mention that.

Yep, better to see if the angry mob can be used to fuck with the price a bit more. /s

Thanks, I missed it earlier. Very good write up.

Finally, I got the results of all three of my low quantity bitcoin/blockchain transactions of a little over $1.  
Each of these transactions were sent about 11 hours ago, via blockchain.info wallet to a local bitcoins wallet.

Results as follows from highest to lowest fees:

1)  Amount sent  $1.06  (.0025  BTC)       I Manually added Fee .0001 BTC ($.04) (.0001 BTC per kilobyte)  (fee % = 3.77358%)
- Immediately viewable on receiving end w 0 confirmations/ available for use (3 confirmations) after 1 hour / 12 minutes.

2)  Amount sent  $1.20 (.002855 BTC)       I Manually added Fee  .000025 BTC ($.01) (.000025 BTC per kilobyte)    (fee % = 0.833333%)
- Immediately viewable on receiving end w 0 confirmations / available for use (3 confirmations) after 7 hours / 11 minutes.

3) Amount sent    $1.00 (.00236  BTC)      I Manually added Fee  .00001 BTC ($.004) (.00001 BTC per kilobyte)  (fee % = 0.4%)
- Was never viewable on receiving end until after completely received / available for use (3 confirmations) after 9 hours / 21 minutes.


I would consider each of these three transaction to be near micro transactions, and the fastest one was a bit over an hour with nearly a 4% fee added and the slowest low fee one (was nearly free, and probably I could have eliminated the fee completely) of less than a 0.4% fee was still finalized and completely and irreversibly settled in less than 10 hours.  During a time that the blocks were supposedly nearly full all day (and blockchain.info charts were showing an average blocksize of about 85% full - which is about the highest ever for the whole history of bitcoin (interesting given the likely additional spam being pumped into the blockchain with various free transactions on an ongoing basis)......

Yes, a bit nerve racking to wait for final confirmation for nearly half a day and to be able to use the coins, but still pretty decent settlement and manageable for such a low cost and low amount transactions, no?  

Surely, there are some downsides to irreversibility and owning mistakes (if they are made); however, even during this contentious "full blocks" period, these results seem to be pretty decent for beating the fees and the speed of the settlements of my bank transactions, with 24/7 useage and also international (maybe even intergalactical, once communication channels are improved?).

Why Bitcoin's Decentralization Matters

Bitcoiners, from Bitcoin Core developers to long-time Bitcoin enthusiasts to recent /r/Bitcoin discoverers, love to talk about how Bitcoin’s decentralization is its ultimate feature. Rarely, however, do you see anyone explain why decentralization matters - surely it’s an interesting property from a computer science perspective, but why should consumers, businesses or investors care? This post is an attempt to write out why decentralization is foundational to Bitcoin’s utility and, somewhat more importantly, set up future posts talking about when it isn’t.

what about mexicans ??

I can't believe I even have to say this but I do not hate the Chinese. I hate single party currency-manipulating governments with a sketchy understanding and respect for property rights and free speech.

Canadians, OTOH...

Plaid-wearing moosehumpers.

^Would be a fine addition to my Eliot Harmonic Resonance Integrator & Stand-Alone Technical Analyzer.
How much?

Maybe Nxt, Peercoin certainly isn't. But those tiny shitcoins don't prove much.

It needs to be proven to handle large economic actors as well as a large number of users and large numbers of bad actors.

Ethereum is interesting in that it's not a currency, so a double spend or similar won't fundamentally harm its raison d'être.

That way they can afford to risk running an unproven technology like this, whereas Bitcoin can't.

Have there been any examples of PoS coins running in a true decentralized way?