Topic: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion - page 19419. (Read 26610744 times)

Aroi mak mak ... 

Coin



Explanation

In order to have an informed position of the severity of the problem, yes.

But first, let me step back. I may have befuddled you with jargon, and jargon may differ from time to time and from place to place. But the concept is pretty simple, and I imagine you grasp it intuitively, if not intellectually by the jargon I employed.

In a two-dimensional plane, two lines that are not parallel will eventually intersect. This is a geometric mathematical law. Let us illustrate the concept with an example: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions



What we are looking at is a chart of the number of Bitcoin blockchain transactions per day, plotted against the time axis of the last year. While it is very noisy, we can see that the trend over this year interval is that the number of transactions is clearly rising.

If we wanted to, we could engage in a process called 'curve fitting', where we kind of average out the high-frequency highs and lows, to show more of the trend, and less of the day-to-day variation. Even a moving 7-day average filters out a lot of spikiness: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?showDataPoints=false×pan=&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&scale=0&address=



As we filter out the day-to-day noise, we get a curve that we can use to extrapolate into the future, to make educated assumptions about what is likely to happen to that quantity as time passes.

Let us now perform a curve fitting to a straight line - while this may not have great fidelity to the past, in the absence of additional info, it is about the best we can hope for as a prediction tool. Eyeballing the graph, we see that we have gone from 'about 90,000' transactions a day one year ago to 'about 180,000' transactions today now. Or roughly doubled in a year.

So let us mark a point today at 180,000, and another point one year ago at 90,000, and draw a straight line through these points.

So there is one of our non-parallel lines. For the other, we need a representation of the max transactions per day that can be processed, based upon the max block size. Today, that number is 'about 350,000'. A year ago, and in all the intervening time, that number is 'about 350,000'. Before that, dating back to the time the 1MB limit was put in place as a temporary DoS avoidance scheme (back when bitcoins were cheap as pennies, BTW), that number was 'about 350,000'.

To represent this on our graph, let us draw a mental line straight across from left to right at the level above the current graph, where 350,000 would be if we preserved the Y axis scale. This is our other non-parallel line.

So with the max block size fixed at 1MB, yielding a hard limit of 'about 350,000' transactions a day, we can project the slope of our actual transactions per day line into the future. We find that they intersect at a point somewhat less than a year away.


Look - I get that you're relatively new here. But rest assured we have been discussing this very issue for several years. Without that perspective in the rear view mirror, you may feel that the urgency is exaggerated. But to those of us who have been tracking this incipient problem for years, the situation does indeed appear dire.

The issue is that, once the lines intersect, growth is limited at the 'about 350,000' transactions a day level. The upward trending line of transactions a day flatlines - limited at the intersect to the system capacity. She can' take any more, cap'n'

You may claim that nearly a year is enough time to work things out. And that is the ~50% probability (assuming the 2x per year is a good curve fit). But those who have been around this for a while know that this animal seems to get adopted in fits and starts. If we had a proportional spike like we did in Jul, or in Sep, or in Dec, the system could not handle the volume. Period. No capacity whatsoever. If it was a spike, the backlog would eventually clear out. But how would the newcomers feel about their money being in limbo for a month? And what if it would have been Bitcoin's eternal September - we would kill all prospects of an explosion in adoption like the Internet experienced in 1993.

note: this is a napkin analysis. Quibbling on the actual numbers does not affect the outcome of 'we are indeed running out of time'.

And that is a fact.

There have been times when I had to wait for multiple full blocks before my transactions got included in one. The time from sending the transactions to getting six confirmations was hours, not an hour like it's supposed to take. At other times when the blocks weren't full and if I got lucky getting included in a block and getting six confirmations took less than an hour. The problem's already manifesting itself, but intermittently.

Up and down like a tart's knickers.

Coin



Explanation

O.k.  I will accept your representation.  Currently, we seem to be a long ways away from the "fact" that you are asserting to be coming about, and from my understanding, there are several potential bandaid solutions in place until a possible more permanent solution is agreed upon or implemented by coup de at... 

No.  I don't understand:  "non-parallel lines in a two-dimensional cartesian coordinate system."

Do I need to understand "non-parallel lines in a two-dimensional cartesian coordinate system" in order to express my opinion based on my perceptions and my experiences concerning things that I do know and my overall sense of what is going on in the bitcoin space?

I do not claim to know everything or to be infallible.

I also do not claim to be stuck in my ways.  So accordingly, if I perceive or receive sufficient evidence to cause me to change my opinion, I am not going to ignore such evidence and stick with my original belief.

At this point, I believe that the "emergency" is much exaggerated, and not as bit of a deal as it is being made out to be.  That does not mean that NO action need be taken now, but it likely means that we do not need to rush into a solution that is imposed without considering various alternatives. 

Also, I believe that I have asserted several times that there is (and probably should be) a certain amount of bias in favor of the status quo (especially if the system is mostly working), and accordingly, if there are going to be various changes away from the status quo, then the burden of proof and presentation is (and should be) upon those who are proposing to change the status quo...

Describing the situation as "an emergency" seems to be an attempt to cause undue pressure and burden upon the decision making process that is not necessary, especially when it is an exaggeration.

When blocks become persistently full, you will never be able to safely assume that a zero-conf transaction will ever get included in a block.

And that is a fact.

Do you understand the principle of non-parallel lines in a two-dimensional cartesian coordinate system?

Actually several years. We've been repeatedly pointing at the same stupid, unnecessary hard ceiling, and pointing out that the inexorable trend of increasing transactions has us on a clear intersect.

In the meantime, we have recently gone from things never sucking in regards to capacity, to things sucking for brief flashes of time. The issue is not how much one needs to pay to get a transaction through, the issue is that with the current block size, no more than about 350,000 transactions can be processed in a day. Period. No matter how much money is thrown at the transactions.

The miners will spin up as many nodes as are needed for the use of the miners. Compared to the cost of a viable mining operation, the cost of operating a node is lost in the noise.

Yes, users have the power to abandon the chain en masse. That is the only power users have. Non mining node operators (note: I would fit that description, so this is not meant as a mere insult) have zero-point-nothing power.

The power rests with the miners. They can do anything that does not cause the users to overwhelmingly abandon the chain.

Coin



Explanation

lol.

On a more serious note, in the background the devs are working on hard fork details.

Not long now.

Coin



Explanation

Yeah right. A rough estimate can be different from precise timing, and yep I agree that no one likes anyone who exaggerates.

I think that I tend to not worry whether it takes 15 minutes or an hour or perhaps a day in some instances for the bitcoins to actually be available because I tend to maintain a sufficient balance in Bitcoin and dollars to provide a bit of a cushion for possible volatility.   Therefore if I'm really worried about having some bitcoins locked up in one place for an extended period of time (more than 15 minutes, for example), I could sell an equal or proportionate amount of bitcoins in another place.

And, yep I can imagine instance in which the cushion of bitcoins would not  be there for me for one reason or another, or possible the amount of bitcoins in the pending transaction is really high, so it's more difficult to maintain a cushion or to sell somewhere else .

I suppose if I were dealing in some hypothetical situations in which I needed access to the bitcoins more quickly then I would need to measure more the amount of time more precisely for actual availability versus the bitcoins just showing up as "pending."


I also recognize that other people may experience other kinds of use cases that make it better to have actual access to the coins more quickly, and there are some people who do not operate their lives with various cushions in their finances, so they get a bit more anxious through either inadvertence or lack of preparations.

Are we on fork?


Or stop making shit up. That works too

Maybe I will have to measure more preciselyin the future to see how long it is taking in actuality- rather than a ruff estimate because surely I see the coins within a few minutes ( usually less than 5).

Thereafter the amount of time precisely hasn't been an issue for me because I'm not trying to move the coins a second time, but I will concede that I can imagine some possible transactions in which a person may want to move a second time within a short period and then timing would be more critical.

Well it could be that it take a little less in some instances or a little longer in other instances and I'm not really timing it or measuring precisely (even though I asserted less than 15 minutes in my earlier post).

Even if it takes an hour to finalize before I can use my coins (because I I think these days I need three confirmations to be able to use them), I haven't felt any significant delay because usually the transaction will show up with zero confirmations within 5 minutes or so then I can rest assured that it is coming to me.

 I find the overall transaction to be very quick even if it may take 5 minutes before it shows up and an hour or even less than a day to be able to use.  Surely there may be situations in which it's more urgent to get the coins, and no one would want to suffer currency volatility during the time of waiting to receive.

 Anyhow Banks tend to take a lot longer (usually at least a day and sometimes over a week - depending on the nature of the transaction).