Topic: What will happen with Bitcoin if it never scales? - page 19. (Read 11417 times)

This is impossible for a host of reasons

Unless you mean Bitcoin price freezing at the temperature of absolute zero, of course. The primary reason is that Bitcoin is a virtual asset which has no value of its own. Real assets can actually get stuck at a price which roughly corresponds their internal or intrinsic value (at the so called "fair price") and stay there indefinitely long (provided the currency they are priced in is as stable, indeed). But this is not the case with Bitcoin and its likes. This has a practical implication and application, so to speak. For example, when you see the price stuck at some level and start to think that it is not going to move anywhere from there. Obviously, this is no more than an example of being deceived by your psyche, and you can use this effect to your own advantage (since other people feel basically the same)

Because of the more advanced technologies to come, I think it is almost impossible for bitcoin to remain as the most valuable altcoin for ever. Even I am not so sure that any other current altcoin can displace bitcoin from its actual hegemony. But this revolutionary alternate economy is just starting to grow and I am convinced that amazing surprises are coming soon.

Bitcoin will stuck someday at some point of price, won't move up but keep fluctuate around the circle I think.
At current price, bitcoin will still has great movement, steady increase every month/year but people cannot use it just like we use fiat money if it isn't scalable right?
Maybe someday, another cryptocurrency which could be scalable will surpass bitcoin price and market cap. Whether this could be solved or not, only time will tell.

Yes, that seems to be their deliberate choice

Namely, try to postpone any solution for as long as possible since virtually any solution would make the fees they receive for confirming transactions to decline. That's why they are rogue. If I were them I would likely do essentially the same but since I'm not one of them I'm telling how rogue they are. But even if they succeed in their effort of putting grit in the machine, they are still shooting themselves in the foot over long term. Some day some coin which is not constrained by the mining monopoly will dethrone Bitcoin and then miners will have to walk home

And in some cases, even if you paid that much fees, your transaction will take more than half a day to be confirmed. I do not know how much more bitcoin users can take this. The more the miners delay the activation of any of the solution, the more damage it make to bitcoin.

Bitcoin will likely stagnate

And eventually a new Bitcoin will be born which will have these issues fixed (as well as a lot of others like PoW), with the old dying off eventually. Personally, I'm more curious why no one hasn't yet implemented instant payments in an altcoin. I heard that Dash was doing something like that but folks here quickly dispersed my suspicions. Litecoin was going for that too, but Wu and company seem to have halted this process as well

your comment does not make any sense at all!
if there is no scaling, and a lot of people adopt bitcoin "as a currency" they can not use it because there is simply no room for their transactions in a block. and the fees will continue to rise exactly because of this so your second statement is also wrong because there is a fee and that fee will continue to rise with more adoption and more competition for a place in a block!

Bitcoin will be adopted by all of people and the most important bitcoin will be considered as currency
many people use bitcoin for payment method because of there are not fees must be paid on every transaction
also there are not debate in all of comunity bitcoin because of block size problem.

I don't know, I just had a transaction for only 0.03 BTC that cost me 89000 sats in fees.    The problem is I have a lot of small transactions in my wallet and even small transfers take lots of bytes!   This is the kind of thing that could kill bitcoin!

David Rabahy already gave an answer, but I'll try mine.  In general, "scaling" has to do with a relationship between a "cost", C and a "scale" or "scope", S, which we can write as a function: C = f(S).  S can be "the number of customers", and C can be "the cost of the store handling them".  S can be "the number of bits of a secret key", and C can be "the amount of computing needed to crack the key".  S can be "the number of nodes in a network" and C can be "the cost of the network".  But it can also be "the average time it takes to connect two nodes".

The function "f" is determined by the type of solution one presents.  If one uses another technology, this function f changes.  
What matters in "scaling considerations" is the overall large scale dependence of f on S.  For instance, it can be "proportional", "quadratic", "exponential", "logarithmic", "sub-linear" ...

In bitcoin's example, the scope S can be the number of users, but usually, it is more the number of transactions ; C is the "cost" in terms of network bandwidth, block chain size, and so on.  Usual on-chain scaling is about linear.  That is, for twice as much transactions, you need twice as much bandwidth, block chain size, etc....

In fact, "linear scaling" is not dramatic at first sight.  

But in fact, if we think more about it, it is not really linear.  It is linear when seen from a single user.  But when seen from the total size of the network, in fact, the scaling is rather quadratic.  If we have N users, then we have most probably N/K full nodes, which, each of them, must carry a block chain and a network burden proportional to the chain, which is, itself, proportional to the number of transactions.  So the total cost of "more users and more transactions" is actually quadratic.  As it has to be carried by more users, the cost per user is linear.   But this is nevertheless a problem: the more bitcoin has adoption, the more expensive it is per user.  That's not the idea.  As such, people look for solutions where the cost of adoption is not quadratic for the whole network.

It seems that as such, decentralized block chain technology is capping itself to a certain adoption size, above which, it becomes too expensive to be used, or needs to decrease its network nodes to just a few who take all the burden (and can take all the decisions) -> centralization.

I completely agree. Bitcoin will never die because has network effect. That means has a big user base because people want it. Therefore, maybe people use some altcoins for everyday micro payments like as litecoin but most of their funds will be stored in bitcoin.

Folks have at least two views of scaling.

The one I am use to is where a function is measured to get work done at some rate and then after some change/improvement the function can then get more work done at a higher rate.  For example, a truck might be able to haul so many tons then some bright person gets the idea to hook a second trailer behind the first and double the rate.  Scaling like this comes at a price, e.g. miles per gallon, etc.  Scaling like this will have some physical limit, e.g. it may become dangerous to keep on attaching more and more trailers, etc.

Another view of scaling involves making a more subtle sort of change/improvement.  Instead of just increasing the capacity, the idea is to arrange to do the work with less effort.  Using our example, some bright person reengineers the things being hauled to be much smaller and lighter and so many more fit into the first trailer.

Nothing precludes taking advantage of both kinds of scaling.

I have seen occasions where folks dismiss the first sort of scaling although I have yet to find out what they term it.

can anyone expalin what scaling means plaese. thank you.

Yeah. That could happen at some point in the future, where a new alternative cryptocurrency would become designed with innovative features, and most of all, overcoming Bitcoin's current issues which are scalability and fungibility. If this new coin, would implement SegWit into its code when launched, have a limited supply like Bitcoin (or probably even less), and becomes fungible with anon features like ZK-SNARKs, then it may overcome Bitcoin in market cap ratings and popularity as it will be the most valuable cryptocurrency available on the markets.

Thus, having speed efficiency in processing transactions, implementing privacy over transactions, and having the ability to scale over time, is key towards having a successful cryptocurrency that would become used by the masses in the mainstream world.

Nevertheless, I'm hoping to see Bitcoin evolve and take a step further into becoming scalable, but if it doesn't, expect to see another altcoin which will take Bitcoin's lead. Just my opinion. 

One possibility is someone eventually developing a crypto coin which isn't a pre-mined cash grab that is good for everything bitcoin is not.

That could alleviate pressure off btc being a jack of all trades when it was designed to be a master of none.

It makes more sense for an alt coin designed for loans and high speed transactions being used for those purposes, rather than reinventing bitcoin into something it was never designed to be.

Agree. Even if Bitcoin doesn't get to scale, it will always be in the eyes of investors and everyday people, to be used as digital gold. Due to its limited supply, and deflationary nature, it may continue to rise in value the scarcer it gets.

Thus, Bitcoin would be used as a reserve currency for other cryptocurrencies, while altcoins take the lead in handling everyday transactions. We've already seen alternatives like like Bitshares and Ripple, which can handle more transaction throughput. It would only be a matter of time before people start using them more than Bitcoin itself for their daily transactions.

However, if Bitcoin comes at a consensus level among the miner's hashrate, then we could see a bright future for it. There are many proposed solutions to make Bitcoin scale, but only one shall prevail. When that time comes in, expect for BTC's value to increase exponentially. Just my opinion. 

Hmm,I guess it will still be in use and have fairly large volume but it won't be the success that it could have been and not so much people will be using it.Then other cryptos may  use BTC's popularity and take over

Bitcoin scalability has been one of the attracting motivations for its users among others.how can one imagine the value becoming imbalance especially negatively?
im sure it will be abandoned in that condition and will surely become obsolete.

That is one possible scenario. But it does not mean Bitcoin will die. It will always be there as a store of value. A kind of "digital gold" which is something how, most of the people who are hoarding it, see it anyway.

Huh? This is what you are calling a roadmap?  https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2015-December/011865.html