Topic: With a clogged network, users will start abandoning BTC for alts. Change my mind - page 2. (Read 655 times)

What makes me think it's safe is because my funds are safe in it and I haven't had any issue using it for years now.

An analogy (May be it will drive the point deeper): That couples this day indulge different sexual positions while making babies and neglecting the missionary position hasn't taken away the effectiveness of the old missionary style adopted by our forebears while birthing our grandparents, and our grandparents while birthing our parents you know?  .

Each to what works for them. I am very comfortable with the BC wallet even to the point that I choose it over the Electrum wallet, any day any time.

Not when the average guy using BTC doesn't even know how LN works and so few people/companies are accepting it.. The main problem is currently sitting on the main layer - second-layer solutions aren't imo real solutions to those issues.

I had to find a way to use cryptocurrencies while allowing me to pay a cheaper price for my payments. In other words, I still have my BTC but they're kinda useless besides moving money without caring whether they're going to be confirmed today or within a month.

Then what makes you think that a wallet not implementing features that has been around for years is any good? Blockchain wallet might be safe but they're certainly not competent enough.

That's just people exchanging gold for cash to buy groceries.

If you want fast cheap transactions for everyday payments, you'll exchange bitcoin for alts. If you want to store value you'll buy/keep Bitcoin. I know this is not the p2p e-cash system original idea but Bitcoin is being successful as store of value and, according to Gresam's law, even if a solution like LN was really successful, people would still keep bitcoin and would use another less valuable alternative to spend.

locking up BTC to play a partner. in a game of joint bank account chequebooks in a millisat denomination.. is not continuing to own bitcoin

refuse to try out Lightning wallets

Not when the average guy using BTC doesn't even know how LN works and so few people/companies are accepting it.. The main problem is currently sitting on the main layer - second-layer solutions aren't imo real solutions to those issues.

Using a BC wallet is kind of old school, you know. However, the good side to me is that it's very safe. I don't think your perception of it is accurate that it isn't safe. I have been using BC for 4 years now and haven't had any issue with it.

I've been around the space for many years but I do not remember seeing the Bitcoin mempool this clogged ever before. It's becoming exhausting even for me to keep paying high fees. For example, due to the necessary fast confirmation, only in the past two months I have spent more than $200 in fees for a handful of txs.

Therefore, what I had to do is.. I had to find a way to use cryptocurrencies while allowing me to pay a cheaper price for my payments. In other words, I still have my BTC but they're kinda useless besides moving money without caring whether they're going to be confirmed today or within a month.

I've moved to alts, at least until the mempool unclogs. This is something I've never had to do before. The main issue I see is.. my partners have started asking me for altcoin addresses as well. They're moving off BTC too. The storage sizetrequirement for full nodes is quite high for the average person to afford running one.

With large billion-dollar companies investing in BTC and trying to turn it into a mainstream adoption, the network is only bound to continue clogging up. If that isn't enough, remember that billion-dollar companies can afford even exceedingly-high fees for their transactions. This means that the more companies join in, the less average Joes will afford to compete with them in fees since my $10/tx in fees is nothing for a Tesla-like brand. Putting it another way, this means the billionaires will continue to be able to use the network while your transactions might not get confirmed even within a week.

I'm in this situation right now. I have over 10 payments that I've sent with a previously decent fee (6-8sat/vbyte) that haven't been confirmed although it's been about two weeks ever since they've been broadcasted.

I'm still a Bitcoin fan - don't get me wrong. In fact, I'd absolutely love to be able to continue with BTC. But between having to pay under $0.1 and $15/tx (with only 1-2 inputs!) in fees, I'd obviously choose the former. Hence, especially since I do not consider myself to be living under poor (or under average) financial conditions, I really think people will be soon starting to steer away from BTC in favor of altcoins. The bad news if this happens? Even shitcoins might get more attention..

The even worse news: unless we change this, the network might make a lot of free space for corporations while we might have to move away. What we've once wanted to do, decentralizing the economy, will only be a possibility for the rich.

Therefore, as the title says.. with a clogged network, current (or future) Bitcoin users will start leaving Bitcoin for alts. Change my mind.

I've been around the times when BTC was $1k and I remember I had to pay around $5 for a $1k transfer. I might be wrong though, as it's a quite old memory (edit: and I wasn't using coin control at the time). As mentioned in the OP, I had to recently pay a quite large amount of money for a few transfers. This isn't something sustainable over the long-term (it barely was over the short one!).

And of what use is it if this is a continuous cycle? High fees, increasing number of BTC users => exodus of users, lowering fees => higher fees (..)

You probably afford more than the average person does, so you don't see the issue. I might afford to pay $200 for a handful of txs, but for others that is half a salary (or for countries like India, a few months worth of salary).

We can also talk about how retail traders that used to love Ethereum are moving into BSC. This is just proves what 20kevin20 is saying. It doesn't matter what coin is it. Users will leave if they find it inconvenient to use.

Nothing to change, altcoins like LTC and Doge are cheaper and faster with no network congestion.
Offchain networks like LN are only good for banks or multinational companies,
for normal people the only thing that makes sense is using an alt if you need to transfer onchain.

If you are on Coinbase, you can send bitcoin offchain to any other coinbase user with zero fees using their internal ledger.
But for onchain , like you already discovered alts are the only affordable way for the little guy.
  

I've been around the space for many years but I do not remember seeing the Bitcoin mempool this clogged ever before. It's becoming exhausting even for me to keep paying high fees. For example, due to the necessary fast confirmation, only in the past two months I have spent more than $200 in fees for a handful of txs.

Therefore, what I had to do is.. I had to find a way to use cryptocurrencies while allowing me to pay a cheaper price for my payments. In other words, I still have my BTC but they're kinda useless besides moving money without caring whether they're going to be confirmed today or within a month.

I've moved to alts, at least until the mempool unclogs. This is something I've never had to do before. The main issue I see is.. my partners have started asking me for altcoin addresses as well. They're moving off BTC too. The storage size requirement for full nodes is quite high for the average person to afford running one.

With large billion-dollar companies investing in BTC and trying to turn it into a mainstream adoption, the network is only bound to continue clogging up. If that isn't enough, remember that billion-dollar companies can afford even exceedingly-high fees for their transactions. This means that the more companies join in, the less average Joes will afford to compete with them in fees since my $10/tx in fees is nothing for a Tesla-like brand. Putting it another way, this means the billionaires will continue to be able to use the network while your transactions might not get confirmed even within a week.

I'm in this situation right now. I have over 10 payments that I've sent with a previously decent fee (6-8sat/vbyte) that haven't been confirmed although it's been about two weeks ever since they've been broadcasted.

I'm still a Bitcoin fan - don't get me wrong. In fact, I'd absolutely love to be able to continue with BTC. But between having to pay under $0.1 and $15/tx (with only 1-2 inputs!) in fees, I'd obviously choose the former. Hence, especially since I do not consider myself to be living under poor (or under average) financial conditions, I really think people will be soon starting to steer away from BTC in favor of altcoins. The bad news if this happens? Even shitcoins might get more attention..

The even worse news: unless we change this, the network might make a lot of free space for corporations while we might have to move away. What we've once wanted to do, decentralizing the economy, will only be a possibility for the rich.

Therefore, as the title says.. with a clogged network, current (or future) Bitcoin users will start leaving Bitcoin for alts. Change my mind.

I have never used blockchain wallet before, but I just downloaded it not quite long for testing, it does not support both native and nested segwit addresses, it is one of the wallets misleading people to pay high unnecessary fee. Although, it is one of the wallet not recommendable for use, also a web wallet which are most vulnerable to online attacks. For it not supporting segwit is also one of the good reasons this wallet should not be used.