Author: Adam Ritter 2014-04-24 14:52:14
Published on: 2014-04-24T14:52:14+00:00
The sender of an email suggests creating a centralized version of Bitcoin for ultra-fast payments. The idea involves holding $5 of money at Apple, Google, VISA, Mastercard or BitPay and creating a standardized API for companies to compete in price. With all addresses kept on SSDs and 6x replication, it should be possible to ask for 1 cent/address month and 1 cent/transaction. However, Gregory Maxwell responds that large scale consensus can't provide instantly irreversible transactions directly, and increasing block speed can't help past the point where the time starts getting close to the network diameter. There is no silver bullet that gives something identical to what a centralized service can offer without invoking centralization. Other chains with different parameters could achieve a different tradeoff, which may better suit low value retail transactions. A choice of tradeoffs could be useful, but there would still be some level of centralization involved.
Updated on: 2023-06-08T21:16:28.844253+00:00