Author: Jeff Garzik 2015-02-12 15:27:53
Published on: 2015-02-12T15:27:53+00:00
The thread at hand is contentious as it covers what Bitcoin should be, which is an opinion that varies from person to person. The goal of a universal payment system is a laudable one, but the fundamental engineering truths diverge from this misty goal: Bitcoin is a settlement system by design, and consensus takes time. As such, the blockchain can never support all transactions even if block size increases beyond 20 MB. Further layers are necessary if we want to achieve the goal of a decentralized payment network capable of supporting full global traffic. Bitcoin payments are irreversible and for larger value transfers, there is attendant risk of loss. Therefore proposals such as Oleg's are necessary to fully build out the Bitcoin system. It is foolish to think the entire world will connect directly to the P2P block network, and we must build decentralized layered solutions on top of Bitcoin rather than stuffing everything into Bitcoin itself. Miners are incentivized to maximize their return on investment, and making Bitcoin much less useful reduces demand for the Bitcoins they are mining, reducing coinbase and fee income in future blocks, quite possibly to the point where those miners are then making a loss. The scorched earth plan proposed by Peter would make unconfirmed payments useless and break Bitcoin to the point where it is no longer an interesting payment system for lots of people. Badly thought out and bad for Bitcoin.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T16:58:36.986426+00:00