Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by erikpukinskis on Saturday December 09, 2017 @12:06PM (#15886695)

No, plenty of us have been saying this for a long time. Here is a HN post from 5 years ago where I say:

“even if it's only ever used for politically sensitive transactions, and it never takes off as a consumer payment service, it will be a very big economy” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5526684#5526972

The goalposts for Bitcoin have always just been “can it sustain its market cap?”

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by fragsworth on Saturday December 09, 2017 @12:31PM (#15886853)

Also it's not like everyone you see on the Internet is the same person.

Anyone who was hoping for it to replace credit cards didn't understand the system. Lots of other folks have known the limitations of Bitcoin for years and what we're seeing today was totally predictable.

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by pentae on Saturday December 09, 2017 @01:29PM (#15887192)

To be fair, becoming a quarter trillion dollar store of 'digital gold' is a hell of a pivot.

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by rescripting on Saturday December 09, 2017 @11:49AM (#15886595)

Does that matter? If you're looking to develop a drug to treat hypertension but end up with Viagra by accident instead, do you throw it away because that wasn't the original goal?

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by TimJYoung on Saturday December 09, 2017 @12:05PM (#15886690)

It certainly matters if you've still got a lot of people running around telling anyone that will listen that the drug is a sure-fire cure for hypertension.

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by raugustinus on Saturday December 09, 2017 @06:54PM (#15888875)

There's a lot of people in the world running around telling people all kinds of things.

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by rabidrat on Saturday December 09, 2017 @02:19PM (#15887507)

If the production of Viagra at scale winds up causing global health problems, then yes, you throw it away.

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by rescripting on Saturday December 09, 2017 @04:51PM (#15888376)

This may be straining the metaphor a bit, but I think you underestimate how much individuals want a magic sex pill.

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by he0001 on Thursday December 14, 2017 @02:17AM (#15920509)

Tell that to the FDA...

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by moduspol on Saturday December 09, 2017 @12:09PM (#15886725)

Oh it absolutely is. I'll acknowledge that. If Bitcoin is amazing at 7/12 of the things it set out to do, and sticking to those seven will pave the way for the other five to be done by other cryptocurrencies, that's fair to me.

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by matt4077 on Saturday December 09, 2017 @12:22PM (#15886794)

Yeah, well.... It would seem "transactions" should be among the things that a currency does well.

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by fooker on Saturday December 09, 2017 @02:02PM (#15887379)

Not necessarily. Bags of grain or N cows did not do transactions well. Yet they were successful as currencies for millennia.

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by statguy on Saturday December 09, 2017 @04:36PM (#15888297)

times have changed since...

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by 20after4 on Sunday December 10, 2017 @01:15AM (#15890231)

I'm pretty sure bags of grain are still a significant unit of value exchange[1].

[1] yep: http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/wheat.aspx

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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by fooker on Sunday December 10, 2017 @08:00AM (#15891213)

They have, and we have bitcoins instead of bags of grain.

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