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Comment by omegaworks | Hacker News Reader

As the blockchain grows ever larger the thing gets more and more useless as a currency. Just look at how long it takes a transaction to confirm.* It's digital Beanie Babies.

*https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time?timespa...

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Yep, these comparisons between Bitcoin and other successful technologies are like a new type of fallacy (techno-fallacy?) where people assume that because it's technically-complex it is somehow destined to succeed like other technically-complex successes.

It's a form of survivor bias because you never see or think about the technically-complex failures, or "not-successes", like the Tamagatchi, Laser disc, WebTV, Webvan, etc. I mean, how come none of it's proponents compare Bitcoin to the Segway? Sure, you can say we have hoverboards now but those are not Segway, the same way Eth and Monero are not Bitcoin.

The self balancing technology in the Segway, revolutionary at the time, paved the way for hoverboards. The forms are changed but the underlying technology is the same.

In the same way, Eth and Monero are further iterations of Bitcoin.

No, Segway didn't. Hoverboards are specifically based off of a patent made by some guy living in Oregon, and are actually ingenuitive in their own right. There's a good planet money podcast about it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/epis...

Bitcoin, Eth, and Monero are all implementations of blockchain. Bitcoin is technically inferior to Eth, Monero, even Dogecoin, but that doesn't stop GP and others from comparing it to the internet's success in saying that Bitcoin is destined for similar success.

Tamagotchi were actually a success that has rescued Bandai. Millions were sold. Tiny numbers are still sold to this day which is quite a longevity for a fad toy.

>As the blockchain grows ever larger the thing gets more and more useless as a currency. Just look at how long it takes a transaction to confirm.

Blockchain size and confirmation times are two entirely different things.

Good to know, what is it based upon? I know you can spend coin to prioritize a transaction, is it formulaic?

Block size is limited by bytes allowed in the block, usually about 7 transactions a second (on average) for Bitcoin. Increased demand for transactions increased tx fees.

The length of the chain can affect processing power and bandwidth, as each block contains all previous blocks.

No, why are you making claims such as Bitcoin is the new Beanie Babies when you have literally no idea how any of it works?

You don't have to be a carpenter to know if a house is built poorly, just if you try to describe the cause. They were right in their criticism of transaction fees, but were off in what was causing it.

The blockchain is only growing linearly isn't it? I just downloaded almost the entire blockchain the other day. It was a struggle, but it was also a struggle years ago. It hasn't become impossibly difficult or started to require fancy computers or internet connections.

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