
Poll Finds 70% of Bitcoin Users Prefer Segwit for Scaling - imissmyjuno
https://coinjournal.net/scaling-bitcoin-survey/
======
kbaker
Warning for those who are not following this debate closely: This is an
incredibly polarizing discussion. Approach all comments and articles posted
about this subject carefully.

Though I'd like to try and provide a summary for people who don't know what's
going on.

Bitcoin desperately needs to scale to handle higher transaction demand. It can
take multiple hours for transactions to be confirmed, and due to the demand,
fees are high ($2-3 per transaction for fast confirmation.) A technical
approach (SegWit) was proposed and implemented by the Bitcoin developers in
order to improve transaction capacity a couple years ago. This also brings
along a number of innovations which can help implement what is termed 'Layer
2' solutions to happen inside Bitcoin, instead of using an altcoin like
Litecoin or Ethereum. Think of this enabling a Visa-like entity to provide
instant settlement services denominated in BTC, and secured by the Bitcoin
blockchain.

However, this upgrade is very contentious with the miners who are entrusted
with securing the blockchain against attackers. Bitcoin mining now is a
professional enterprise where major players need to be located in places with
cheap ASIC production and cheap electricity to have any hope of making a
profit. In some cases, they see these new layer 2 solutions as reducing their
transaction fees, which are becoming a large percentage of their profits.
Instead, they have been proposing just a larger base block size limit, which
will solve the transaction backlog and send the fees to the miners, but then
not make progress moving forward with what users and developers want, which is
increased innovation. In addition, the larger block size is seen as increasing
centralization of mining since only larger providers will be able to deal with
the extra data rates (since there is an advantage to having quick transfers of
newly created blocks when mining.)

Since Bitcoin is decentralized, anyone can run any software. There are
mechanisms in place for miners to 'vote' with their hashpower/mining rate to
agree on software changes, then after enough support, the mechanism activates.
This is the easiest way to make sure global upgrades happen smoothly and in a
coordinated fashion. However, users are becoming desperate and are looking for
other ways to make these innovations happen without needing support from the
miners.

Unfortunately the Internet and echo chambers have destroyed the hope of
meaningful discussion about this topic. Please, HN commenters, do not bring in
Reddit-level comments here... Provide sources and a balanced view, and please
be respectful.

~~~
fragsworth
An additional wrench thrown into the mix is the fact that the Ethereum and
Ripple developers/owners have a lot to gain by trying to make sure Bitcoin is
unable to scale. It doesn't take much effort (since the miners are already
hesitant about agreeing to some update) to sabotage the whole situation.

It's quite possible that they're funding both sides of the debate to make sure
none of them generates a super-majority.

It's also quite possible that Bitcoin developers who were once heavily
invested in Bitcoin have already switched to Ethereum, and now are actively
sabotaging it.

~~~
zzalpha
See, these are exactly the kind of poisonous claims that make this an
impossible debate.

In short: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

If you want to claim an altcoin conspiracy to destroy Bitcoin, prove it.
Otherwise take your baseless gossip elsewhere, please.

~~~
Rmilb
Perceived 'crypto economic incentives' will taint any controversial decision
in most public chains. Those incentives must be tested to prove that they
work. If they fail, we rebuild chains with better incentives; this is how
bitcoin became anti-fragile.

------
out_of_protocol
Actually 30%, see [https://coin.dance/blocks](https://coin.dance/blocks)

And 40% for Bitcoin Unlimited (Emergent Consensus)

~~~
clarkmoody
Miner signalling != user preference

~~~
needs
bitcoin users != coinjournal.net readers

------
jswny
Oh boy another incoming Bitcoin proposal civil war in the comments section. I
can't wait until nullc gets here. Why is it so hard to have a non-censored,
rational discussion about this topic without it becoming some ridiculous flame
war every time?

~~~
Analemma_
> Why is it so hard to have a non-censored, rational discussion about this
> topic without it becoming some ridiculous flame war every time?

Because each side thinks they are acting selflessly in the best interests of
Bitcoin with sound technical reasoning, while the other side has sinister
ulterior motives. Bitcoin scaling debates (like most political debates) are
riddled with assumptions of bad faith.

What _really_ makes it complicated is that, to some extent, both sides are
right: there really are people on each side who stand to profit greatly from
their proposal winning and thus have their finger on the scale. Of course,
each side only notices these people when they belong to the other camp.

------
Analemma_
To people entering this comment section: if you're not totally caught up on
this debate and only have a passing interest in Bitcoin-- leave now, there's
nothing for you here. This thread is going to be a lot of sound and fury from
the two sides of the civil war, and little else.

~~~
nicky0
I occasionally dip in to r/bitcoin and am repeatedly baffled by the whole
debate; both in its inscrutability and the level of (let's say) "passion"
exhibited. Still I have no real clue of the issues.

~~~
simias
I'm guessing that many of the people who participate in these communities have
a significant number of bitcoins to their names. Given the current trading
price of BTCs many of them are probably virtual millionaires. All that could
go poof if the coin were to collapse. Not really surprising that they would be
very passionate about these issues.

~~~
nicky0
That may be part of it, but if it were purely about wealth they could surely
just sell some of those holdings right now and become actual millionaires.

------
andrewmcwatters
I have no horse in this race. I don't own any BTC. What I find fascinating
about Bitcoin is how completely unapproachable it is. All of this technical
bullshit is too much for a layperson, let alone an uninterested developer. If
you want normal people to use this as a meaningful currency, the currency has
to just work.

So far Bitcoin has proven to me over and over again that it just doesn't work.

What the fuck is "Emergent Consensus" or "Segregated Witness" or any of this?
From the perspective of a regular person, I just don't care. I don't see why
anyone else should, either. Why is one Bitcoin worth more than thousands of
units of the strongest currencies in the world?

~~~
Rmilb
As a lay person they shouldn't care unless it solves a problem they have. It
is only too much for a layperson until bitcoin is a good answer for the
problem they have. From women in Saudi Arabia who cannot own bank accounts, to
the people of Argentina and Venezuela who are desperate to move their wealth
into another asset, bitcoin still offers them an answer despite its great
volatility.

One bitcoin is worth more than the current world reserve currency because the
market demands it. Even if it is mostly speculators with cheap money that
flows from all of the central banks printing it and offering negative interest
rates.

------
seanwilson
Not completely on topic but...what would happen if one of these new features
came out and somebody found a security flaw in it? For example a buffer
overflow that you could use to crash miners? If all the clients are running
the same client software and crashing them all can have serious financial
implications I can't help but feel it's only a matter of time unless I'm
missing something about how miners work.

~~~
Zarath
This is why it's important that it's well tested. Segwit is activated on
multiple coins already and is being tested in the real world as we speak.

Alternative options such as EC (which uses Xthin blocks) have already proven
to have multiple vulnerabilities and there are many instances of large scale
crashing of nodes. Of course the miners that are signaling for this option
aren't actually using the software (it's not at all stable, they don't
actually want EC and are just using it to stall for higher fees) so they were
not affected by the crash, if they were 40% of the hashpower would have gone
offline which is a pretty big deal.

------
SurrealSoul
Where do I sign up for the fight club?

~~~
kbaker
Pick your side:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin](http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoin)
[http://www.reddit.com/r/btc](http://www.reddit.com/r/btc)

------
bbcbasic
What's a typical btc txn fee nowadays?

~~~
thefalcon
About $2.32 according to
[http://www.bitcoinrollercoaster.com/](http://www.bitcoinrollercoaster.com/)

~~~
bbcbasic
Wow. I managed to send some coin: $5 for 17c fee recently.

