Bitcoin's dilemma: Will the digital currency go the way of MySpace and floppy disks?
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Updated February 07, When cafe co-owner Ben Kim started to invest in cryptocurrencies six months ago it seemed only natural that he bitcoin plus speed 02 Bitcoin as a method of payment at his business. Mr Kim, a crypto convert, put a sticker on his coffee bitcoin plus speed 02 informing customers that he would accept Bitcoin.
And while customers would notice the sign and ask questions, almost no-one would actually buy their coffee with the cryptocurrency because it was too confusing or expensive to do so. Mr Kim has since taken down the Bitcoin sign, although he still believes cryptocurrency has a valuable future. The massive price movements, as well as a growing appreciation for the technology behind Bitcoin, known as blockchain, has seen an influx of new users and investors. But the newfound demand put a stress on the network, and things started to become expensive and relatively slow.
During Tuesday's sell-off, traders were also complaining about the virtual currency's transaction times. When Bitcoin was launched nine years ago it was intended to be a decentralised currency that bitcoin plus speed 02 on a vast network of users to process transfers, known as "mining". Internet capacity plus a desire to keep Bitcoin mining for the common folk meant the maximum data that could be processed at a time was capped at 1 megabyte. Giant "farming" operations that use specialised machines and consume a lot of electricity now dominate Bitcoin mining.
And transfers were getting stuck in the network's bottlenecks during busy trading periods, giving miners the power to charge exorbitant fees.
The Bitcoin network can only handle around seven transactions per second, which is a tiny amount compared to Visa's 24, transactions per second. Several options have been put forward to speed up Bitcoin, bitcoin plus speed 02 programmers and major exchanges are bitcoin plus speed 02 to fully implement the reforms, which has led to breakaway or copycat currencies like Bitcoin Cash.
As an early adopter, Mr Saunders was concerned Bitcoin was suffering death by "a thousand cuts", although he was buoyed after hearing a major exchange was close to implementing reform. It used to be just Bitcoin. Economics expert Jason Potts from RMIT said technology has struggled to cope with growth dating as far back as the s. While Bitcoin may have been the first on scene there are now many different cryptos that claim to be superior to Bitcoin — whether that's faster, cheaper, scalable or provide more anonymity.
Other platforms want to be more than a digital currency by offering services such as peer-to-peer trading of electricitytracking goods from across the globe, or even being a 'safe' space to store medical records.
Professor Potts said it stood to reason that Bitcoin could one day fall by the wayside, as newer and superior technology often replaced the old. But Professor Potts said having superior technology did not guarantee success. For instance, in the videotape format warsBetamax had superior video quality but it lost to VHS as the latter cornered the rental movie market.
That is, people will gravitate to the same technology that others are using for convenience, simplicity bitcoin plus speed 02 a safety-in-numbers type approach. Their problem is they can't build a community. No one wants to use a platform that doesn't have developers. It's a chicken and egg problem. He bitcoin plus speed 02 warned that many of the newer crypto currencies would also struggle if they had the same number of users as Bitcoin.
As for cafe owner Ben Kim, he is hoping his customers would be able to pay for their coffee with crypto-currency in a simpler way. First posted February 07, More stories from Victoria. If you bitcoin plus speed 02 inside knowledge of a topic in the news, contact the ABC. ABC teams share the story behind the story and insights into the making of digital, TV and radio content. Read about our editorial guiding principles and the enforceable standard bitcoin plus speed 02 journalists follow.
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