Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: ProTip vs Changetip One of BTC's Killer Community Apps?
by
stevenh512
on 16/03/2015, 00:40:32 UTC
I'd like to see them both run successfully side by side, I like both for different reasons and they do each have their own set of advantages and disadvantages.

My understanding of Protip is that all tipping is done peer to peer on the blockchain. This of course fits perfectly with the idea of Bitcoin since it's decentralized and trustless. Being entirely on-chain does have some disadvantages that make it less than ideal for microtransactions. Extensive use of Protip could pollute the UTXO set with a lot of small transactions and result in people playing larger fees to spend their BTC, it also makes it difficult to send someone a tip smaller than the "dust limit".

Changetip is great for aggregating microtransactions off-chain, minimizing fees and potential UTXO bloat. Of course it comes with all the potential disadvantages of relying on a trusted third-party, something Protip avoids.

Since I personally trust my coins a lot more in my own wallet than in any wallet run by a third-party (with the possible exception of a GreenAddress 2of2), I would use Changetip for smaller tipping transactions like you usually see on Reddit and I'd use Protip for larger transactions like donating to an opensource project I want to support.