large blocks alone cannot even begin to get us anywhere even remotely near Visa scale
I respectfully disagree with the above statement and Monero is extremely well positioned to prove it false. All I will say is that when one has written code for a mainframe computer with a total memory capacity of 2 MB using punched cards as the data input method one has a very different perspective on the subject.
Edit: By comparison a mini computer of the day would have a total memory capacity of about 2 KB and use a teletype and paper tape reader / punch as the data input output methods. I also programmed on those.
That's nice. Reminds me of my childhood, making what I would later find out are called "Demos" using BASIC on a 256k Tandy XT with no hard drive. And there was no mouse, so using the paint program required copious amonts of arrow keys and space bar.
Alas, our ancient history and nostalgic reveries have no bearing on the current fact that sig_op verification scales as a quadratic of the tx size.
You are entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts. EG:
The Toomininstas are confronting the same problem the Gavinistas did, which is that multiplying a tiny number such as 3tps by another tiny (ie sane) number such as 2 or 4 or even 8 still only produces another tiny number such as 6tps or 12tps or 24tps.
You can't get to Visa tps from here. Our only realistic path to Visa is orthogonal scaling, where each tx does the maximum economic work possible.
You can't get to Visa tps from here. Our only realistic path to Visa is orthogonal scaling, where each tx does the maximum economic work possible.
Right, card payments are currently at around 5000 TPS on a _year round_ average basis, with highest day peaks probably at over 100k TPS. And that is now, these figures have been rapidly growing.
These are numbers high enough that just signature processing would completely crush even high end commercially available single systems. Even if you took some really great drugs and believed plain-old-bitcoin could get anywhere near matching that in the near future while having any decentralization remaining.... so what? it wouldn't be close again after just a couple more years growth.
A trip to the moon requires a rocket with multiple stages or otherwise the rocket equation will eat your lunch... packing everyone in clown-car style into a trebuchet and hoping for success is right out.
Quote from: gmaxwell https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/438hx0/a_trip_to_the_moon_requires_a_rocket_with
Combined the major card networks are now doing something on the other of 5000 transactions per second on a year round average; and likely something on the order of 120,000 transactions per second on peak days.
The decentralized Bitcoin blockchain is globally shared broadcast medium-- probably the most insanely inefficient mode of communication ever devised by man. Yet, considering that, it has some impressive capacity. But relative to highly efficient non-decentralized networks, not so much. The issue is that in the basic Bitcoin system every node takes on the whole load of the system, that is how it achieves its monetary sovereignty, censorship resistance, trust cost minimization, etc. Adding nodes increases costs, but not capacity. Even the most reckless hopeful blocksize growth numbers don't come anywhere close to matching those TPS figures. And even if they did, card processing rates are rapidly increasing, especially as the developing world is brought into them-- a few more years of growth would have their traffic levels vastly beyond the Bitcoin figures again.
No amount of spin, inaccurately comparing a global broadcast consensus system to loading a webpage changes any of this.
So-- Does that mean that Bitcoin can't be a big winner as a payments technology? No. But to reach the kind of capacity required to serve the payments needs of the world we must work more intelligently.
The decentralized Bitcoin blockchain is globally shared broadcast medium-- probably the most insanely inefficient mode of communication ever devised by man. Yet, considering that, it has some impressive capacity. But relative to highly efficient non-decentralized networks, not so much. The issue is that in the basic Bitcoin system every node takes on the whole load of the system, that is how it achieves its monetary sovereignty, censorship resistance, trust cost minimization, etc. Adding nodes increases costs, but not capacity. Even the most reckless hopeful blocksize growth numbers don't come anywhere close to matching those TPS figures. And even if they did, card processing rates are rapidly increasing, especially as the developing world is brought into them-- a few more years of growth would have their traffic levels vastly beyond the Bitcoin figures again.
No amount of spin, inaccurately comparing a global broadcast consensus system to loading a webpage changes any of this.
So-- Does that mean that Bitcoin can't be a big winner as a payments technology? No. But to reach the kind of capacity required to serve the payments needs of the world we must work more intelligently.
IIRC, Monero's sig_op/verification is vastly improved over Bitcoin's first generation technology, but there is also an elastic (ie scaling) reward penalty for large blocks.
So the idea that Monero, using some kind of Giant Block Superweapon, is going to dethrone Bitcoin, is not supported by the facts.
Even if Monero gradually and without penalty accommodates larger blocks, they will never be able to shovel 5k-120k tps onto Layer One.
