I'm with you on being bearish on Bitcoin. Even though it might go up in the next year or two, I can't stand using it. I transferred some BTC from Polo to Circle pay today and it took over 2.5 hours for it to show up in my Circle account. There is no way that will be adopted mainstream if that continues to be the case. We want instant gratification, and results.
With that said, how quickly does XMR transactions settle? I'm bullish on it from a trading perspective but don't have good technical comprehension of the specs.
With that said, how quickly does XMR transactions settle? I'm bullish on it from a trading perspective but don't have good technical comprehension of the specs.
Since the Monero network is far less secure than Bitcoin's, you must wait proportionally longer for the same degree of confirmation reliability (ie irreversibility) .
Let's very generously assume Monero has 10% of Bitcoin's blockchain security/immutability (best way to measure the different PoW is probably by how much electricity each consumes). 6 confirmations are recommended for Bitcoin so at 10 minutes each that's 1 hour. Now multiply that by 10 to account for Monero's relative strength, and we get
That number is way out. Monero network is less secure then Bitcoin, but is also less worth so attacking it would bring less profit and is less likely to be attacked.
6 bitcoin confirmations is quite a bit. I think 4 are more then enough. One Monero block takes 2 minutes so in 40 minutes that Bitcoin should have 4 confirmations, Monero will have 20.
Where are you getting this "4 are more then enough" idea? I guess that's true if you are buying a Frappuchino or Doritos. But "freshly-mined coins cannot be spent for 100 blocks."
Whoops, I screwed up editing and should have said "10 hours" not "6 hours" (assuming Monero's PoW is 10% as effective as Bitcoin's).
Yes, I know the number is "way out." It was merely illustrative approximation, as I cannot be arsed to look up and extrapolate from current actual figures.
The phrase "very generously assume" indicates Monero's PoW network strength is probably not even remotely close to 10% of Bitcoin's.
The actual figure is probably closer to 1%, so we're looking at 100 hours for XMR settlement security equivalent to 6 Bitcoin confs.
You and ArcticMine don't seem to be grokking the concept that 40 minutes of 100 megawatt XMR PoW is in no way equivalent to 40 minutes of 10 gigawatt BTC PoW.
That's basic high school physics.
Fixating on a side issue, that of direct economic incentives (cost/benefit) for attackers, is a distraction and spurious digression.
Speculating about motivations is in this context (answering astmandu's question about XMR settlement time) not helpful.
As smoothie pointed out, there exist infinitely more indirect incentives than the most naive possible direct monetary one.
The best example of indirect, non-monetary incentives is "I did it for the LULZ."
Regardless of our hypothetical adversary's incentive and motivation, attacking and orphaning 40 minutes worth of Bitcoin blocks would be roughly 100 times harder than doing the same to Monero. And that fact is reflected in their 100:1 market cap ratio.
So a good estimate of XMR settlement times must account for that vast (albeit rapidly shrinking) difference in the quality of the two coins' PoW.
The Work in Proof of Work is measured by the amount of electrical power consumed to produce a confirmation, not mere passage of time.
