Quote from: josvazg on April 08, 2013, 08:04:57 AM

The first selling point of bitcoin at bitcoin.org is:

"Instant peer to peer transactions"

But "1hour" to get at least 6 confirmations doesn't seem instantaneous to me, does it?

VISA-like transactions, that is 5-15 seconds, is what people regard as "instantaneous".

I don't get it. So please explain.

Imagine bitcoin gets popular:

1) You go to the supermarket or the bakery and pay with bitcoins...

2) You wait 1hour before you can go home???!!
Conclusion, will you never be able to use bitcoins on physical shops or when payment needs to be REALLY instantaneous?

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Another thing that is terribly slow is opening your wallet to take a look at it. If your wallet is on your pc, and you power it down every night at least, it takes 5-10minutes "to look what is inside your wallet".

That is TOO slow and also consumes too much disk space to be used on mobile phones!

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I think those the problems comes from the block chain design and the mining.

Don't get me wrong, bitcoin chain mining incentives, its security design and all make a lot of sense and its what makes bitcoin appealing; totally decentralized, limited coin supply, etc.

BUT, at the same time it seems the 10minute cycle, which is perfect for mining, is TOO bad for transactions.

Transactions usually are:
- Lightweight.
- Really instantaneous (<20seconds in the worst case)
- Once confirmed, they should not be reversible.

I know that bitcoin claims that transactions are NOT reversible, but that is also a half truth: only when the transaction is "quite" re-confirmed, it can be trusted have actually happened.

Please, let me know what I am missing.
How is bitcoin handling or will handle this issues?
I think these are really important to get right, specially if bitcoin ever grows up to be widely used just like VISA or paypal.

Should bitcoin provide a separate non-mining (not awarded) block chain for instant transactions (probably with bigger fees, although much smaller than traditional paypal or visa ones)?

The idea is that you create bitcoins just as you do now. It is ok to wait some hours or days for a new bitcoin balance to be "assured", but then you can move that balance to an "instant payment account" that will make transactions on a separate block chain designed for instant payments.

That block chain is just like the mining one, but it is just not rewarded with mining, or it is rewarded with just a really small mining prize with a very easy POW that can be solved in 2-3seconds by the current bitcoin network power. Transactions that go there are confirmed in 12 to18seconds... THAT is instant payments!

What problems do you see in this approach?

Yes, definitely...I also noticed if you want your btc faster there's always more fees involved--not good as our incomes already gets taxed. Its double taxation and dont even get me started on the rigged stock market! LOL