Re: Will a shorter block time be helpful or harmful to Bitcoin and its future?
Confirmation eta is based on the target difficulty the bitcoin software determines. The higher the difficulty, the longer the time between confirmations (on average). So by making confirmations happen twice as often (every 5 minutes or so, ideally), the security granted by that confirmation represents half the work to secure your money (because the confirmation is easier to get, and thus an attacker could potentially "luck out" and get a block that much easier.
Perhaps if you don't know how the system works, you shouldn't propose changes to the fundamentals of bitcoin
Perhaps if you don't know how the system works, you shouldn't propose changes to the fundamentals of bitcoin
So if I understand you correctly, the higher the difficulty, the longer the confirmation eta? Does this mean that confirmations will get infinitely longer as time progresses?
Also, I wasn't proposing a change to Bitcoin. I was simply starting a discussion about modifying factors that affect confirmations. Also, it's a wonderful opportunity to pick up more knowledge. Gotta learn somewhere, right?
I understand the concept of a stable difficulty. What Garrett Burgwardt said was that confirmation eta is based off of difficulty. He did not specify the difficulty/hashpower relationship. Based off his statement, as difficulty increases, confirmation eta increases. I certainly hope this isnt the case. Or he was incorrectly stating that the difficulty just simply makes it harder to confirm whilst keeping the 10 minute time. Thats probably so. My original suspicion about his statement is incorrect, and I now understand what he was saying.
If you want secure 0 confirmation transactions, there are plenty of solutions to that (green address, off the chain tx, risk mitigation).
Could you please provide a link to something explaining green addresses and off the chain tx? If you know enough about them, you are welcome to post here as well. I'd like to know more.
Discussion is a beautiful thing.