Thank you for contributing samsam!
I am not convinced there is a "problem" with low confirmations times. Litecoin has a 2.5 min confirmation time and it seems to work just fine. Sure, confirmation times of less than 1 min are going to be problematic, but anything above 1 min seems fine. Thus, this talk of "problems" with low confirmation times seems academic and totally theoretical.
I think you can find evidence of the issues involved with a high-speed transaction crypto at the SmallChange experiment.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=182430.0I do not come close to having the technical expertise to pinpoint what the problem actually was, but it does seem that some miners had the problem that Anon136 predicted.
Economically speaking, I think that the availability of instantaneous transactions are necessary for the total displacement of traditional currencies by cryptocurrencies.
I think I may have a solution to make difficulty more flexible and based upon the relative needs for speed & confidence. I would very much appreciate your input!
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=373385.msg3995296#msg3995296Would you mind posting a solution to this thread's problem at the highest speeds if you have one? Thank you so much in advance!