As of tx/s throughput I would say like 100 tx/s suffices for near future and is achievable by few improvements definitively including
1- a block time decrease
2- using schnorr signatures
for mid term we need decentralization by getting rid of pools to be prepared for sharding.
We should never ever trust any second layer protocol/solution for scaling or other serious issues which bitcoin is designed for. Putting utilities on top of bitcoin is not bad, actually it would be very helpful as long as such utilities are not designed to compete with bitcoin and alienate people from the core system.
1. a blocktime decrease doesnt help. it actually affects many other things and has to many impacts on other things to outweight a pro:con balance to make it plausible.
its far better to stay at 4mb per 10 min than do 1mb for 2.5min
Block time decrease outweighs block size increase in many aspects including and not limited to reducing mining variance and helping with decentralization.
2. schnorr sigs are useful for multisigs because it compact multiparties signatures to show as just 1 signature to hide who signs it.
Schnorr signatures are more compact and easier to verify plus their inherent support for multisig.This schema is mathematically proven safe.
6. as for sharding. well thats just 2nd layer again. sharding is just LN factories of many tx's and multiple parties when you rub away alot of the buzzwording. sharding is from a banking analogy just like regional bank branches .. id say its better than reducing blocktime. but at the same time its then formalising the infrastructure into what banks do by forcing certain peoples activities being routed to a specific small pool of nodes
Disagree. Sharding is not second layer. Every shard is a public consensus based blockchain and is secured by accumulative work. The thing is we have not a matured sharding proposal in hand and we are not ready because of centralization of mining that makes it absolutely insecure for sharding to be operational. Right now with just one shard (the main chain) we live in the edges of centralization with multiple shards it would be a nightmare.
after all its far easier to deposit $90 into a starbucks legacy address and they just give you an in app balance of $90(30 coffee's) then to do all the convoluted effort of, make 5 LN locked channels funded with $18 per channel for good 'connectivity'/chance of success ...
Right to the point. Recurring payments are among the least important challenges for bitcoin to get mass adopted.
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You are right about Bitcoin, Bitcoin in it's present form may do just well with 100 tx / second. My intention is to build a new network that could provide a different utility for people than bitcoin.
I feel that people just find a lot of applications for Satoshi's data structure beyond payments. If it has to support all the possible applications, then millions / second is needed.
A
universal machine has an inherent problem: decidability. We all remember disasterous Ethereum DAO hack.
To be more focused, I suggest taking into consideration that we are discussing in a consensus based decentralized system context. Bitcoin is an instance of such a system, the first instance actually and with a specific application segment: monetary systems.
I have always been a believer in decentralization of social structures but after bitcoin I started to understand that freedom does not happen simultaneously in every single aspect of social life and we need to start from somewhere and patiently wait for consequences and the domino effect, we should start from
money.
The greatest achievement of Satoshi was not PoW and bitcoin, identifying monetary systems as the most strategic and geopolitical battle field was. Technology comes after vision. As a bitcoiner I believe in Satoshi vision that implies both feasibility and importance of decentralization of money.
I appreciate your courage and passion for a more general and bigger application domain but I think money is not
just money we are talking about the focal point of almost every socio-economic process in modern society.