443M worth of BTC is "on it's way"
The Bitcoin transaction buffer, the mempool, currently has $443M worth of BTC effectively locked away from their owners. The transactions are sent, so they can't be used by the previous owners, but they haven't reached their destination. This actually worse than traditional wire-transfers. There's no guarantee that the transaction will be cleared in any amount of time.
Tradeblock, 2017-05-12 09:53 UTC
So what's the point of Bitcoin anymore? If you want something of limited supply, there are better alternatives. The continuing "success" of Bitcoin is probably because it's the default way to transfer wealth between exchanges. No stable cryptocurrency is adopted widely enough to replace Bitcoin.
Certainly some of the BTC is on it's way to exchanges, so people can sell them for Fiat or newer cryptocurrencies. I wonder if this mempool is part of why the value of BTC has been on the rise?
Unless everyone pays a $5 fee. It wouldn't help if everyone payed a $500 fee. Actually I would like to see that happen :-)
The whole tweet and its replies are ridiculous, btw, in case you haven't seen it before.
https://twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/850713926480384003
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
I've been saying it for a few months now, there is no real reason to why Bitcoin keeps going up considering their issues and unclear future solutions. What BlockStream have offered and showed for so far during all these years of the block size being an issue has been ridiculous and laughable and has made me lose trust in their professionalism completely.
People tell me I shill for Roger, but to be honest I haven't had any contact with him in years. I use to think I have a good perception of people and what I saw in Roger throughout the years and the way he talked about bitcoin, it was truly inspiring. Same thing goes for Andreas. Many others, not so much, especially not the Blockstream team.
I am glad I noticed these issues and difficulties early and decided to focus more on alternative currencies. I feel sorry for the people who have believed in it and been a part of it for so long just to see it fail this miserably now compared to the newer ones.
The conspiracy nut in me has been thinking that the price is only being manipulated so that holders can jump ship while not losing much value and having new investors eat up their sell orders thanks to high price and much news and attention around it. Maybe they were not aware of how much hype it would really get, but I personally have lost faith in the one coin that started this all.
Yeah. It's wierd to watch the world slowly warm up to Bitcoin, while feeling yourself that it was a thing of yesterday. We are literally years, if not a decade ahead of the curve.
I agree. I already had this feeling with Eth when bitcoin was having issues. Not many wanted to hear about it, but look what's happening now...
Wait til they realize Eth's complications and uncertainty compared to our blockchain. (even though I have a lot more trust in Vitalik and their team than btc - I still think this chain has surpassed Eth by a long shot)
My problem has been giving up on coins long before the biggest wave. I did that with Bitcoin, Ripple and Ethereum. I thought about giving up on Bitshares. The reality might be that the world is just waking up to Bitcoin, Bitcoin maximalists are waking up to Ethereum, and we will have to wait 2-5 years for the "time" for Steem, Bitshares, and all the promising "Non-larimer" projects out there. One would think investors did some due-diligence and looked for fatal shortcomings - but no. The markets are certainly not efficient. There's little prediction going on, and most of the price movements are pure speculation and P&D. People seem to leave coins only once they hit a wall.
Well put. I think we might see some correction sooner than later. Steemit in my opinion has been one of the best gateways for adoption and growth into the whole blockchain space and it seems like the speed of projects and their adoption is increasing steadily.
It took bitcoin a long time to get where it is today, Eth increased the pace by almost a factor of 2, and Steem is only a year old and already showing amazing progress. Haven't followed BTS much unfortunately, but I can't help but be amazed at Dan's creations.
Great discussion guys!!
I think it's too early to speculate what the next few years are going to look like, but I do agree that Bitcoin is quickly becoming a dinosaur (and isn't that kind of hilarious?) Neither of you mentioned EOS or Peerplay. I'm also looking at Tauchain and BosChain...I think it is possible that within a few years, self-governing AI will take over the responsibility of proof and adapt to whatever demands are needed for the next generation of interface. I saw a funny thing about Plantoid. Not too far off.
Have a great one guys!! Following you both!! Thanks for spreading the knowledge and optimism!!!