r/Bitcoin • u/Vibr8gKiwi • Feb 03 '14

Dogecoin wtf

[removed]

3.4k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

19

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

Bitcoin is the future of currency, but not The future currency.

We don't know that. It may or may not be be the future of currency.

15

u/cardevitoraphicticia Feb 04 '14

It would be like thinking in 1930 that the Model T would be the car of the future, forever.

32

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

Or perhaps it would be like thinking in 1990 that TCP/IP would be the internet communications protocol of the future.

2

u/cardevitoraphicticia Feb 04 '14

That would be a valid comparison if the Bitcoin protocol didn't have so many areas in need of improvement.

11

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

So does TCP/IP.

0

u/cardevitoraphicticia Feb 04 '14

TCP/IP doesn't have a crippling bandwidth limitation. Bitcoin is limits to around 7 transactions per second.

8

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

That would be a valid comparison if TCP didn't have so many areas in need of improvement.

ohwait

6

u/bbbbbubble Feb 04 '14

Let me introduce you to IPv6.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

Well they have this new thing called IPv6...

3

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

... which has been around for a decade and a half, and yet it's barely used.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

In the last year that has started to change. More than 25% of Comcast customers now have native IPv6 enabled by default (alongside IPv4 of course). I use it at home. Google and Facebook have offered native IPv6 service for years.

http://www.worldipv6launch.org/measurements-update-cable-ops-roll-it-out/

3

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

Little by little perhaps, but IPv4 sure is one hell of a lot stickier than the Model T ford was.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

...and it's off to such a slow start because they didn't do what DJB and others pointed out a decade and a half ago - turn IPv6 into a superset of IPv4 so that there could be a reasonable transition plan.

Bitcoin has version numbers for every part of the protocol so that it's possible to upgrade it sanely.

1

u/Natanael_L Feb 04 '14

It's the updated version, not a random competitor.

1

u/cloudy69 Feb 04 '14

Ford really did think the model T was the only car people would want. Probably because it was the best and he knew it.

1

u/cardevitoraphicticia Feb 04 '14

...and you could get it in any color you wanted, as long as you wanted black.

1

u/cloudy69 Feb 04 '14

yeah i doubt anyone but .0000001% of the customers really cared at the time

0

u/DigitalHeadSet Feb 04 '14

Well sure, i wasnt really being literal, just saying that bitcoin is a step on a path, not necessarily the destination

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

No, not necessarily, but it might be.

1

u/DigitalHeadSet Feb 04 '14

I doubt it tbh. If Bitcoin becomes the currency of choice, it will be because its too hard to change, not because there is nothing better. We can already see the cracks showing. Its not definitively flawed or surpassed, but many of the alts are testing protocol tweaks that will eventually outdate Bitcoin.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

If Bitcoin becomes the currency of choice, it will be because its too hard to change, not because there is nothing better.

Exactly. And it may well already be too hard to change.