Can Bitcoin Really Handle The Level Of Investment That It Has Been Seeing With All Of The Issues It Is Facing?
I truly hope that Bitcoin is able to gain long term success and adoption, but with all of the issues, drama, and hurtles Bitcoin is currently facing can it really handle the level of investment that it has seen recently?
I really do believe in Bitcoin and its potential, but if we take an objective look at the market, then it becomes really clear just how hard Bitcoin is going to have to work to get there. With longer and more expensive transactions than we have ever seen and the fact that there is still a clear difference of opinions and perspective within the development community about how to proceed, the future of Bitcoin is facing some tough challenges. This is not to say that Bitcoin can not overcome these challenges, but simply that there has been relatively little progress so far and the future is still very unclear. I understand the differences of opinion regarding Segwit and the block size debate, but without any type of consensus or even collaboration within the development community the chances of Bitcoin's success continue to decline.
This is not meant to be a post bashing Bitcoin in any way, as I intend to continue to hold my Bitcoin and still believe in its future. But if we can't be honest and objective about the adversities it faces, how can we expect to reach any type of solution? I understand why individuals have such strong and different opinions regarding the way to handle the issues bitcoin faces, but I honestly don't know how much longer Bitcoin can continue to grow and gain support without any solution to these problems in sight. This is an extremely tough job for developers to reach any form of consensus on, but it seems as though it may be time for one side to swallow their pride and begin to try to reach a decision.
Regardless about an individuals opinion on Block size, don't we all want to see Bitcoin succeed?
I know that individuals opinions regarding why they support the solution that they do goes far beyond simply block size, and many developers consider this a critical turning point in Bitcoin's future. While both sides can't see why the other side feels the way they do, could it maybe be time to give collaboration a try? A Bitcoin transaction taking an average of 18 hours is simply unacceptable and impractical, which I'm sure both sides would agree. With all of the investment that Bitcoin has been seeing, the number of transactions is likely to continue to consistently increase, and continue to extend the transaction time.
What worries me most is just how long Bitcoin will continue to gain support without making any major technological advances or improvements, because if nothing changes the support will not last forever. It is beginning to seem as though Bitcoin is even slightly over-valued for its present day applications. That's not to say that the price of Bitcoin is too high, but rather in terms of current practical uses in my opinion it is over priced, but it could still be greatly undervalued in the long term. If Bitcoin is able to reach a solution to the technical problems that it currently faces than it is highly probably that we will see bigger investments and movements than we ever have before.
What if no solution is reached?
This is the situation that really troubles me, and I think it could have a major impact on the future development of cryptocurrencies for years to come. Many of the new investors who are throwing huge amounts of capital at Bitcoin are high level investors taking high value positions, and they are definitely going to do everything in their power to exit their position at a profit. While it may seem as though this is the motivation of all Bitcoin investors, typically the extremely large stakeholders protect their profit and loss at a much tighter margin. This makes me really worried about what will happen if and when Bitcoin faces its next major price retreat.
If Bitcoin somehow did experience a major reduction in support and price, then the effects would likely be felt by the cryptocurrency market as a whole for a long time to follow. If the first, biggest, and most dominant cryptocurrency in the market lost a great deal of its value and support without any coin filling its place, the cryptocurrency market as a whole could loose a good amount of support that it has worked so hard to gain.
While we have seen some price retreats over the past few months, almost all have been relatively short and the price was able to continue upward in the days following. While this is obviously great for investors and really goes to show the level of support that Bitcoin currently has, this makes me nervous for what will happen when Bitcoin does experiance a major price retreat. Let's assume the price dropped to the 1200 level over the next week, how would the traders who recently entered into large positions in the 1800 range react? Would there be a massive selloff or would most of the traders maintain their positions and allow the price to pick back up?
I really believe in and have great hopes for Bitcoins future, but the fact that Bitcoin has been continuing its upward push and momentum even with all of the extensive technical issues it faces is a red flag to me. If we are speaking in terms of practical methods of using cryptocurreny as a currency for sending to other individuals and making purchases, the only reason that Bitcoin is still dominating in my opinion is because of its first at the market advantage. Well I guess in the case of Bitcoin it wouldn't be a first to the market advantage, but rather a creation of the market advantage. Bitcoin has a wide range of companies designed to facilitate it's use and make it easier on the end user, which is one of Bitcoin's biggest advantages.
The present day practicality of Bitcoin really isn't that great, but most of the investment seems to be for the purpose of investing in Bitcoin's future use and applications. My only question is, how can Bitcoin continue to gain in price and support when its chances of long term success are looking smaller and smaller as time goes on? I think that the first cryptocurrency to really become practical and gain adoption will have a major advantage for the first 5-10 years of its life over other cryptocurrency. It isn't only a question of whether or not Bitcoin will be able to get past its major hurtles, but also if it will be able to do so before a different cryptocurrency achieves mainstream success.
Another thing this the current level of support has shown is that if Bitcoin does find a way to sort out its technical difficulties, the investment and price climb that would quickly follow would be beyond our wildest dreams. The price is currently being pushed upwards by traders who want to see that happen, and that will do nothing but increase if Bitcoin was able to gain a new level of practicality by making technical advances and improvements.
Like I stated at the beginning of my post, this was in no way meant to be a bashing of Bitcoin or its future. I really hope that you enjoyed this post, and please don't hesitate to leave any comments, disscussions, or input below. Whether you agree or completely disagree I would love to hear from you! Thanks for reading!
In my opinion Bitcoin will fail. Can you trust a currency that is reliant on vulnerable technology?? With the creation of a number of new competing cryptocurrencies being developed and eventually diluting the market. If a cyber attack occurred would your Bitcoin be safe. Would you intrust thousands of dollars to the system? How long before Government infiltrate this technology and causes it to fail? Why would Government do that? Because central banks will not tolerate a currency that they do not have complete control over, thats why. If they cause a failure in the system, then people will lose confidence in them, unless of course the federal government comes to the rescue and offers to insure the currency FDICA baby. Look what they did to Precious metals. The feds found a way to manipulate it and fix it. The banks simply print and sell enough paper contracts to dilute the market. Some say that there are up to 200 hundred paper contracts per ounce of gold. The silver and gold markets are easily moved by the simple push of a computer key. They must regulate it in order to keep the value of the dollar intact. The same is true with cryto. If they let the market run, paper currencies would diminish in value. Is it possible that the cryptocurrency was ordained by the central banks as a trail to see if people would buy into this type of monetary system? But for now enjoy the wealth it has created, just don't think they will let the party continue.
eh i really dont see cryptocurrency failing from any cyberattacks, and i would (an do) trust thousands of dollars into the cryptocurrency market. with safe practices holding crypto investments safe from cyber attcks and hacks is actually very realistic.
government regulation is more possible, but it would not be as easy as it was for them to manipulate as it was with precious medals. a government,or anyone else for that matter, can form a cryptocurrency, but that doesnt mean anyone has to or will use it.
Good luck. I have to say I am impressed with BC and I love the fact that it is not regulated. Big brother always kicks over the blocks after you stacked them so neatly .
I see also that governments from dollar, yen, renmini (euro is more difficult) do everything to reduce the development speed of all cryptos. they are all enemies to them. mostly with dollar we (the rest of the world) are in the hand of fed, they can do what they want...and we have to pay that usa is growing. that's not fair for the rest of the world. and now a president which is only looking for themself (usa) will bring the dollar down.
Unfortunately, yes the dollar will have to go down to service the debt. all markets are manipulated and rigged. We have to spread out and diversify in hopes that we can retain a little. Here is a blog, you might find interesting. These are words of Konstantinos Karagiannis
CTO, Security Consulting, Americas, BT.
But is it safe?
My RSA 2017 talk, “Hacking Blockchain”, includes a fair amount of time explaining historic and current attacks faced by all implementations of the technology. A lot of these attacks are old school, focusing on supporting technology and not on the blockchain itself.
Consider attacks against credentials used at an online cryptocurrency exchange. Such exchanges act as hot wallets, or storage of funds available for transacting online at any time. Traditional authentication hacking of these sites can lead to illegal transactions. Some attacks are even more creative, such as the ability to force a cold or offline wallet to become hot and therefore a target for fraudulent transactions.
The major issue I cover, though, is the inherent flaw on page one of Satoshi’s paper. That elegant if pesky line about “computationally impractical to reverse” transactions. You see, the crypto behind cryptocurrency is actually public key. We are likely less than three years away from this being completely hackable by a quantum computer.
Facing reality.
Fantasy? Hardly. Labs around the world have already proven that quantum computers can run Shor’s Algorithm and almost instantly find the private key of a public key pair even 4,096 bits long. Because of how public key works in most blockchain implementations, including Bitcoin, this would mean any time a transaction occurs, a quantum computer has everything it needs to obtain a user’s private key. Spend a single cryptocoin, and any entity with a quantum computer can download that currency’s blockchain, see your transaction, and in a few moments spend the rest of your funds.
The threat seems even worse if you consider blockchains designed to prove ownership of land or other critical identity-related transactions. A private key attack here can lead to an irreversible type of identity theft, at least within that blockchain ecosystem.
The NSA has already warned against the use of non-quantum-safe encryption. Its’ time to realise we may be rushing towards putting everything on a digital house of cards rather than an unbreakable chain. Let’s fix blockchain’s inherent flaws now, before it’s too late.
If you want to see our Blockchain demo in person, why not visit Innovation 2017, our technology and innovation exhibition taking place in June.
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