Why You Shouldn’t Miss Out on Bitcoin

Blockchain technology, first used in Bitcoin, has enabled fast, easy and cheap transfer of money globally. Marc Andreessen, one of the venture capitalist capitalists in Silicon Valley, once told The New York Times that the creation of blockchain technology would rival other inventions such as the invention of PCs and the internet.

Nonetheless, blockchain technology was not the factor that propelled Bitcoin to glory. It’s its sudden and spontaneous value fluctuations that attracted the attention of people around the globe. More, since transactions were anonymous, Bitcoin was a preferred method of payment when buying weapons or drugs from the dark web. This was fielded up by its mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Many believe that if this Satoshi guy was one person, it must have been a forensic computer guru, David Kleiman, who died in 2013. However, Stan Higgins, a Bitcoin watcher, believes that the anonymity surrounding the coin developer has no impact on the currency’s future. He adds that he is sure that most Bitcoin developers will agree.

However, not all agree with Stan. Mike Hear, a British computer programmer, published a blog that has ignited some serious debate over the anonymity surrounding the developer of Bitcoin. Mike felt that the max scaled speed of transactions made by Bitcoin developers of seven per second hindered its functionality. According to him, the network has already suffered backlogs that have delayed transactions for days.

He continued to add that in the long run, this would affect the scalability of the network, thus locking outside some people. His solution? Updating Bitcoin to another version Bitcoin XT. According to him, Bitcoin XT will increase the speed at which transactions occur on the network, thus allowing more people to use it in the future.

Mike continued to say that after being left with the source codes behind Bitcoin’s development, Andresen also shared those codes with four other individuals. One of them, Gregory Maxwell, objected to Mike’s idea of fastening transactions, as it would mean increasing the size of the blocks allowing only large firms or individuals with solid machines to run the nodes and process transactions.

This was a significant call since to have any say in the future of Bitcoin, you have to earn it by processing transactions, i.e., mining. Things eventually went according to Maxwell’s plan, and Mike accused Bitcoin of failure.

Suppose Mike was tight and Bitcoin’s inability to process transactions quickly and accommodate more people slows its growth. In that case, there’s a high chance that it might be overtaken by the second most popular cryptocurrency, Ethereum. Other than just being a digital currency, Ethereum has an adaptable framework built on a decentralized network that allows the creation of other applications around it.

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Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.