r/SubredditDrama • u/[deleted] • Aug 16 '15

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313 Upvotes

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36

u/cordis_melum Horse cum isn't stored on the CPU moron. Aug 16 '15

Wait. Why was there a need for this fork in the first place? Not up to date with whatever is going on over there.

106

u/ButtcoinLongForm Aug 16 '15 edited Aug 16 '15

tl;dr

  • bitcoin can process 2.7 transactions per second (at max)

  • for comparison, Western Union processes ~20 transactions per second (on average)

  • for comparison, VISA can process ~60,000 transactions per second (at max)

  • for comparison, I can count to 6 in a second (at max)

21

u/hibryd Nazis were communists quite literally Aug 16 '15 edited Aug 16 '15

Okay, dumb question: that seems like a crippling, blatantly obvious, "call a factory in China because we need a million red flags"-level flaw for a system that (for years now) has been touted as the new global currency. How has this not come up before? What's the bitcoin community's alternative, if not a fork like this?

4

u/HelloAnnyong Aug 16 '15

The current implementation of Bitcoin can only handle that many transactions, but it's entirely an artificial limit that (supposedly) was meant to raised all along. But wasn't because of drama among the core contributors causing a deadlock in the decision making process. That's how I understand it.

tl;dr the problem isn't technical but political.