back to article Bitcoin drops SegWit2x hard fork after community objects

Bitcoin's contentious upgrade plan, known as SegWit2x, has been called off, sending the cryptocurrency price past $7,800 – an all-time high – and then down several hundred dollars as profit taking set it. Mike Belshe, CEO of Bitgo, a Silicon Valley blockchain security biz, announced the decision via a post to the Bitcoin- …

  1. Andre Koster

    "The average transaction fee is now more than $10, about twice what it was in 2011" -- What a hilarious error. In 2011 transactions fees were basically zero. Until 2015 they were just a few cents. Only when the network started to get congested last year, fees of a dollar or more became the norm.

    Segwit2X was the compromise to give create an extra year of time to come up with solutions to scale. People like Dave Harding seem to think only very expensive transactions can provide the pressure for these solutions to mature. He forgets that Bitcoin isn't the only game in town. There are plenty with more capacity than Bitcoin. The market share of Bitcoin has already dropped by one third this year, and users will continue to vote with their wallet and their feet.

    1. emmanuel goldstein

      Couldn't agree more. I just paid a GBP 9 transaction fee - it took a while before I realised this was not a mistake.

      The energy cost of modifying the bitcoin blockchain is in itself a (not unrelated) concern.

      The fact that there are alternative (already existing or potential) crypto currencies which may be less expensive to use, amongst other advantages, is the reason why I think BTC is not going to keep going up in value.

  2. Joerg

    The Bitcoin fraud keeps going....

    ... when bankers behind all of that will then make the money disappear many will suffer and then they will either move to another cryptocurrency inflating it the same way to steal money or all criptocurrencies will disappear all of a sudden as they will move to an all new fraud...

  3. razorfishsl

    Basically a $10 processing fee makes the coin useless for micro payments.

    on a $100 payment that is a 10% charge possibly one of the most expensive ways of transferring money.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Bit coin is not a currency anymore...

      ....It is an asset,like gold, to be traded.

      If you stop looking at it as a currency then it starts to make a lot more sense.

      1. katrinab Silver badge

        Re: Bit coin is not a currency anymore...

        People buy gold in Hill Samuel because they think it looks pretty, without any expectation of making money out of it. That's what give it its value. What is the intrinsic value of Bitcoin?

  4. find users who cut cat tail

    One might think that if you invent some cryptocurrency and you want it actually used for payments by lots of people, you would also design it sufficiently scalable. But of course scalability does not matter if the entire thing is just an elaborate Ponzi scheme...

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      The arrival of significant transaction fees may be a sign that the scheme has now entered its "cashing out" phase, with the transaction fees being the source of real money that the original scammers need to milk before everyone else notices that Bitcoin per se is actually worthless.

      1. Warm Braw

        Bitcoin per se is actually worthless

        A colleague of mine was trying very hard to persuade me that SegWit2x would be an opportunity to make a killing because it was essentially free money. This was clearly an idea that had wide, ahem, currency.

        Any intrinsic merit or failure of Bitcoin seems almost irrelevant in that light: once the starry-eyed are convinced it's a sure bet, there's only one way it can end.

        1. Warm Braw

          Re: Bitcoin per se is actually worthless

          I just missed my edit window, but wanted to add this depressing survey.

        2. ArrZarr Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: Bitcoin per se is actually worthless

          When I first learned about bitcoin back in 2011, I was suspicious due to it essentially being free money.

          Not really got anything to add except how much I'm kicking myself for not taking advantage of the free money at the time.

          1. Mark 65

            Re: Bitcoin per se is actually worthless

            Hindsight investing is a truly wonderful thing. However there's nothing to say it couldn't have shat itself at that point for any number of reasons and gone to near zero. That is the nature of a Ponzi - you simply do not know when the game is up until after it happens and you start lamenting "I should have read the signs, they were there for all to see".

            Just remember the saying "the market can stay wrong longer than you can stay solvent".

  5. Ben1892

    The cynic in me is expecting a sudden U-turn, oh and BTW, SegWit2x is back on (ahem, just after we all loaded loaded up with futures in BT2 ). The price ( that it indeed has any value) suggests some people still think the fork will happen and are taking a punt on it.

    There are indeed better ponzicurrencies out there with lower fees and better, scale-able design that doesn't involve warehouses of Vega 56s

  6. fedoraman
    Stop

    Transaction fees must rise, anyway

    They're just putting off the inevitable. Bitcoins become more scarce with time, so mining gets less and less rewarding. When the last Bitcoin is mined, somewhen around 2140 [1], the only reward for miners will come from transaction fees alone. With the enormous growth in miners seen in the last 5 years, an awful lot of people are going to want paying, or find that mining is not rewarding enough to do. Ok, so it *is* some way off, but it will come.

    1. Joerg

      Re: Transaction fees must rise, anyway

      The bankers that started this fraud will make the money disappear soon and surely won't wait until 2140...

    2. Brangdon

      Re: Transaction fees must rise, anyway

      Putting off the inevitable does make some sense, though. SegWit was added last August, and it will take time for people to switch to using it, and more time to build layers like the Lightening Network on top of it. Until that's happened, it's hard to tell what the blocksize needs to be.

  7. wolfetone Silver badge

    Those who are saying Bitcoin isn't a currency or worthless must read up in to how their own country's currency operates. It's a "Fiat" currency, and no it's not backed by the car manufacturer.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Bitcoin isn't a currency. It is not "generally accepted" for a start. It is also wildly volatile which is an undesirable trait. Then look at transaction costs and transaction timeliness - 10+ minutes to go through? Fuck that.

      There's also zero privacy vs cash - all transactions are known. Not sure how desirable that is to the common man. To me bitcoin is like an impossible to forge food stamp, albeit less widely accepted.

  8. Heathcote Pursuit

    Litecoin

    If you want fast transfers with low fees, then use Litecoin instead.

    1. Mark 65

      Re: Litecoin

      Or cash.

      1. drazziweht

        Ah yes, Cash over IP

        Must have missed the RFC on that

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