How many money transfers do Visa or Amex handle per day? The Federal Reserve? What about Western Union?
Is bitcoin capable of doing 50% of that? 10%? 1%?
I know people have just decided to expand the block size but what's a realistic limit on how many transactions can be done per hour? Is that enough for real widespread use?
I can certainly see uses but I worry that he can never get big enough to truly matter. Or if it does that a government or large private entity could easily try to take it over through force of computing power.
The reason it's gone up so much recently is that they just scaled it to handle more transactions. As other pointed out you can send an arbitrary amount whether it's 40 cents or 40 million dollars and it transfers quickly.
There's no holidays for the blockchain like banks have so you can send 24 hours a day, every day.
It's actually less useful. You already have banks doing the exact same thing for free, while insuring your money, you don't get hit 3% for transferring it into the bank, and there's interest accrued, not wildly shifting value where you might lose half in a few hours.
> You already have banks doing the exact same thing for free, while insuring your money, you don't get hit 3% for transferring it into the bank, and there's interest accrued
So much wrong with this statement.
First, not many banks in the U.S. do "the exact same thing for free", actually almost none do. Most ACH transfers take 1-5 days, instead of ~10 minutes with Bitcoin or ~15 seconds with Ethereum. Yes, I know about Zelle, but not all banks support that, and clearXchange isn't always same day, even.
Second, some services like Coinbase[1] insure your holdings, even while in crypto.
Third, almost all services that use ACH, like GDAX (Coinbase), Gemini, etc. don't do a 3% transfer fee through ACH, it's actually free. But it's next business day, like most ACH, where as crypto would've been an hour at most.
Lastly, some countries, like oh I don't know, Japan[2], have negative interest rates, so your money shrinks by the day instead of growing.
Is 10-minute ACH a kind of problem a lot of people face?
Seems like instant liquidity confirmation has been solved with credit cards or Paypal for trivial amounts (third party willing to act as an intermediary) or wire transfers for larger amounts (banks engaging their backchannel comfirmation protocols for a measly $25 fee).
There are also debit card payments, admittedly not as widespread, but impressively fast when used through Square Cash or Facebook Messenger.
None of the existing solutions are perfect, but all seem to be "good enough".
There's no need for anyone to switch at this point. Also, an ACH from Coinbase is 4-5 days not 1 day. Japan is an edge case with a very small population. They have -0.1 interest rate. That is nothing compared to what you might lose based on the wild fluctuations Bitcoin incurs.
Funny part is, you're still wrong. There is a need obviously, as people are switching.
If I deposit to GDAX, sell to USD, and withdraw to my bank it will be there in 1 business day. It's been that way for years, for almost everyone I know. ACH pulls take longer, sure, but what I said is correct.
Also, multiple countries implemented negative interest rates[1]. Japan isn't an anomaly.
What you might lose from BTC fluctuation, you may also gain, as seen by the 400% YTD growth, this year alone[2].
You really should do more research and actually understand the topic instead of dismissing it because it doesn't fit your world-view.
Is bitcoin capable of doing 50% of that? 10%? 1%?
I know people have just decided to expand the block size but what's a realistic limit on how many transactions can be done per hour? Is that enough for real widespread use?
I can certainly see uses but I worry that he can never get big enough to truly matter. Or if it does that a government or large private entity could easily try to take it over through force of computing power.