When bitcoin was first proposed, I argued that the proposed algorithm failed to scale.
Well, when getting started, scaling does not matter. Now, however, a bitcoin wallet is starting to cost substantial bandwidth and processing power. There are plans to address this, but I am underwhelmed by those plans. The proposed plans will make bitcoin more centralized, and will still have scaling issues.
Seems to me that we need an algorithm where no one computer needs to keep a copy of all transactions, or even a complete listing of who owns what coins, so as to maintain scaling all the way to operating all of the world’s transactions, and full decentralization both. (more…)
