So, an abstract of the Bitcoin whitepaper reads:A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.While I strongly agree that the Bitcoin network will benefit from having transactions that settle faster, I've come across many who argue that the Bitcoin network is super-slow and needs a new consensus mechanism.I've also heard some argue that Bitcoin's slowness is a feature and not a bug.Going back to the whitepaper it is evident that Satoshi's focus was on creating a form of currency that "would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution."Satoshi also mentions "If we suppose blocks are generated every 10 minutes," so he/they/she was aware that they were not building a super-fast payment network.Evidently, the plan wasn't for Bitcoin to compete with PayPal, SWIFT and co.Satoshi famously added the "Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks" to the genesis block, further highlighting that the purpose was building hard money that would be immune to inflation or government manipulation.That would clearly be a store-of-value (SoV), not a fast payment network.So, if there's any channel that makes Bitcoin faster, it's apparently a bonus and makes the network more usable.But that doesn't change the original vision.Bitcoin is working exactly as Satoshi wanted, and that's amazing enough!
Submitted November 10, 2020 at 06:36PM
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