The Economist does crypto - September 1-7 issue

Bitcoin Talk and Cryptocurrencies Cryptocurrency In the News
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The current issue of The Economist (dated Sept 1-7) has a technology quarterly on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Generally speaking, they are not big fans, but still there’s some interesting stuff in there.

One thing I’ll comment on, though… they are reciting the mantra that making payments in Bitcoin is slow. I recently had the experience of collecting payments from friends in several countries, to pay their part of a deposit on a holiday home that I’d booked for us.

One from the US paid me in Bitcoin - I had one confirmation within 30 minutes, and the obligatory 8 confirmations came in within a couple of hours. All done and dusted.

Another paid me by a bank transfer from the Netherlands to the UK, which I was advised was the quickest and cheapest way of doing it. That went into the ether for 3 working days, with absolutely no feedback or indication that it was being worked on until it finally appeared in my account.

So one has to ask, slow compared to what?

Anyway, happy reading!

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Thanks for sharing. I’ve done transfer in ETH and LTC, all under 30 min.

This right here. Slow compared to what. At the end of last year (Dec), confirmations could take DAYS, and then by January, that dropped to 30min per transaction.

And they have a stat for that, if you’re interested in transferring some BTC! Several sites provide this statistical info, and
for more than just BTC:

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Yes, good point. I’ve also heard that during that time, you had to offer huge fees in order to get your transaction taken up into the blockchain (to tempt the miners). So the system doesn’t perform well under load.

I finished reading The Economist Technology Quarterly on cryptocurrency and blockchain, and came away thinking of the Gartner Hype Curve… it’s pretty textbook. We’ve come off the Peak of Inflated Expectations, and are now in the Trough of Disappointment. But there is the Slope of Enlightenment and the Plateau of Productivity to come!