Bitcoin Conference Stops Accepting BTC Due To High Fees (bitcoin.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Next week the popular cryptocurrency event, The North American Bitcoin Conference (TNABC) will be hosted in downtown Miami at the James L Knight Center, January 18-19. However, bitcoin proponents got some unfortunate news this week as the event organizers have announced they have stopped accepting bitcoin payments for conference tickets due to network fees and congestion. Bitcoin settlement times, and the fee market associated with transactions, have become a hot topic these days as on-chain fees have risen to $30-60 per transaction. These issues have made it extremely difficult for businesses to operate, and many merchants have stopped accepting bitcoin for services and goods altogether.

Comments

Ironic

[rwise2112]

Bitcoin Conference Stops Accepting BTC Due To High Fees

Wait! Is this actually ironic?

Re:Ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Once a currency becomes unusable as a payment method, it becomes a useless currency, and that is left is pure speculation... when people realize that, its market value is going to drop to zero.

Topics?

[lillgud]

At least they have something to discuss at the conference...

That's some serious irony right there

[sjbe]

Bitcoin settlement times, and the fee market associated with transactions, have become a hot topic these days as on-chain fees have risen to $30-60 per transaction.

Also ironic given that the initial justification for bitcoin was to minimize transaction fees. It's why I've been arguing that the notion that bitcoin has an economic advantage is a false economy.

Greater Fool Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Speculation. I buy bitcoins because I know some other idiots will buy bitcoins with the hope that they will keep on growing in prize.

That's called the Greater Fool Theory. Highly speculative markets can turn the other way instantly.

Re:Greater Fool Theory

[TheRaven64]

It can take a long time though, and while you're riding the upwards curve and selling slowly you can make a lot of money. The thing that people always forget when they read about the tulip bubble and he wall street crash is that as many people became rich as went bankrupt. It's a zero-sum game, so every dollar someone loses will be won by someone else. In many ways, it resembles a poker game where both players are bluffing. Eventually either one will fold or they'll call and whoever has the higher card will win.

I have not speculated on bitcoin, because I don't have any confidence that I can predict the inflection point well enough to find a greater fool before it does.

Re:$30+ fees?

[vivian]

With a fixed number of transactions per block, and a limited block frequency, the transaction fees must by necessity increase as trading volume increases. Increasing volume will only push up competition for the limited number of transaction slots available, which with a 1 MB block is 3.3 to 7 transactions per second. That's a hard limit of 400k to 600k transactions per day.
Right now, the biggest peak has been 498000 transactions per day - on Fri 15 Dec, right before the peak value on 17 Dec.

Wait till the bubble really pops - the transaction fees are going to be massive as there is a mad scrabble for people desperate to get their money out.
The miners are going to make an absolute killing when bitcoin plummets. Unfortunately for them, it's going to be a fortune in bitcoin.

As a currency, it's useless.
As a store of value, it's also questionable - you'd be better off putting your money into something that there is actually a use for in the economy - natural resources or investments in productive capital.