Bitcoin politics plays too big a role in its scalability dispute, meanwhile, unconfirmed transactions queue and increasing fees scare investors away.It has become the most critical problem encountered by Bitcoin ever.Despite having dragged over a long period of time, the block size and scaling problem of Bitcoin have never been as bad as is being experienced within the community presently.A lot of users have complained of transactions that remain unconfirmed for several days.With the current rate of Bitcoin volatility, what this implies is that the value of a given transaction may change drastically between the time of initiation and when it is eventually confirmed.A situation which makes it extremely difficult for the cryptocurrency to be used as a convenient medium for everyday transactions.Transaction fees, on the other hand, keep rising exponentially, raising doubts among users about the original functionality and perceived advantage of Bitcoin over other means of payment and transfer of value.

Michael Vogel, CEO of Netcoins, describes this as a critical situation that may lead to an exodus of users from the Bitcoin community into other crypto ecosystems.“This issue with Bitcoin has now become critical.I've already had new customers ask me about the usefulness of Bitcoin, especially because they were initially drawn to it by its purported "fast and nearly-free" nature.It seems neither of these is the case at the moment, and it's frustrating them.Bitcoin's reputation is at stake, and the consequence is that other cryptocurrencies are drawing disenchanted Bitcoin users into their ecosystem.” The number of unconfirmed transactions as at the time of writing stands at over 200,000, a figure that keeps growing by the second.Ghanaian Bitcoin expert Nawaf Abdullah notes that the current problems faced by Bitcoin make it a very difficult idea to sell to new prospects who may be interested in the technology.According to Abdullah, speed and the negligible cost of transaction used to be the key points that attracted new users to Bitcoin.

That seems to be a thing of the past.“Gone are the days when you could happily want to talk to and recommend Bitcoin to individuals and businesses for the sake of how fast, easy and cheap a transaction could be.Imagining yourself paying fees as high as $0.56 just for a $1 dollar transaction these days is scary.This means higher amounts definitely fetch higher fees (for those who want faster confirmations) and even that is not really as fast as it used to be.” Abdullah blames this problem on the politics of interests playing out within the Bitcoin community making it look like there is no solution to the scaling problems.moon bitcoin tricksLike most users of Bitcoin who may not be directly involved in deciding what method is employed, Abdullah is of the opinion that whatever needs to be done to resolve this problem should and must be done to define the original purpose.bitcoin xml feed

Abdullah notes that the Bitcoin community used to be with a single heart and purpose of interest.However, he observes that presently the power struggle has left the community very divided with every party feeling so right about the solutions it has, hence SegWit and Bitcoin Unlimited.Until a consensus is reached and a solution adopted, this could continue to damage the whole Bitcoin concept and ideology.litecoin merchantsAccording to Abdullah, the implications of this situation for Bitcoin could be very severe especially for those involved in educating several others about the technology.get bitcoin address multibit“Getting people to understand how easy, fast and cheap a Bitcoin transaction could be, which basically is a selling point to both businesses and individuals.bitcoin mining essentials

We just won’t be happy for them to actually experience the opposite of what we inform them according to Satoshi’s dream.You can’t become your own bank and be costing yourself every penny saved.” Apparently, Bitcoin has proven to the world the possibility of peer-to-peer transfer of value without the involvement of any central authorities or third parties.bitcoin price plnThis is the foundation of the new technologies and smart contracts we see today and also the reason why they will continue to do better should Bitcoin continue to fail.Technologies like Ethereum and many others will continue to grow as better payment options, while the almighty Bitcoin remains just a safe haven to some.Something has to give!puter scientists Tyler Moore (from the Southern Methodist University, Dallas) and Nicolas Christin (of Carnegie Mellon University) found 40 exchanges on the web which offered a service of changing bitcoins into other fiat currencies or back again.

Of those 40, 18 have gone out of business -- 13 closing without warning, and five closing after suffering security breaches that forced them to close.Four other exchanges have suffered serious attacks but remain open.One of those is Mt Gox, the largest Bitcoin exchange, with Moore and Christin stating that at its peak it handles more than 40,000 Bitcoin transactions a day, compared to a mean average of 1,716.It has been the victim of a huge number of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks over the past month during the peak of the Bitcoin bubble (and its subsequent bursting -- though the price now appears to be rising again).Its latest statement, dealing with the attack it suffered on 21 April, is long and comprehensive, seeking to assuage the fears of Bitcoin users who feel that Mt Gox is becoming a weak chain in Bitcoin's infrastructure.The sheer quantity of trade done on Mt Gox has made it an extremely attractive target for hackers wishing to manipulate the wider Bitcoin price.

That is the paradox that Moore and Christin discovered in their analysis -- that an exchange needs to maintain a transaction volume above a certain level to survive, but becoming large enough to survive also makes a hack of that exchange worthwhile for cyber attackers.The study said: "Exchanges handling 275 Bitcoins' worth of transactions each day have a 20 percent chance of being breached, compared to a 70 percent chance for exchanges processing daily transactions worth 5570 Bitcoins."Moore and Christin estimate that the median lifespan of any Bitcoin exchange is 381 days, with a 29.9 percent chance that a new exchange will close within a year of opening.An extra risk for customers is losing their money from exchanges closing.Of the 18 closed exchanges, there was evidence that only six reimbursed their customers.Five did not, while there was not evidence enough to make a judgement regarding the remaining seven.However, they found that there was still a significant degree of randomness behind the success or failures of many exchanges, which could be down to whether an exchange has a good or bad reputation (something they didn't control for).