Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of the fast-growing crypto exchange FTX, האט געזאגט אַז ביטקאָין isn’t a suitable payments network.
“The Bitcoin network is not a payments network and it is not a scaling network,” he דערציילט די פינאַנציעל Times אויף מאנטאג.
Bankman-Fried qualified these statements by pointing to the network’s דערווייַז פון אַרבעט (PoW) consensus algorithm, which validates Bitcoin transactions.
אין אַ PoW-based network, computers run non-stop to verify transactions and create new blocks for the network, a process known as מינינג. And as Bitcoin mining has industrialized over the years, the number of computers doing this work has also steadily risen.
This rise has led to concerns around the sheer amount of energy Bitcoin needs to maintain itself, attracting criticism from environmentalists as well as lawmakers פּרווון to achieve their climate goals.
אַחוץ consuming a large amount of energy, the leading cryptocurrency isn’t particularly speedy either. According to data pulled from Blockchain.com, the average number of transactions per second (TPS) on Bitcoin over the past 30 days is roughly 2.58.
Bitcoin transaction rate. Source: Blockchain.com
When compared to traditional payments networks, like Visa or Mastercard, Bitcoin’s performance is orders of magnitude slower.
Still, Bankman-Fried does believe that Bitcoin can serve another key purpose.
“To be clear I also said that it does have potential as a store of value,” he tweeted in reference to the פינאַנציעל Times report. “The [Bitcoin] network can’t sustain thousands/millions of TPS, although BTC can be [transferred] on lightning/L2s/etc.”
די Lightning Network is a scaling solution that allows for micropayments atop the Bitcoin network.
To be clear I also said that it _does_ have potential as a store of value.
The BTC network can’t sustain thousands/millions of TPS, although BTC can be xfered on lightning/L2s/etc. https://t.co/7ghQzz7eXa
All is not lost, though, for the future of cryptocurrencies. Instead, said the FTX chief, דערווייַז-פון-פלעקל (PoS) crypto networks offer the low costs and high transaction speeds needed for a payments system.
“Things that you’re doing millions of transactions a second with have to be extremely efficient and lightweight and lower energy cost. Proof of stake networks are,” Bankman-Fried said.
These kinds of networks are much less energy-intensive. Instead of maintaining a never-off computer farm to mine Bitcoin, PoS networks rely on validators that have “staked” (or deposited) a hefty amount of the network’s native cryptocurrency. As they perform their duties correctly, these validators earn a yield; if however, they validate fraudulent transactions, they’ll be punished by losing a portion of the funds they initially staked.
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, עטהערעום, is currently undergoing a transition from PoW to PoS. The switch to proof of stake could result in Ethereum using roughly 99.95% ווייניקער ענערגיע, according to The Ethereum Foundation.
