Well as we all know that follow what is going on, Bitcoin is really climbing. I personally do not think it can maintain the high level for long.
There is quite a bit of hype around the whole thing, lots of trading going on, but what happens in the real world use of the coin when it hits mainstream?
I did a transfer 3 days ago with a normal transaction fee. Still nothing showing!
Do I need to let the miners dictate a high transaction fee in order to see my transaction go through or is the entire network not ready for such large amounts of transfers?
Both are actually happening right now, and most do not see this because they are so caught up in their visions of $10,000 per Bitcoin.
Think about it. The Bitcoin world is truly controlled by a few very large farms. New mining hardware that is modern and efficient can not be found by normal minnows like me, because the large mines are sucking them all up before they hit the streets. This kind of goes against what I understand as decentralized. I never thought decentralized meant 5-10 major mining operations, I believed it was truly a world wide network of compute systems that would work as one.
Now with just a "hand full" of major mining operations, they can start to look at high paying transfer fees and just leave the low fees sitting there to default into Nirvana. I could not believe it when I tried to transfer today and my Blockchain wallet recommended that I use a transfer fee of .003 to make sure it goes through in an hour or less.
People should think about this. If I am running an online store, for example, and I have to wait days to get my money when someone buys something then the customer does not have a good experience. They order and 2-4 days later when the transfer shows up I will send the purchased items out. Due to the world being pampered by Amazon and Co. with next day prime service, my company would die due to poor customer satisfaction or it would die because people do not want to spend .004 or more to make sure the transaction happens at least that day.
There is a great world that could happen if a coin is truly decentralized and the mining can be done with hardware that people could afford. As a coin hits ASIC type of mining technology the large operations will eat it up and we will sit here with nothing except used last generation mining equipment that we can purchase.
One last thing I forgot to mention, if the Chinese government can jump into one of the largest mining operation in the world and start to regulate what they do, is it still the coin that everyone hoped for? Look at the effect it had on the value when this happened. Yes it has regained and is doing well for now, but governments are leeches. As soon as they see somewhere to suck blood they will attach themselves and start to get what they can out of it :(