Fostering Bitcoin's adoption as Cash: the effects of large numbers
If 1/10th of 1 percent (or 0,1%) of the world, that is 8M people, each did just one transaction per month, with the Bitcoin (Cash) block time staying at the average 10 minutes/block, that would mean blocks would need to contain at least 1,800 transactions each, to account only for those transactions and not the rest that is going on too.
Practically, this means that if everyone who holds bitcoins, were to resolve to do at least one base layer transaction per month, it would have an enormous effect on the base layer utilization.
Now 1800 transactions per 10-minute block is still only a small rate, around 3 TPS.
Such rates are well within the capacity of blockchains that are usable as p2p cash. The BitcoinCash, Monero, Litecoin or Dash blockchains can probably each handle at least one magnitude more, if not more.
If we want to see blockchains used for p2p cash, I think we need to resolve to make more transactions.
esp. when we can afford a short term economic hit and slightly increased workload by making more smaller transactions instead of e.g. one less frequent larger one. An example might be paying for VPN on a monthly basis instead of an annual prepayment even if it costs a few bucks and extra minutes to do more transactions.
But we would be getting something out of it:
- a better-utilized network, with more usage evident to those not already using it (because it's L1 traffic)
- ensuring the network works well better throughout time, because you're exercising it more regularly
- lowering the average amounts transacted by spreading them across multiple payments, which signals the attractiveness of the network to regular users of other payment networks, where the amount distributions are also skewed towards a larger mass of smaller payments
Those of us who already have ways to make payments using p2p cash even more frequently, e.g. weekly or daily, would boost these effects even more. While those of use who might only have a monthly occasion, could aim to seek out more avenues to spend and replace.
This should of course be real economic use cases, not simply sending money between your own wallets.