Bitcoin is often criticized for being "too sluggish" and "too costly." When the network is congested, it can take more than an hour for a bitcoin transaction to be processed. Many in the cryptocurrency community thought the long processing period was inappropriate since he was the founding father of cryptocurrencies. Not only that, but transaction fees were increasing. An average Bitcoin transaction needed less than $0.05 in transaction fees five years ago, but at the network's height in December 2017, average fees hit $40! Due to the incredibly high fees and long wait times, microtransactions – which were the foundation of Bitcoin's purpose – were simply not possible.
Scalability is the main problem that Bitcoin is dealing with.
What is Scalability?
Scalability refers to a system's or network's ability to expand in size and handle increased demand. Any system or network would need to be expanded to accommodate increased use and operation. The main issue with blockchain technology is scalability; the Bitcoin network – like any other cryptocurrency network – has a limit on the number of transactions it may handle.
Why can’t Bitcoin deal with more transactions?
The Bitcoin network's processing power is constrained by two key factors:
Average Block Creation Time: A block containing about 2,000+ Bitcoin transactions takes around 10 minutes to build and secure. This implies that at any given time, only a certain number of transactions can be processed.
Block Size Limit: The size of each block is limited to 1MB (1,000 KB). This implies that the number of transactions that can be added to the block is restricted. The original purpose of this limit was to avoid DoS attacks by hackers attempting to build large (or infinite) blocks that would damage and paralyze the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin's open-source code base has undergone relatively few updates since its inception, and its fundamental properties – such as block development times and block size limits – have remained unchanged. The Bitcoin network has expanded from a handful of early adopters to over 10 million regular users today. You can imagine how much stress the network is under as a result of increased use and operation.
Effects of Bitcoin’s Problem
Expensive Fees: In the early days of Bitcoin, you might submit a transaction for as little as $0.05. Compare that to the current situation, where fees have topped $40 because the network is overburdened. Consider paying USD $40 in fees to submit USD $5 in Bitcoins. You should use bank transfers rather than Bitcoin. Transaction fees are a vital part of the network because they encourage miners to process and validate your transactions. Miners would be financially incentivized to choose transactions that pay the highest fees since there is a block cap, which means only a certain amount of transactions will fit into a block at any given time. You must pay higher fees if you want your transaction to be processed quickly. When the network is congested, this results in a bidding war, with transaction fees being pushed higher.
Increase Waiting Time: Since there is only so much room in a block for transactions, and miners would favor those who pay the highest fees, a congested network will also result in longer wait times. Some people claim to have waited hours, if not days, for confirmation of their transactions! This is extremely inconvenient for users, especially those who pay low fees.
Low Mainstream Adoption: For both consumers and retailers, high transaction fees and long wait times will have a direct impact on mainstream acceptance. On the consumer side, raising the difficulty of using Bitcoin as a medium of exchange will jeopardize Bitcoin's original goal of becoming "digital cash." More importantly, merchants will not consider Bitcoin – or cryptocurrencies in general – as a viable payment method; why would they wait 10 minutes to an hour to validate a transaction when they could use VISA or MasterCard, which process transactions instantly?
Final Thoughts
Bitcoin’s scalabilty problem is the main issue why I consider Bitcoin not bitcoin no more. Even if there are solution underway like Lightning Network, I think that it won’t solve the issue. I’ve read and watched some videos regarding Lightning Network and even BTC maxis are not using it.
Here at Bitcoin Cash we all are saying the same thing you just wrote that we believe that Bitcoin should have low fees to be consider a Bitcoin and as such we think that BCH is the real Bitcoin, and many users are already worry about fees and they don't like paying those fees either so eventually people will move to that which is cheap and we must tell them that BCH is Bitcoin.