Topic: Bitcoin to mainstream adoption tactic (Read 1140 times)

No no, I understand perfectly.
This is your piece:


You really look slave of cognitive dissonance, dude.
If you don't know what that is, just read on Wikipedia, there's a short article about it.

Oh man you have not understood it seems.
Read again what I wrote. Read all of it again.Have a nice day man.

1. Can you tell me HOW a payment method can be simpler than scanning a code with your mobile phone?
Not because I think it's impossible, but I think that this method is just so simple that if something even simpler will come, it will be after decades.
With actual technology, this is the simplest, fastest solution.
Any other solution asks the shops to build infrastructure, and that costs money, and paying money keeps people away.


4. I don't know how young you are but Greece banks freeze was not the first time it happened in the world.
Also, governments can take your money in banks, that happened in Cyprus recently, in Italy some years ago.
People KNOW this can happen.
Despite this, people didn't run en masse to buy Bitcoin.
Why?
Because they don't trust Bitcoin, that's why.
And that's why I wrote this thread as a strategy to help Bitcoin penetration in mainstream.

Also, after banks re-opened in Greece, you would have expected at least some shop more on Coinmap.
Nothing happened.
Let me restate this: NOTHING - HAPPENED.
Not a single shop was added on Coinmap.
Bitcoin value didn't kick to the stars, it only got a small bump, and much probably not from greek people buying, but from US OURSELVES believing more in Bitcoin after what we have seen banks can do.
You can understand why this happened, if you only try (JUST TRY) to come out of your own opinion and ACCEPT that Greece people are made in such a way that Bitcoin do not appeal them as much as it happens in Tampa, Florida, that is not even in economical distress.
And THIS is why I opened this thread.



But I really can't understand if everybody is now slave of cognitive dissonance or I'm getting mad, so, before I lose my mental sanity I'm abandoning this topic.
Thank you for your effort anyway.

So let me state this clearly: you believe in evangelizing in front of an ATM while a person is mostly probably just in need of getting some money and thus will be in a hurry to find a common ATM, but you don't believe in evangelizing a targetized population of people to create a believable system like I wrote in my post.
Another person that doesn't believe in advertising campaigns.

Maybe I am in the wrong forum here.
At this point, I think only somebody with some experience in advertising can understand what I'm trying to filter in here.

And just to complete the story: I NEVER stopped by to ask a person what the hell is that machine, for several reasons, first of all the person could not feel comfortable while exchanging money when a stranger approaches, second, the person has his own business to do, third, much possibly (and this is the worst) I won't be interested in what that machine exchanges, if I didn't need that up to now, I don't need it anyway.
You are just dreaming about ATMs being a good advertising method, even though, as anything else at this point, they surely help a minimum.
We are talking about MAYBE 10 persons per year stopping by a Bitcoin ATM and asking somebody what the hell that is. And then, remaining their same opinion just because they are in a city that is not Tampa or Kansas City (and I hope this comparison will help you understand better)
And again: we have no data about how much those ATMs are used. I couldn't find a company releasing data about it.

1. You didn't get my phrase, we need to make bitcoin use as simple as possible. Software, security, wallets, everything. Look at the Trezor for example, it's very secure, but its still overly complicated. If we don't simplify Bitcoin further, it will never get adopted as we want.

4. Greece helped Bitcoin a lot! And I am not of those who are saying Greeks should adopt bitcoin as a national currency. Let me say you how Greece has helped us:

When Greece started their capital controls, there was no 1 person in the world that had money in the banks that didn't ask themselves, what if I wake up tomorrow and this happens to me. As they asked themselves this question, they probably heard about Bitcoin in news as well so at least they started thinking a bit more that there might be another option out there! This is what we need for adoption to happen, raised awareness.

This is very very naive to say... it's like saying that advertising doesn't do anything.
But, you know, each serious advertising campaign examines a TARGET AUDIENCE (just like I did) and elaborates an action plan.

Case in Point, Buenos Aires has got a good number of shops in it, 150... but in relation to population it's a quite low number, as you can see from the spreadsheet I linked.
So you can evince from this that, as I wrote in the first post, the adoption rate of Bitcoin is based not only on the bad economy status of a country, but on other factors. But at this points I suspect you only read some of the lines of my post, as this is explained more extensively in there.

A lot of things will help to reach Bitcoin's mainstream adoption. The ATMs are one piece of that. And don't underestimate these machines. The more are placed in hotspots of big metrololises the more people will scratch their heads and think what that is cause they see it almost everywhere. And when you as a long user Bitcoin stand in front one of those atms some curious persons might ask you what this is and how it works. And now it's up to you to explain, show and convince them.

Of course this will not happen in 1 or 2 years. The adoption will grow slowly and we have to be patient with average joes. You can not force a process like this to speed up.

We can do what we dow now. Let the devs code and the entrepreneurs build new Bitcoin related companies. Let's continue to make meet ups and conferences and tell your friends and family about it. Make up use cases where Bitcoin shows it's advantages and show it to the people.Experiencing Bitcoin is way better than just explaining it in therory.

And as I said you have to give it time!!!!

I don't think there is a specific tactic to follow to increase adoption, it just happens naturally when the time is right. Case in point: In argentina BTC is extremely useful.
In the rest of the world were there arent serious monetary everyday problems we'll have to wait until goverment vanishes cash.

Well, everything goes into the cauldron. Even going around the street with a Bitcoin Tshirt probably helps.



What I can't understand from all the posts that came into this thread is: do you think the tactic I exposed is WRONG or what?

I mean, NOBODY seems to think that what I wrote in the opening thread would be a good tactic to accelerate mainstream Bitcoin adoption.
Everybody posting this and that.
BUT as well NOBODY is discussing my points in the opening post.

To say it better:
1) yes, having ATM around helps
2) yes, talking to your familiars and friends helps
3) yes, going around with a Bitcoin Tshirt helps
4) yes, making even more intuitive software helps

But this thread is a study that tries to find the BEST mid term tactic to help Bitcoin get into mainstream.
Can you say if you find what I wrote in the opening post something... weird? Useless? Maybe working?
Also because, you know, points from 1 to 4 are ANYWAY ALREADY HAPPENING.
And nobody will ANYWAY stop them from happening.
This thread is about WHERE TO POINT MORE EFFORT INTO SPREADING BITCOIN WORD with evangelization, conferences, etc.

Sorry if this seems rude, but I didn't see a SINGLE POST discussing my proposal, and ALL POSTS saying that there's something else going on.
Something else that is NOT a tactic, but just what every single person (me included) is doing probably every day.
I know there's something else going on. I am part of it.
I don't want to gain consensus about the proposal, but at least try to find fallacies in my reasoning, prove it wrong someway, otherwise you are just repeating stuff everybody knows, stuff that will anyway go on, and you are pretty much out of the thread topic.

In other words: can you please tell me what you think about the tactic proposed in the opening post?
Thank you.

Bitcoin ATMs are not convincing anybody that the thing works.
They are only helping people that are convinced of it already to acquire Bitcoins.
It's good, but it's not the topic.
I mean, the topic is about how to CONVINCE people in the shortest possible time and throw Bitcoin in the mainstream adoption.

Bitcoin ATMs will help somewhat when people will begin to WANT to use Bitcoins and not bother to go online or trust online services.
But what we must do first, is having people WANT to use Bitcoin.

Also, I wonder (and you should too) how many people are buying Bitcoins from those ATMs.
As NO DATA is released on the matter, I suspect the number to be very, very low.

If the greeks have no idea what internet exactly is how do you expect them to embrace bitcoin? That was not the point of this story.
Greek crisis showed people that even with somewhat strong currency they are not safe. Their bank accounts can be frozen, their money grabbed by government.
This is where bitcoin comes on a scene, some people realized that with bitcoin your money will be safer, that is a first step.

We are on a good way regarding this. Give a bit more time and I'm sure we will see several thousands BTC Atms around the globe.

It's important to keep in mind that adoption will be a slow 'rev up' until it reaches a point of scale that allows it to find it's own space in the market.  The important thing is to keep talking about BTC, showing vendors its benefit, and supporting the businesses that currently accept it.

Exactly!
What I want to say is that the best place on Earth where you can do that is Tampa, Florida.
And I wouldn't repeat it yet again, but showing an entire small city running on Bitcoin would be the best advertising ever.
I think that when this will happen, the big boom into mainstream will really begin.

4. Look at Greece?
Nothing happened in Greece, dude, I followed it closely.
40% of greeks NEVER accessed internet.
And THIS is a good place to say: Greece is the WRONG PLACE to advertise Bitcoin, also between your family.
For the simple reason that, with such a bad internet infrastructure or appreciation, there's an additional barrier in its adoption.
Greece will surely NOT be one of the first countries adopting Bitcoin, DESPITE its terrible economic conditions.

2. Ye that happens ANYWAY.

3. Not my task, it's coders and IT task, and this happens ANYWAY as well. Software evolution goes on.

1. What?

This is a good objection, and I agree with it in part: it's surely more difficult to pay with your smartphone wallet than with paper banknotes.
But try to watch it from another point of view.
Download and install COINOMI on your smartphone (it's the easiest/fastest wallet I know at the moment).
Do you really think that's more difficult to use than any credit card or payment method, apart paper banknotes?
I don't think so.

It's just DIFFERENT: you have to snapshot a picture of the code and... well that's all.

You don't need to know the word blockchain or backup or cold storage or anything else.
Those things can come later.
And with the same wallet from your smartphone you can store your Bitcoin capital onto some well protected webwallet and only keep some Bitcoins for daily use on your portable wallet.

So, yes, using Bitcoin is different from the other forms of payment, of course, but I don't think it's much more complex than most cards.
Coincidence, today I helped a neighbour of mine to buy something with Paypal (he's on his 70s and with all effort he can't really get into how computers and websites work, so he asks me for help quite often). Using Paypal took verification of his email, phone number, connection of his web account with his Paypal card...
With Bitcoin, you don't really need any of this crap.
You could pay at the shop, and you could pay online, and nobody would ask you screens and screens of ID verification that most over 50 can't deal with.



Now for a small thought experiment: imagine that on your smartphone wallet you have no Bitcoins.
It only shows $ or €. Bitcoin doesn't exist.
Now, imagine you go to a shop and buy something, then you bring out your smartphone and pay in $ or € with it.
Have you... felt anything?
Didn't that already... FEEL BETTER?
That's ONLY because you are USED to $ and €.
This proves that the only problem with Bitcoin is that it's a new currency not backed by anybody, it's something people perceive like scam or "not serious", and the only way to overcome this feeling is to prove them that a system RUNS on it.
And the fastest way to build up a small system running on Bitcoin is the one I described in the opening post.

The thing you can do is team up with some local bitcoin fanatics and make a plan to visit local stores, bars and restaurants, tell them about Bitcoin and make it easy for them to incorporate it into their venue, make 'Bitcoin accepted' stickers for their windows next to the CC and banckcard,  so every customer will see and start to question in their head what bitcoin is, it will grow, slowly but graduatly.

Take it step by step, most countries have a centrel 'where to spend my coins' website, they probably have connections to other cities in which these kind of groups are active, you could go and have a chat about how to go about it in your own town.

1. You simplify the use of Bitcoin to the point that is oversimplified.
2. Continue spreading the word, friends, family etc.
3. You keep innovating and making a rock solid software that will not give up on is.
4. You let the time does its job. Look at Greece, Cyprus etc.

Every aspect of bitcoin should be easy and intuitive to use. That will speed up things most. Currently it feels overwhelming to get started with it..

Maybe you can compare it to MSDOS (bitcoin currently) and windows 7/iOS (bitcoin how it has to become)

He simply couldn't catch what I wrote.
Anyway, there's a "short version" in the following post.