Topic: Slow adoption and decentralized nature of bitcoin (Read 883 times)

That is probably the main reason why bitcoin continues to be erroneously treated as an investment asset to gain profit, rather than digital, decentralized money to obtain financial self-sovereignty. Bitcoin gives us a unique ability to make transactions on the internet without having to involve undesirable intermediaries such as banks, and also allows us to prevent our savings from gradual debasement due to disadvantages of a centrally planned economy.

Presently, most people who are advocating for faster adoption of bitcoin merely want their investments to grow faster. But I consider it vital to encourage everyone else to learn about bitcoin and its ideas so that people can comprehend why we all should protect bitcoin and support its decentralized nature and not focus on those profit-seekers.

Profit-seekers should also be interested in protecting bitcoin, because if it is no longer a decentralized currency, it will be immediately shut down by governments and therefore lose its value.

Maybe it would be better to gradually learn bitcoin and in fact it is not that easy to learn its twists and turns in just one day, let's not rush and we will also come to this point and let us take the time to shape the minds of many and open their eyes to see the importance of it and how they can change their lives by using crypto. It would be nice to teach them the basic steps on how to use it and when they have tried and use it they will explore and discover everything on their own.

We should still need to consider the elephant in the room which is how would those people with no education in basic technology cope up. I agree that learning Bitcoin doesn't mean that we should learn every single characteristic of it such as its technical side. It's like learning how to use a phone but making the learning of its specification mandatory before using it.
However the medium to use Bitcoin is what we should consider first before finding means how to make people adopt and use it.

If you really want to bring someone to this industry better to plan your moves, you are correct there's no need to explain how complicated the system was created but instead provide information where interest will take place.


Those information will be enough for a person who's looking for every chances that he have, learning the basics and try to enhance their knowledge after.

It's really a matter of interest that will bring them in, the more they engaged to this industry
the more they will learn all the features and advantages of this chain.

BUT there will always be many people who will still complain about the high fees and slow transaction times, without knowing WHY fees are sometimes high, and the design decisions made behind it. Good Bitcoin education will fix this.

But courage is what the people should have, they are not that confident enough in believing that bitcoin can change their lives.

That's the reason why bitcoin has a slow adoption, also that it is not yet in the mainstream can affect its popularity to most of the people who are not that familiar to it.

Maybe, it really lack of promotion and advertisement in the public due to its decentralized nature. They think that is much hassle to own an asset that is away from the authorities and is self-manipulated. But what can we do, if that's the nature of bitcoin, a lowkey cryptocurrency that is really worth it to invest.

Don't make Bitcoin look complicated in front of ordinary people, this will make people lazy to learn Bitcoin. The problem is that slow
adoption occurs because of the wrong way to educate people, don't explain Bitcoin technology to ordinary people. The most important
thing is make people to think using Bitcoin is as easy as using fiat. So just explain how to generate Bitcoin, how to store Bitcoin and
how to spend Bitcoin. Just explain these three things, the rest of the people will understand by themselves, after starting to use Bitcoin.

That's the fact, here it is all about money that attracts people towards bitcoin and not the technology. What we've got with the technology is big, but that isn't necessary when you stay and think from a common man's mind. Surely the user will learn little by little once after getting strong on the possible ways of earning. First of all if bitcoin hasn't got any relation with money, surely we could've never reached the present level of adoption.

I don't think people should learn all the technical stuff about bitcoin, but I just advise people to know how to use it. As long as they can use bitcoin properly, then I don't think there will be any issues to argue about. Just like fiat, people are not obliged to know how money is made, what ingredients are used because as long as they know what money is and what it's used for and they are able to use it properly then I don't think it will be a problem.

In my opinion, they should know the following things even if they don't learn them technically. But for a higher level, user can still learn more thing if they want to know more about bitcoin, how it work, and so on.
1. Choose a wallet and secure your wallet.
2. Earn bitcoin.
3. Spend bitcoin.

Seriously why would anyone be arguing about this? Who is requiring you to comprehend what Bitcoin and Blockchain is all about before you start using them? Most people here that are making use of Bitcoin doesn’t know the difference between the two (Bitcoin/cryptocurrency and Blockchain) but they are still making use of it and not having any problem.

Even without being taught anything you will already know that it is for transaction, but the fluctuating rate makes people see it as an investment also. And as for simplicity, there are already lots of wallets that are very easy to use, for example Blockchain wallet, BitPay wallet, or you can choose to use digital banks like Xapo wallet and Wirex. So this shouldn’t be any argument. What’s hard in copying address and cross-checking before sending? Most of these wallets now let’s you to send with email.

we can't push people to learn.
when they get enough benefits from bitcoin, they will it by themself.
let's support the simplicity of bitcoin. tell them that "bitcoin is money too" and how to receive/send bitcoin.
we don't need to tell them about how it works, what is blockchain, etc.

just like the "sell me this pen/pencil" question.
do you use a pen/pencil? if the answer is no, then don't go for another question. 

The gradual adoption of the decentralized nature of Bitcoin explains a brilliant illustration this will make bitcoin easier for every trader to learn and gain knowledge about Bitcoin. This will make their transactions easier when trading comes to investing in Bitcoin. Learn the proper use of Bitcoin everything is improving through blockchain technology and the trend of the market is changing so the speed will increase the demand for bitcoin.

I'm late to the topic, and did a quick browse. I agree with OP, that every user should learn how Bitcoin works, and why. Because if every user truly knew, then we wouldn't hear of the usual compaints on "why the fees are high", "why transactions are slow", "why the blockchain is inefficient".

Decentralization, and censorship-resistance are possible at a cost. It is never going to be easy.

A technological piece like bitciin is bound to birth curiosity among the people who use it whether the creator intended them to or not. So this is utterly useless. We can simply explain it in bite-sized chunks to people but over time, they'll crave for more knowledge about bitcoin as they believe it will cause them great gains, or would allow them to gather more bitcoins in the long run.

This is an interesting piece. There's a saying that says 'when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable'. If people didn't care to learn or understand what bitcoin is all about, it will become abused in no time. Everyone needs to understand that what makes bitcoin what it is, the major ones which are decentralization, anonymity and transparency.
So to answer your questions?
1. Yes, we should learn bitcoin. Anyone who would count as a user of bitcoin should take time to learn what is what.
2. As much as simplicity should be promoted, it should be done in a way that doesn't neglect the core factors of bitcoin. We should find a way to strike a balance between the two.
3. Yes, I believe bitcoin will exist. It has been existing for more than a decade now with only a tiny percentage of world's population aware of it. So I do not think it will be affected by majority learning or not.

Bitcoin is already made in a way that it will suitable for anyone. The main core is decentralization, but there are Centralized wallets and exchanges that makes everything to be even more simple. Just like we have Coinbase which will allow people to send and receive Bitcoin using their email address instead of the main addresses, although that’s only if both parties are using Coinbase.

Right from, I haven’t seen Bitcoin as something that is complex; just to copy the address of the receiver and then you paste it and send, nothing more, it’s still the same as copying the email address that you’re sending to on PayPal, though it’s advisable that you go through it twice or more to know whether it’s copied correctly or not. It’s all about people being ready for it, there are other payment methods out there, and you can’t expect everyone to be using Bitcoin. It’s all with time.

 :)Hello everyone, I think that this topic is a little more trustworthy because you cannot tell a person that you invest in bitcoin that you will earn a lot of money when it is not like that, because if you do not study a little and do research you do not have much knowledge in the market fluctuation and it may be that you may have a hard time at the moment that the cryptocurrency drops its price or as many people who enter the scam platform invest their money and lose it in a very stupid way , greetings to all, says goodbye @danielgrossoweb

There are still so many people who have misinformation about Bitcoin or even no clue about it. So, I think the adoption being slow now is normal because of this. In time, with the help of educations about Bitcoin and Blockchain, the adoption rate will start increasing faster.

We must of course still learn Bitcoin because better think of it if Bitcoin is being used by uneducated individuals, they would just surely be spending it because of its value unknowingly that they could unlock its more potential if they would know does it works and what are the perks of using it on daily life basis. It is important that aside from pushing through to get into massive adaption is that we must keep in mind that people must get to know Bitcoin very well first before everything else because it won't make any sense having adaption with people that do not certainly know its importance.

We should promote simplicity at first base just to let them understand the basic knowledge about it because if you would get into complexity on first hand, they would surely lose interest on knowing it because they would think it would be really hard for them to understand the nature of Bitcoin. We must put into leveling the knowledge acquired starting from basic going to the complex because they would learn the complexities along their journey on using Bitcoin.

First of All people must have a knowledge of Bitcoin otherwise it is harmful for both crypto holder and that person because he/she doesn't know how bitcoin work. Then price will definitely down. Majority population not consider Bitcoin and they don't have little bit knowledge.We have to spread awareness about this ,this lead to cause of decreased in decentralisation which is not a good sign.

That should not be too difficult to implement, what you are proposing is similar to the evolution of talking over the phone that has happened over the years, at the beginning if you wanted to call someone you needed to remember their phone number but with the advent of intelligent phones now you have the phones numbers of friends and services that you need recorded and you can call them with just a few clicks.

What you are proposing is very similar to that and quite honestly I do not see such a big problem implementing it and it could work like this, after you make your first transaction to a new address your wallet could ask you to add this to your list of addresses, if you want to do this you accept and you could name it in whatever way you want and now you can use that address in a very convenient way.

My idea is that a large portion of Bitcoin users do not know how Bitcoin works. These are far from why Bitcoin works, what purpose it was created for, most of our Bitcoin users do not have time to worry about. That's why I totally agree with him that Bitcoin needs to be made easier for the general public. So that people can easily understand and know about bitcoin. For Bitcoin to be successfully accepted around the world, it needs to be done.

In my opinion lots of people, let's be honest, when Bitcoin has just appeared even did not have any clear idea what the exact business model and goals it had or will have. And even nowadays there is a high percentage of people who buy BTC only because his more successful friend did, without even any trying to read mote in deep information about BTC, it's idea and so on. And it is not because these people are less clever than others are. It is just because they even do not try to do this. They see the example of friend that invested some years ago in BTC and got high profit. But of course I am agree that it would be better to give people more knowledge about Bitcoin and crypto, even uneducated people sometimes are more wise than people with lots of universities degrees))) But I think that the person who wants to learn more in deep, he just does it and that is all. Thanks to the Internet, there are so many resources where you can find a huge doze of information about BTC and crypto)))

One thing is very clear here that people are investing in Bitcoin in their hard earned money. The reason for this is to be rich in a short time even if everyone knows. But there is no denying that people know very little about it. People are investing there without knowing much because they are seeing a lot of profit inside. So I totally agree that Bitcoin users need to know a lot more about Bitcoin and have a better knowledge of Bitcoin.

Still, it depends on you if you want to learn with the use of the bitcoin but still this is the most common thing right now some of the people use this as a way of transaction like sending of funds and making an investment.

At the first place, I don't really have enough knowledge regarding on this coin and the blockchain how it works by just getting curious and reading a lot of kinds of stuff related on it the same with the help of the forum it gives a lot of ideas and information so I try now spreading the use and the benefits of the bitcoin on our place but still some of them are already called as the baby boomers or afraid to makes a change but still, I want to push it so I teach to the aame age with me so we have to gather information easily what is the best way to earn.

Some members here are actually started to teach this in school but I'm not sure how effective it was since it needs more on applications rather technicalities. The process is the thing that we need to explore and make use of Bitcoin in different areas. And as what you've said, people continue to ignore people because they don't like Bitcoin may be and they don't want to open up their mind.

Close-minded individuals ain't deserve to teach, not even have the interest, and teaching thems is only a waste of our precious time. Adopting crypto is gonna be optional and we're not urged to do it.

There is already some courses that help people understand more about Bitcoin and its brilliant technology. I think it should be taught in the schools to make more people learn Bitcoin in a correct way. As long as people continue ignoring to get Bitcoin correctly and we do nothing about it, the adoption will continue to be slow.

^ But the fact is this, we have continued increasing scam victims especially scam exchange fro hackers. All of these had a miscredit to the bitcoin reputation and those who had heard will become negative to the bitcoin and did not adopt it. Those victims are don't really know how bitcoin works and what bitcoin is. It is very techy to teach and probably it will take days or weeks before they will understand the decentralized nature of bitcoin. Slow adoption will surely have if we continue like this, scam here, and scam there, they were heard news like this.

Yeah if we could try our best to let everyone knows about the importance of bitcoin to our economy, we would have made the price higher than today. because doing those things required some knowledge and patience. Just like in the war, we are at war with scammers when doing those things. Thieves and Crooks are also doing their part to dirty the name of cryptocurrecies and this is one of the reason why our progress is so slow to to become adopted by every nation in the world. nevertheless, we still have some slow progress which is good to current progress.

https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/Bitcoin_history

Agreed with Posi. Simplicity of use would be one part of story, the other one is safety. If we have large number of scams or stolen coins, then, I dont think that it will be able to gain larger scale of use

There is a good reason for this, we never taught money in school!

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." Henry Ford

Bitcoin fixes this! It is first digital money that is completely decentralized, uncensorable and free from central bank manipulations. But it comes with some costs, people should maintain decentralization of bitcoin, keep it distributed, make sure there is no single point of failure. Bitcoin was created to return the power over money back to common people, to separate money from state. With bitcoin one can transact absolutely freely, without having to ask for permission, like it had always been before demise of gold standard. People don't know history of money and have never lived during free market of money either, and bitcoin is able to give them that feeling  and then they will suddenly realize that they were always under control of banks and it was a bad time. People will adopt bitcoin faster if they are able to realize that bitcoin makes their lives better and freer, that requires learning, you can't realize anything if you're bad at learning.

I go with the tweethandle, tweetstorm on this, and that's saying yes to your second option in the closing questions. The complexity and workings of Bitcoin aren't necessary in using it. Even a lot of those who think we should master the workings of Bitcoin before using it will not know jack of how fiat runs or is minted, yet they make use of it.


Supposedly, as implied in your comment, those of us here who use Bitcoin as a medium of exchange aren't NORMAL?

I agree there are many obstacles to adoption and these do differ from individual to large corporations. At the individual level I do favour simplicity but at the same time I don't agree that no basics about how BTC or crypto in general works should be skipped. Here it is super important to have people understand the risks associated with this digital currency and put these into perspective.

On the other hand, large corporations would need a much higher understanding of the system, how it works and why the volatility is so high. And in this case, even fully understanding these risks I fail to see many implementing BTC as payment since this would be a long-term financial decision and BTC or similar digital currencies cannot yet provide the level of security required for this type of immersion.

That's the main target of the people since if they didn't go here for profits then what is the use of engaging with bitcoins? For design? or for you not get outdated on the latest technology? The reason why many company didn't accept bitcoin on their payment option is due to volatility,bitcoin is not stable and might they will get bankrupt once the price get dump. Remember there's no always glory days on bitcoin and companies want stability that can sustain their company for long run and bitcoin cannot provide that for now.

Think about the following:

- Thousands of people buy cars and use cars, but they don't know how cars are made and they don't know the basics of mechanics, but cars are adopted en masse!

- - Thousands of people buy cell phones and use cell phones, but do not know how cell phones are made or how cell phone operating systems and programs are created, but cell phones are adopted en masse and have never stopped being manufactured.

- thousands of people use FIAT but never bothered to know how FIAT is made

with bitcoin it would not be different, what matters is that everything is simplified for everyone to use, anyone who likes to want to learn technical things will then learn technical things, but you cannot force people to learn technical things because at that time nobody will want to use bitcoin



yes

In the case of bitcoin, it is really hard for normal people to use it as a medium of exchange. Right now we can consider it as a store of value like gold. And because the decentralized nature of bitcoin its not that fast enough to be used like fiat.

Bitcoin interfaces are simple enough already, its much easier than register new bank account or to do swift payment. People just dont want to use it because
a) not every merchant accept it
b) fiat is enough for them
We need to solve at least a) to make adoption wider

Bitcoin has lost its identity, the user only use bitcoin for an income purpose no more than that. They didn't know how to use bitcoin based on its characteristic, they only use bitcoin because there are a lot of people who got rich already in an instant why. Like a few days ago, there is an information who stated that the major company only put their money to support some tool to earn bitcoin like NVIDIA and etc. They didn't interested to accept bitcoin because they still have money to make a transaction or sending money. So, this is pointed out that we just bitcoin to earn money no more than that, I agree if we should have to learn all the thing about bitcoin.

For a massive adoption it is true that it needs simplification. During the initial phase of BTCitcoin it was a big task to get a simple BTCitcoin address and you need to download Bitcoin-Qt wallet and sync everything and now we have all simplified versions of wallets which enables everyone to use without much complication.
Many people does not care about the technical stuff rather everyone is eyed on the valuation and if you really want to attract new users around the globe you need to have a much lower transaction charge as the current charges are around their daily wages in third world countries.

As per the world bank data 10% of the world population live under $1.90 a day, for them they do not care about the importance of BTCitcoin but worried about how they make a meal for their family. Many view BTCitcoin as a capitalist tool which is a good thing but the majority does not belong in that category  .

If we truely needs this adoption we speak about then bitcoin needs to up its gàmes. Firstly before I can send fund using the bitcoin blockchain I'll have to memories or copy and paste some alphanumerical codes as my sending address. You don't expect that to compete with just using of bare words or number like how the fiat does. We need bitcoin address in the form of username that any one can easily remember, that alone will push for more individuals to buy into the idea of using bitcoin.

Also we still have to understand that for any individual to be able to used bitcoin, he/she has to know how to operate the mobile phone/laptop effortlessly if not they stand the chances making a mistake that might cause then their funds.

It is very important that people know how Bitcoin works, this can make Bitcoin adoption faster. Because by knowing
how Bitcoin works, can increase trust in Bitcoin. If the amount of people's trust in Bitcoin increases, of course it will
be easier for Bitcoin to be accepted globally by everyone.

Should we promote simplicity and avoid complexity?

It is the fastest way for Bitcoin to be accepted by more people and if we want to reach mass adoption first.
I keep this thought because what I have learned about Bitcoin I did on my own and chose the easiest method. Because I couldn't waste a lot of time watching or reading tutorials. I needed to get started and adapt quickly to managing my funds with Bitcoin and crypto.

My priority was to do it safely, avoid making a mistake and continue learning. I chose a mobile crypto wallet and now from my phone I do everything, including participating in this forum that does not have responsive web design but has a simple design that allows me to interact on it from my phone very well.

Success is a step by step process. It is natural for us to face hardships most especially in the beginning of our journey. So if Bitcoin is not yet fully adapted by the whole world that's okay because who knows maybe tomorrow or in the next morning bitcoin will be our future currency. What we should do is to help the crypto world on promoting the crypto currency to others in order for us to be successful with our goal which is to mass adapt the bitcoin by the whole world.

I believe the same which is why I am fine with a slow adoption as long as the people that are entering the market understand the reason why bitcoin exist and are not deceived to accept services they do not really need, however this brings us to the main problem, how can bitcoin gain widespread adoption?

And for the most part I have always thought that in order for people to fully understand why we need a form of money that is separated of the state and banks is to have a financial crisis that is really severe, people say the crisis we are in is bigger than the great depression but that is ridiculous, there has been nothing like it in recent history but if something similar were to happen then we could finally get people to understand why they need bitcoin and they need to hold it on their own wallets.

That's true but I am more interested in duality inherent in bitcoin itself. From my point of view, bitcoin can be described as a system of two significant parts, parts which are inteconnected and constantly influencing one another. The first part is technical, it answers the question how bitcoin works. The second part is non-technical, ideological, philosophical, it answers the question why bitcoin works, what purpose it was created for. The author of aforementioned tweet claims that users have to know neither of said parts. However, I disagree. True that most people aren't computer experts (including myself), most people aren't interested in becoming computer experts (partly excluding myself), but some basic understanding of technology is required since we live in a digital age. I guess it is reasonable to claim that. So, in order for bitcoin to be adopted in technical terms, user interfaces should be enhanced. For example, if I want to run a full node, I can do that with a standard installation process, when I just keep pressing "Continue" button. But it is not enough. Why would I run a full node in the first place? The second, non-technical part of bitcoin may answer the question. This part is also important, it is inextricably connected to technical one. People should understand not only the fact that bitcoin is decentralized, but also why it should remain decentralized. That requires reading and learning.

I think it's important to know how something works. I think the author means that when bitcoin is truly accepted as money, then people won't question the "why" part of it, since at that point it'd be redundant - they'd just use it as money. 

The tweetstorm was actually right in the aspect that crypto need to be  made easy and shouldnt require people to study or understanding it scheme before using it because this was what stop 75% of all my friend from joining crypto and it will also make it hard for uneducated people so if we want Bitcoin to be totally adopt and become mainstream of payment it have to be so simple to use.

IMO, that is not necessary.

I mean they could still send Bitcoin and use it as they wanted to without knowing those things, right? Another thing is that one of the main reasons people use Bitcoin or maybe cryptocurrency as a whole is to either gamble with it or invest in it, but usually, it is the latter. Knowledge is important if you will be wanting to share it with other people, if you just want to use it, it is not needed. Either way, they could learn as they go so it is not a problem.

we need to learn bitcoin
everyone need to learn the basic and learn the complicated things after
for newbies we need make it simple for everyone to understand
the idea of bitcoin is large if you will also include blockchain its very very large
that's is why the simpliest the better let them know that bitcoin is online money where they can use to pay online
its acceptable by many merchant and they can earn it free online and so on.
if we will start in anonymity , decentralization, inflation , supply , mining and other complicated things it will be hard for them to understand
at first i also only know the basic about bitcoin but while i keep using it i start to learn the complicated things
and i think it will also be the same for those new in bitcoin.

Total agree with this and

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it think there's some thread that discussed about How to make old people understand Bitcoin? https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-to-make-old-people-understand-bitcoin-5268958 this not only happen for old people, that's why there's some people not know or trust about it, and can lead with slow adoption rate of bitcoin. and some news about scammer that stealing lot of coin and laundry their asset with bitcoin become on of lot reason people not trust about it

It is impossible to argue, but I will try. You want bitcoin people to be passengers on a plane, people who don't know aerodynamics. The only person who probably should know that is a pilot. In such system, the pilot is a single point of failure(suppose system itself has no bugs), because if he fails, no one can fly the plane. Bitcoin is a plane with many pilots. The more pilots on a plane the less likely the plane will crash. How many pilots do we need to successfully aviate? It depends on how hard you want to survive the flight, I would prefer the situation where everybody is a pilot, the system is 100% safe in this case.

Not so far from getting BTC globally accepted! Pornhub now accepts BTC & LTC.

Pornhub gives us another adoption on bitcoin. It will help to spread out the word bitcoin, make it more popular, increase the awareness of people on bitcoin and a few other cryptocurrency, Litecoin and Verge on pornhub at least.

Similar to the growth of the Internet, the adoption growth of bitcoin takes time. Now, more people know of, invest in and be aware of bitcoin than 10 years ago. What will we see next 10 years? A bigger adoption is a very promising future.

People fear what they don't understand. But this fear often emanates from the "risks" that come with "lack of understanding".

It takes a lot of effort to convince people to pore over tons of blogs and videos about Bitcoin, and honestly not very many people who are well-versed in Bitcoin would want to do that. So, educating everyone doesn't seem to be a viable option.

While we shouldn't stop promoting the importance of learning the technical aspects of Bitcoin, I think we should put more effort into reducing the "risks" involved in using it.

If we can do that, we can deal with people's fear, thereby encouraging them to use bitcoin even without fully understanding how it works. Once they start seeing the benefits of it through actual experience and not just through the testimonies of people already using it, maybe it will be easier to convince them to learn more about it.  

So it's like letting them experience it first before pushing them to understand it.

The guy behind these tweets doesn't understand that in order to use electronic banking we also had to learn.

In the last 20 years we've learned how to use ATMs, how to use websites to send money, how to track our balance and invest online, how to activate and block credit cards online, how to set limits, how to track fees. It all came gradually and we find it to be easy now but it wasn't easy in the 90s!

Learning to use a wallet like Electrum takes a few minutes. It's not a big deal.

Some people do really get easily discourage when someone do tend to teach them on a very complex way.Basic aspects of bitcoin will really be enough to poke out their interest specially if its a new way payment system plus having the chance on money-making opportunity if had done it right.I cant say that adoption is too slow and if we do base up on how big we are compared on past 10 years then we can eventually say that we did
really move forward. 10 years time is still young and theres still a huge room to grow.Lets not rush up because people will eventually find out on bitcoins existence.
We shouldnt really be that too impatient because everything would have its own time.

This is the part where I totally agree with the author. It is not necessary for people to know how bitcoin works. I mean it is good if they want to learn, but it isn't mandatory for them to lean. If you start teaching them what blockchain is and the technology behind it, they will start thinking it is a complex way of making payment. Instead they should be taught the very basics like how to keep a wallet secure, how to send and receive coins and what fees are.
There are tons of people out there that doesn't know how Paypal works (the technology and mechanism behind it), yet they can still send and receive payments without any problem.

Well for me what's ideal to study is the blockchain that lies behind the bitcoin. Bitcoin is already there,you just need to know how it works but that's not the case for the blockchain since blockchain has a lot of application. And for my view about bitcoin, even how hard we try to push this coin, this will never reach the thing that we dreamed for it, we can't use it as our daily trading means, and that will be a fact to be checked.

It is better to have these both since everyone has their own way of understanding, people must have understand complex things rather then simple, vice versa. Is it hard to understand how bitcoin works? A one minute video can teach no, I can tell.

This is a good example of an inverse proportion. The simple bitcoin becomes, the less people get to understand what makes bitcoin what it is now and the more it remains complex, the less adoption it gets.
It should be noted that both are of utmost importance for bitcoin to reach its full potential. I believe the only way around this problem is if there's a means by which both can be achieved simultaneously. Using Bitcoin becoming simpler so it becomes more adopted by people and still not losing its core characteristics

It's quite a paradox, really. If you want to get bitcoin adopted by a lot of people real fast, you have to dumb down almost all of the core knowledge that one needs to possess in order for almost everyone to catch up. However, this will lead to a lot of entities that will try to create centralized services for bitcoin even though it isn't necessarily required, because of people wanting things to be easy for them and not really doing the hassle themselves.

Though of course one doesn't really need to know the depths and breadth of bitcoin; they simply need to know a few things and they're good to go. Then again, we live in a generation when most people want everything to be spoon-fed without having to move a muscle, so you have to adjust to that unfortunately.

I still believe that in time, bitcoin will be widespread without having to sacrifice its decentralized nature, and people will learn how to appreciate the underlying genius within the said cryptocurrency and take the effort to learn the ropes of it, even just the basic, necessary ones.

Every traders that trade bitcoin need to know the basic of bitcoin technology before they can traded. Atleast they should know how much the supply and what algo is bitcoin using. Every person that need to know cryptos space need to know the basi on how to used the coin or atleast know what it the purpose of the coin before jump in to buy it. So knowledge is so important in cryptocurrency.

IMO, it's not a matter of whether we should do X or avoid Y, i think the main question is: do people want to trade one for the other?

it's been over 10 years since bitcoin went live and for almost a decade only a minority used it as intended and even then it kept getting more and more popular, no participation from the general public. I'm sure BTC will be fine without the masses flooding the cryptomarket and using btc

How can people adopt bitcoin if they don't have knowledge about it? How they can use it? It means it's very important to teach people even the basic bitcoin fundamental to learn about bitcoin. Many people will be having an interest in bitcoin if they will understand what is it? Why it was created? How to use it? How to earn from this? We all know that people will only adopt bitcoin if they understand all about it in an easy way.

That makes sense but I think it's not always knowing everything about bitcoin. As long as you know the basic and essential information or knowledge about it that can be used by most people when they adopted it is already enough, they don't need to know the difficult parts when they won't be using it. The basic information in bitcoin might still be too complex for other people but I think that's already part of innovation. As we keep on adopting technologies, it really becomes more complex that we also need to adopt.

I share this opinion as well, while it is not necessary the average user of cryptocurrencies to understand every single aspect of bitcoin and the market in general they must still know several pieces of information that are key.

Most of the time I compare bitcoin to cars, people do not have even the most remote idea how their cars work but that does not stop people from driving safely every day, so what is happening? Nothing really extraordinary to be honest, we have a whole system to determine if people have the necessary skills to take the road, and something similar can happen with bitcoin, we just need to teach people the basics of how to protect their coins from hackers and scammers and then the majority will be able to use bitcoin safely just as the majority use cars safely as well.

I think a little knowledge about bitcoin is enough as described by this good man, and they will also have no trouble memorizing some new terms which will also become their new habit when they get to know bitcoin further. They will be familiar with the wallet, txid, they will also be familiar with the latest news about bitcoin prices. And all about bitcoin and blockchain they will explore along with the ease of using bitcoin. If you cannot use bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies with technological developments that can facilitate use in transactions, can also be used as an alternative as an introduction strategy to ordinary people.

Can we get animals like dog, cat etc to understand and use Bitcoin? I believe it is very possible.   If you can get animals to understand Bitcoin, why not humans?
We really need to start thinking about others first, otherwise life is not worth living, I think.

There is nothing you can't simplify to people, no matter how low in the head we think those people are. I think it's a matter of who is doing the simplification. If you are a patient person and someone who genuinely want people to succeed, there is nothing you can't simplify to them...no matter how technical or complicated the things you teach them are.

There’s always that duality taking place, whereby Bitcoin can be seen as an investment (for the most) or a means of payment (the least nowadays I’d say).

The former calls for one to understand what’s under the hood, the technicalities to a certain degree, at least enough to know what one is getting into. You can always invest in stuff without knowing the ropes, but Bitcoin is pretty transparent in terms of information, and one can grasp it at different levels with a bit of will. What’s more, unlike other types of investments, you tend to manage the assets yourself here (at least, until financial institutions step in heavily with all their array of derivate products), which leaves no wiggle room to escape from acquiring a certain technological degree of knowledge related to Bitcoin.

The latter, the usability, and core intent of Bitcoin, is really not that simple for the average common person (I’m thinking of people outside the forum, those that you encounter at the marker or a retail store, who struggle with a smartphone in their hands). There is a big difference between younger generations and older generations due to technological proximity, and clearly the younger generations will have a more gentle landing and assimilation process. The mid-to-older generations, for the most, will not be able to manage Bitcoin, unless it’s something really simple, risk-exempt, regulation hassle free, and directly beneficial to them versus using the fiat traditional payment methods.

Youngsters may find Bitcoin appealing and technologically sexy, as opposed to mid-to-older generations that need and easy experience.

Not always the matter. Technicalitie are left for the experts. Remember in investment of bitcoin, you don't need to be a master on everything about bitcoin, all you need to do is to rely on someone you trust to invest through them. I know of novice who are hodling bitcoin in a wallet they have control of. They ask questions about what they don't understand and they are gradually learning as adoption is increasing too.

I don't agree that every simple technicalities needs to be learned by the laypeople, like the "your wallet holds keys, not coins" thing I've mentioned. They may need to understand most of Bitcoin's characteristics, but definitely not the technicalities.

Decentralization is probably not possible in full. And the slow adoption was due to the influence of external forces.

You need some level of education and knowledge in order to use Bitcoin specifically because it is not centralized and lets you have the freedom you're looking for.

While having a very convenient and easy to use interface & system sounds amazing and better than what we have, it is only that way to some extent. For example, there currently are wallets out there that do not even require you to back up your seed. All you have to do to take and spend BTC is literally just install it and open it up. I think Bread wallet is one of them.

But you cannot have 100% simplicity specifically because Bitcoin is not centralized. With banks, you have people that do all that work for you: verifying txs, checking out your accounts, confirming txs, giving you the cards/IBANs, helping you out with account creation etc. Exchanges do the same thing. They have people that help you out in case something goes wrong. But with Bitcoin, you have to help yourself out. This is also why Windows is much easier to use than Linux is: it does not give you as much freedom as Linux does. Not even close to it.

Smart TVs and iPhones are the two worst examples they could've given. Both are a privacy nightmare, so don't even get me started.

I personally think slow adoption is the healthiest way Bitcoin can grow. Just let it be adopted and used by those truly interested in it. The evolution from 2010 to 2020 has been healthy enough imo and it seems to work out in the end. Let it grow on its own.

using bitcoin isn't really hard and the clients (aka the wallets) are also moderately easy to use and they are already available on all platforms. the fact that some people find it hard to understand is also normal and the same people will also find a lot of other things they are currently using very hard to understand too but the difference is that they accept those other things without understanding their internals but don't do the same with bitcoin!
for example how many people know how their phones, computers or even their paypal account work but they are all using it.

in order for bitcoin to reach mass adoption we should ask people why do they insist on knowing how bitcoin works while they ignore everything else?

You would really need to know even on the slightest or the most simplest technicalities about it.You cant just learn up the basics or key points without knowing it as a whole.
You are definitely right that this topic is hugely subjective yet not all would really have the same mindset and perception into things that do exist.Some may welcome it or
some will just simply ignore and would stick on what they have been using eversince without tending to adopt new changes or innovation in todays tech.

How long we will for people to realize it? We should act now before its too late.

Cryptocurrency is a must to invest because there's a lot of opportunity in it. Being decentralized is really good if people understands the meaning of it in the society. We are not forcing them, but we need to act and help the crypto to become known by other people even in the simplest way. Cryptocurrency is risky but it is worth it once you make it grow with your own. Being educated and enlightened in its complexity will make you grow your asset and deal with those risks.

This seem to be something that's impossible to argue against. Billions of people use cars without knowing anything about combustion physics. How many people who travel by planes know anything about aerodynamics? How many people could explain how electricity works? How many people who use computers and smartphones every day know how to code? And even from those who know how to code, how many know assembly languages and machine code?

People don't need to know how a technology works to effectively use a technology and enjoy its benefits. Successful bitcoin adoption shouldn't require everyone who wants to use bitcoin to become a computer expert.

I agree, but only to a certain extent. Some things are necessary for people to know, like how Bitcoin has no customer support to reverse transactions and such, giving away your wallet's keys is pretty much giving away access to your funds, and the like. While some things like "your wallet holds keys, not coins" are a bit too unnecessary in my opinion unless the person was actually interested in learning the technical stuff.

In the end, a lot will disagree with these as this topic is hugely subjective in the first place.

Ideally, we should but I don't expect everyone to understand or try to learn how bitcoin transaction works.
It's the same situation with banks, I seriously don't think the masses even know how their money is being transferred or used. They just give their money then wait.

Promote simplicity and give them the option to learn about the complexity if they so desire. We can teach them the basic features such as borderless payment and censorship resistant.

Many of today's wallets are trying to provide convenience to the masses. A lot of them works similarly with other mobile apps that offers financial services like banks. Sending and receiving was made simple too with the integration of QR codes. Default fees are set and advance users can customize it in some wallets.

Unless we have AI who can learn to operate mining rigs and nodes, no.

Let Bitcoin be it is, there's no need to simplify it as it was created decentralized and been used for a better transactions for so many years. What we should do is to comprehend it for ourselves to learn and to earn, if we don't want to do extra effort in studying then we will be left out.
Those who still doubts earn nothing, but those who study, try and risk their money are already experiencing the benefits bitcoin have to offer.

I think it's a load of bullshit that this is bitcoins biggest "problem" or "issue", and that it's going to lead to the demise of bitcoin.  I think this is silly nonsense.  There are still enough people "in bitcoin" that understand all of these important technological aspects of bitcoin and it's blockchain, the importance of running nodes, decentralization etc. 

I do think that bitcoin does need to become easier, but I do not think that by making it so, that it will hurt it's potential.  Andreas Antonopoulos has always said bitcoin needs a "killer app" , which will change everything.  I think part of this app is making bitcoin easier to use.  If Andreas doesn't see a problem with that I sure don't.

We should do nothing and wait for the community to see the good side of being decentralized. As a consumer to cryptocurrency if I will be ask with my opinion it is better to have another choice like haviny cryptocurrency. None should be force to join but all are welcome try. This should be the essense of being decentralized where when chosing it means accepting also the risk that has in cryptocurrency. But if all will be educated then I guess there is no problem when it comes to utilization of cryptocurrency.

As a start before investment decision, people must know basics of asset they want to invest.

- Total supply
- Percent of coins that are premined and hold by owners, creators of the coin.
- Inflation or deflation scheme: period, rate of inflation/ deflation.
- Volume on the market
- How many exchanges are available to trade globally and in their nations.
- Legality in their nations.
- How transaction works: to avoid panic when their transactions are not yet confirmed by miners longer than usual.
- Security and privacy methods for their crypto.
- Other knowledge.

There is no easy thing to start and no easy thing to earn money. Easy comes, easy goes. We don't need lazy people in the market because they will be cleared out of the market soon. The adoption can not be increased sustainably by such people.

People must know how Bitcoin works in order to trust Bitcoin enough to start using it in their daily lives.
Would you ever invest your hard earned money into a project that has a vague and obscure business model and goals?I don't think so.With more transparency comes more trust.The "average Joe" isn't obligated to know absolutely everything about blockchain technology,cryptography,etc.He should be familiar with the basic fundamentals of Bitcoin.I truly believe that the fundamentals of Bitcoin are simple enough to be easily explained to uneducated people.

This post was inspired by tweetstorm https://twitter.com/Beautyon_/status/1179057801706065920

The author of the tweet argues that in order to use bitcoin, people should not be required to know or comprehend theories and technologies on which bitcoin is standing. He claims that for bitcoin to be successfully adopted, it needs to be simplified to such extent when people don't bother to know how it works, why it works, what purposes it was created for, etc.

At first glance, it seems reasonable to make bitcoin more simple, user interfaces more convenient, the cost of onboarding onto bitcoin a bit lower. Undoubtedly, it all will lead to a faster adoption of bitcoin. But.

Bitcoin is digital money. Unlike iPhone or SmartTV (examples from the tweet), it needs to have certain characteristics to be considered so. More importantly, not only does it need to have certain characteristics, these characteristics should be continuously sustained by participants of the network. The more decentralized the network, the easier to keep it robust and valuable. If it were centralized, it woudn't be robust and valuable, it would be shut down already. Decentralization is the key factor.

Now imagine the situation in which bitcoin is being adopted only by uneducated who have no idea how bitcoin works, who don't think too much about decentralization and necessity of sustainability of characteristics, they don't even know why they are using bitcoin instead of fiat! If they don't know what full node is, they will not bother to run one. Decentralization is gone. Bitcoin is gone or less valuable due to decrease of decentralization. Faster adoption is bitcoin's demise.

What should we do?

Should we learn bitcoin or not?
Should we promote simplicity and avoid complexity?
Can bitcoin continue to exist if majority of people don't want to be taught about importance of bitcoin and ideas behind it?