Topic: The importance of Bitcoin will not be felt by the mainstream until governments.. (Read 1232 times)

paper money is becoming unfashionable. i havnt touched it for years.
even bitcoin sees itself as if paper money has lost its utility.
for the elderly, to teach them how to use a card does not require computer lessons

just walk up to a retail counter and when they tell you the total, wave this plastic card over a machine (NFC card) like its a magic wand.
it saves counting your pennies and worries of accidentally handing the shop the wrong money.
even things like an elderly bus pass is simple enough. just wave it infront the person and your done

if the retailer requires a pin most pensioners already know how to use an ATM, not rocket science

Banning cash wont happen before 2030, where I live about 50% of the people pay with cash and withdraw their money from ATM.

The govt made a law that businesses should pay salaries through banks, this is the first step, but even so, people still withdraw it from ATM and pay with cash, hardly anyone uses cards.

Especially the elderly, about 30% of the population is elderly. I would like to see how you get them to use bank cards. They can hardly know how to use computers.

For sure bitcoin will be living for more than hundred years. As bitcoin offer so much privacy and freedom, we do not wish that it replaces the Government totally because that will be very bad to everyone.
Secondly, it is not ideal to have all transactions go cashless because if you make everything 100% cashless there will be every likelihood to make some form mistakes/errors which the paper money woud have been the best to correct that.

Then nothing has changed. Fiat money is now truly just numbers in a computer screen like it is now in the banks' databases. They just improved the database, renamed and rebranded it as something called a "distributed database" but with the validators and the nodes controlled only by them. It is nothing new. They only made their system more efficient but it does not mean it is a good system because the banking cartel still has the power.

Bitcoin is still the system to beat and may it live for more than a hundred years.

FIAT wont disappear. there will always be a currency tethered and controlled by government laws such as minimum wage, which must be paid at X.. and taxes at X.. and court fines at X. all payable in one currency controlled by the countries national bank,
this is called legal tender.
governments and national banks will not change laws to no longer have control of legal tender(fiat)

the form of how the fiat legal tender will be held/used CAN change.
but it is not over night. things like swapping the paper ingredient of a bank note to be a plastic polymer bank note (UK and canada are doing this right now). which will in time be the very reason to take (plastic) bank notes out of circulation, due to plastic being a expensive/finite/environment concern due to oil blah blah blah.(yea its that predictable why they went plastic)
afterall if they stuck with paper/cotton they cannot say a bank note is bad.

next its the case of swapping 'dollars' and 'pounds' to a hyperledger coin by "upgrading" peoples bank accounts with tempters of higher interest rates. again taking time to move people across.. so that it doesnt wake up the sheep in one go.

but hyperledger coin is still FIAT

You are right.Fiat is not going to disappear any sooner.Even if more and more countries are adopting and encoraging cashless transactions,bitcoin is highly unlikely to replace fiat

Governments thrive on fiat and make billions of money through their current old fashion fiat sytem. Not only that, they also rule everything around their economy with iron fist. List me one reason why the government will ever get rid of fiat/cash? It's not in their benefit. I personally feel the importance of Bitcoin since financial freedom is the exact reason as to why I am in Bitcoin.

I am tired of the annoyances from governments and banks regarding the money that I have, my house, etc. My parents for example (I am in the end of my 20's), they have worked their entire life to get a certain amount of savings that they use to enjoy life, pay their bills from, health insurance, and all that. They get bothered by the bank and tax agency with recommendations as to what they could use that money for. WTF?

One of their recommendations is that it would be a wise decision to pump that money into their house as in an extension, or some sort of renovation... I have explained Bitcoin to them and what it exactly does, but they are too old fashion to be bothered with tech related things.

Read a article in the NewYorker about transitioning from paper to digital and it was pointing to Sweden,Denmark and Norway getting very close to achieving this. It took me back how easy it was for them to start implementing the plan. Started by eliminating small currency bills,making transit take cards and limited cash,bars going cashless and it just trickled into all aspects.
After reading how they did this I started to notice the same thing has been unfolding here in my neck of the woods with eliminating the penny!
Maybe a bit slower but I read they want to take away a few other coins as well and our transit has become very cash unfriendly with these stupid cards we have to register.
Other interesting things from the article where how much money is under mattresses in higher denominations like $100 USD. They gave a percentage of how few are actually in circulation. Also made me think how much easier it would be to drop negative rates on us if we had gone all digital. Almost like they let the cat out of the hat a little to early and hope we do not connect the dots.

Here is a link to the story:(Honestly only read about half before I was uprooted,will read the rest tomorrow)
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/imagining-a-cashless-world


I honestly am getting a little worried realizing I am not prepared for government to strangle me financially and need to smarten up and get to work.

Sure government will not fold it arms and watch that happen but what we want the government's understanding and legazing the use of bitcoin so that even the government itself can benefit while the people's privacy is respected to some extent.

Actually no any government can make world totally cashless as there will be always constant demand of pay via paper cash around the world specially by the one who don't have enough knowledge regarding new payment systems and in the places where literacy rate is really low like in underdeveloped as well as developing countries.

Cashless implies total control. That being the case they could cut access to every bitcoin exchange, buying service and private trader with a few clicks.

Bitcoin would prove why cash is needed. It would also be a prime victim until the fiat out is unnecessary and I'm not sure it ever will be.

I'm very sceptical that governments could abolish all cash entirely, there would be too many problems with that.
Especially for older people and people that don't have any income.

yeah , and if the governments of the countries will apply some restrictions at the bitcoin transaction or use then we fill the most and best about the bitcoin because now in the present time it is easy to use Bitcoin without going against any one ot our government rule . so its importance is less but in future we will got the quality of its features int he future .

I can't tell if you're trolling. But let me get this straight, so you're basically saying, governments will stand aside and watch while people siphon off the system's lifeblood into this new 'people's' system which happens to be an offshoot of the current system, using infrastructure/facilities built, owned and controlled by current system? And then people will be free of the tyranny of governments, make millions of dollars and live happily ever after? Seems legit   Did I miss anything?

yes , it is more important things .
since everyone can realiase that its importance . but when the mining of bitcoin after two year will became stop then the pri will touch the sky and then increased price will show how the bitcoin is important things . well some countries government allows bitcoin officially so it is a best thing alredy .

agreed but thats why banks are trying to flip over to hyper ledger and swap 'dollar' for a fiat-coin. to then offset the dollar debt to avoid bankruptcy.
because they know if they can bait and switch the sheep across from dollars to USFIATCOIN. the sheep will follow. and there will be no awakening due to bank customers not 'losing out'. they are just told the sheep dream of 'banking services have improved' to resettled them in the new wolfs pen.

however the surveillance and limitations of the new "services" will awaken SOME people. just like all the new banking rules like transfer limits AML checks and requirement of birth certificate just to have an account has woken up some already

The move towards a cashless economy are promoted, because a record of all economic transactions through electronic means makes it almost impossible to sustain black market or underground economies that often prove damaging to national economies.

The Orwellian levels of surveillance this grants them, is terrifying to say the least. People are becoming too dependent on centralized control, and we saw this when the Banks closed their doors during the economic crisis in Greece. What will happen if Banks close their doors and confiscate your money, without you having any control?

Bitcoin grants you the freedom to be in control of your own finances, and ignorant sheep are not seeing this threat, because they have never been through a Cyprus or a Greece event. ^hmmmmm^

the issues with 3rd world countries access to bitcoin is not technology. africa and cuba both use phones.. take african countries use of Mpesa for example.
but right now its bitcoins own "spam" transaction prejudice holding it back (the microtransaction debate)
for instance in:
Cuba minimum wage is $0.05 and a loaf of bread is $0.015
california minimum wage is $10 and a loaf of bread is $2

buying bread in cali' is just about acceptable as not being spam and costs a cali' citizen 3% of product (~$0.06tx fee) or 25 seconds of minimum wage labour
buying bread in cuba is not acceptable as its deemed spam and costs a cuban citizen 400% of product (~$0.06tx fee) or hour 1hour 2minutes of minimum wage labour.

moving an hours labour:
in cali' thats 0.6% fee($0.06c) to move $10
in cuba thats 120% fee($0.06c) to move $0.05c

Yes that fact remains the same until today. Third world countries are countries with high average of poor people and that is to say that many who lived in the outskirts doesnt know what is a computer is and how much more cryptocurrency. But bitcoin is still felt though not by the masses but by the few individuals who have access to internet and have knowledge of cryptocurrency.

Getting a bit carried away and also a little bit extreme there, aren't we? The importance of Bitcoin is it has shown us a glimpse of what will be a few decades from now. Do I believe Bitcoin will be the main cryptocurrency in that future? No, I believe not. But it is the experiment that has preceded the open and decentralized payment network in the future. We have witnessed a breakthrough and "Bitcoin is our tour de force" according to Bill Gates. May it continue for as long as it takes for people to be shown the right way forward not only in finance but also in the power of decentralization as well.