Topic: The paradox of Bitcoin adoption (Read 407 times)

The burning of electricity is debatable, if the price doesn't go up enough to make miners add more gear fees alone will not be able to make such a dent that will trigger a lot more power usage. Besides, the halving will take care every 4 years of a doubling in price, so at one point the consumption will be caped, by price, by ROI as the length grows, and by the prices in electricity.

Besides the fees can be bypassed with LN, and if you look right now at the chain, the fees are not the problem.

As for the paradox itself, it resembles what I've always said:


If poeple don't want to spend their coins merchants will not offer the solution for 1 client a month.


This is just wrong, there are merchants accepting bitcoins as payment all over Europe and bitcoin is not legal tender here.
Besides those merchants were not accepting bitcoin because they wanted to but because under the law of Salvador you must accept everything that is legal tender. Merchants in the US for example don't have this obligation.

Speaking of Salvador, has anyone any data on transactions made by day via that Chiva wallet?

Customers have to make the first move Obviously, when the customers or clients would feel the need of crypto payments no matter how small proportion of customers, it will always drive the merchants to add this as a payment method. It's because merchants see everything based on their profitability and cost, therefore, customers have to drive this change always. I think paradox is when you have customers who want to pay in bitcoin but you have a supplier who doesn't wants to receive in bitcoin, this leaves you open to a great extent of risk.

Isn't it easier for merchants to see if their customers are interested in a Bitcoin payment option than for customers to individually express their wish for this? Most brands nowadays have presence online, so they can easily at least make polls on Twitter or something to learn if their audience is interested. Then there's also an option of actually choosing a way of making Bitcoin a payment option in your shop and placing a sticker with "Bitcoin accepted here" on the counter. Individual people are not likely to talk to people in a shop and ask them about Bitcoin. It's also way less efficient than making a public poll because it's hard to understand the demand by the number of people who actually say something.

There are a couple of small merchants I shop at who offer a small discount for paying in bitcoin. When discussing this with one of them, he says it is because he gets to avoid credit card fees by accepting bitcoin, and he is interested in bitcoin and would be wanting to buy it anyway, so he essentially "buys" it directly from his business and this lets him avoid exchange/trading/withdrawal fees. But that is because he is interested in holding bitcoin as a private individual, and not as a business. It's a different story to start offering discounts for bitcoin which are being held by your business, as price fluctuations could have a significant impact on how you pay your staff, suppliers, bills, etc. This is partly the reason that most businesses which currently accept bitcoin to do through a payment processor which converts directly to fiat for them. Such businesses are also the least likely to offer discounts since they are replacing credit card fees for their payment processor fees and they are never actually holding bitcoin at all.

It would certainly be a nice outcome of the price increase if more business wanted to hold bitcoin, since it would facilitate the move away from centralized payment processors to more businesses accepting bitcoin directly.

Absolutely. The things which attracted to me to bitcoin in the first place - having full control over my own money without requiring third parties to hold it for me, decide where and when I am allowed to access it or spend it, monitor or even censor my transactions, etc. - are still the things which make me keep using it today. I obviously won't lie and say the price increase hasn't been incredibly nice over years, but even when bitcoin was worth the same or less than what it was when I first got involved, I've still been buying it and using it.

Your words only prove my point: you have been exchanging your bitcoin, or at least part of it, for something you consider more important than ever-growing decentralized digital currency. The idea you have and are promoting, which is, if I get it right, that bitcoin can and should be used as a medium of exchange, matters much more to you than getting maximum wealth. That all also made me think that currently Bitcoin is also undervalued in terms of possible use cases. Bitcoin is mostly seen as a speculative asset, an investment, a store of value, but almost no one considers it a means of payment. However, if you've read the right economic books, you should know that a medium of exchange is a primary function of money, whereas the others, a store of value and a unit of account, are derivatives from the main function. So, we probably must focus more on a medium of exchange part of Bitcoin because if it is not used as that medium, it is not real money.

Merchants will adopt it when it's within their interest to adopt it. They don't need customers initially using cryptocurrencies, they need to know that Bitcoin is accessible enough, that if they start selling products for Bitcoin, it can be easily enough acquired, and used by its customers. I suspect if Bitcoin continues to appreciate in price, then the amount of merchants wanting to accept Bitcoin will adopt it, but not only adopt it, but offer discounts if you purchase with cryptocurrencies, which then creates that intrigue from their customers.

The customers will then purchase Bitcoin, and purchase products from the merchants at a reduced rate, therefore getting their product for less than they would with fiat. Then, the merchants don't entirely lose out by accepting Bitcoin if the price of Bitcoin continues to appreciate in price, which is something I think a lot of us believe it will do.

That's just one example of a way to break this "paradox" as you say. Plus, I believe this is already being done in some merchants. They offer a 5-10% discount, and then continue to hold it until the price goes up. Rinse, and repeat. Obviously, there's a risk factor with this, and not all merchants will be willing to accept that risk, but that depends if they're interested in Bitcoin outside of their business, it might be enough to spur the change.

I think time will show us what is to be concluded. Still cryptocurrencies are growing. Continuously being famous, people do get themselves involve and accept crypto into their lives as much as possible. For now, activities using cryptos are still limited but we could tell what have cryptos achieved from the day it existed right?

That's not entirely true.
Most of the times :
The government doesn't really comply with these terms. The merchants and the clients might not even have a hand in this.
When you see the price of Bitcoins rising, you won't use it as a payment method, why would you? Generally you would actually use it as an investment and hold it for a long period of time. That would decrease their demand as well which would prompt the sellers to choose not to engage in cryptocurrencies like bitcoins.
I do think that, merchants and clients would only accept Bitcoins when it would be more beneficial to use it for transactions for examples :
1. For international transactions
2. Transactions needing third parties
For the regular basis I do think that it would be more advisable for the clients to hold their bitcoins since right now it's more profitable. When the price is stable, it might be a good idea tho. It's a lot about situations as well.

Deja vu: The merchant is the party behind the gift card. It doesn't matter if you pay with bitcoin or not; you have to trust them you'll get the product you paid. It's not a third party, but there's always trust.

Didn't it do those within a week 8-9 years ago?

I will never do that because I would not be using bitcoin anymore, instead I would be relying on some third party

Well in a slightly longer period of time this still happens. The rise from $30k to $60k for example, took only 3 months.

I'm seeing bitcoin this way too, but I have to admit that it's annoying to buy stuff in different exchange rates each time. At the moment, in order to avoid this I have to make a time deposit for gift cards so I can have all my purchases in the same price. You obviously can't do this if you don't have enough liquidity and must be aware for the gift cards' expiration date.

The one who also dislikes having $50 instead of $100. Fortunately, these highly fluctuating times have gone. It's way calmer now.

I wish this happens to me too. It'll feel great to pay my fast food deliveries via lightning instead of cash.

Yes, absolutely. I spent some around just earlier today, in fact. And you could ask the same question of anyone who has ever sold bitcoin, as it is the exact same process. They are still exchanging their bitcoin for something else - the only difference is they are receiving fiat instead of goods. So why does anyone sell bitcoin ever, knowing that it is likely to outperform their other assets?

Why do I spend it? Because I value bitcoin as a currency and I value the advantages it brings over fiat. I like being able to spend my money on my terms, without my bank or credit card company sticking their noses in to when and where I am spending my money and what I am buying with it. I like being in complete control of my money without having to depend on a third party, who can choose to censor me and my transaction at any time. Would I be able to buy more goods with my bitcoin if I waited 1/5/10 years? Probably. But if everyone thought like that then it would never happen, since no merchant would ever go to the hassle of accepting bitcoin since no one was spending it. And with zero adoption there would be zero growth.

When I buy or otherwise receive bitcoin, I buy some which goes to cold storage, and I buy some which goes to a hot wallet to be spent on goods, services, or whatever I need. And I will continue to spend my bitcoin, even though it will be worth more in the future, because if nobody ever spent it, then it would be worth nothing.

Right, the lack of widespread adoption is arguably the most remarkable reason Bitcoin is still far from being valued enough. And yes, if no one wanted Bitcoin, its value would magically disappear because the value is always subjective and never objective. It is undervalued, therefore, because there are some people, billions of people, who have not yet recognized its value. In other words, the current demand for Bitcoin is little if compared to what it might potentially be. It doesn't mean, however, Bitcoin can't fail on the path of achieving its highest possible value, but at least it tends to achieve it.


Have you ever spent your Bitcoin knowing that this is the hardest asset you have ever had? If yes, why? Maybe, the things you bought with Bitcoin were at the time more important for you than keeping money? We may have different reasons to spend money, whatever money, but the one thing that is clear: we don't need money itself, we need things we can buy with it. The reason we are holding Bitcoin today is that we can buy more things in the future. Bitcoin is not an end, it is just a means to it.

My issue with this is what makes bitcoin undervalued? People think they will be able to trade bitcoin for more goods or services in the future than they are able to do today, hence, it is currently undervalued. But that premise rests on the fact that there will be growth of bitcoin in the intervening time, that there will be more demand for bitcoin in the future, that there will be more people accepting it for goods and services, that there will be more people wanting to own it, etc. All this growth depends on adoption. If no one adopts bitcoin and no one uses bitcoin, then growth will stall and price will stagnate.

I don't disagree that people preferentially spend bad money, but if absolutely no one spends the good money then it ceases to function as money. If absolutely everyone simply held bitcoin and never used it or transacted it for anything ever, then it would be worthless.

Merchants would just accept it if there's a demand so I agree to those that says that it should come from the consumers and it's us. It's already in the making that the majority of the merchants will adopt bitcoin. AFAIK, many of them have adopted it in the past yet they've also removed their adoption to it when they've announced that they would no longer be accepting it. But I think we're on the right time and this is the start of it when there's a hype to the market, there will also be the attraction and all eyes on bitcoin which these merchants will announce their acceptance on it inspite of no demand for the payment of bitcoin because it will give them the attention and looks big news.

I also think the cycle is slowly being broken. One thing to remember is that most people don't like change, and adopting something new into society (especially different societies across the world like Bitcoin) takes a long time. One issue with Bitcoin is that some people want to hold it like it's gold and not spend it. This is partially why I think we still need to see more companies accepting other forms of cryptocurrency. But, that's something we're already starting to see happen as well. Many big companies out there accept Bitcoin already, even though most people don't pay with it. Some companies (like the huge AMC movie chain here in the US) are even accepting other cryptos now like Ethereum and Litecoin. Be patient.. Bitcoin adoption is already underway, but it's going to take lots of time for it to finally work it's way into a lot of peoples everyday life.

When the majority are ready to accept change, try something different from what they are use to, some people don't want to give crypto a try even though they have not used it, they make their decision based on what they read on the Internet and from some clueless people around them,

You can try to educate people about crypto and how to use it but the willingness must come from within, many merchants don't accept btc because they don't know it and are not ready to learn, hence potential buyers will not be able to spend their btc to buy.

Yeah but only to some extent and it somewhat depends on your views. The investors and specifically traders affect volatility.

* There is one hardcore bitcoin view that sees it as a currency that provides financial sovereignty and people with this view don't care about the price fluctuations at all.
* Another more mellow view is those who spend bitcoin while enjoying the increase in their purchasing power. For example you have $100 and park it in bitcoin then after some months you have $200 to spend. Who doesn't like that?

This is why despite all the slow adoption we are still seeing great progress in adoption to the point that I have even seen restaurants that accept bitcoin payment in where I live!

Have you ever heard of Gresham's law? In a nutshell, it states that overvalued money drives out undervalued money from the market. What does it mean? In our case, it means that people tend to spend their fiat money because they clearly understand that fiat's purchasing power is gradually declining. It is happening because governments all over the world debase their currency through some sort of money printing out of thin air or credit creation. Today our fiat money has a higher price than it will tomorrow. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has been appreciating in value because the demand for it increases, and the dollar's price, in which bitcoin's value is measured, is declining. So, people believe the dollar is overvalued because its price tends to zero in the long-term, but bitcoin is undervalued because its price tends to infinity. Given that people have both currencies on hand, they spend the overvalued and hold undervalued. When or if the dollar disappears, people will have only one option, which is Bitcoin. They will have to spend it because there will be no other "bad" alternatives.

They didn't just started it themselves. They were forced to accept it. That's kinda against what we, as community, support. We don't want to go off half-cocked with the adoption. Whoever respects what bitcoin has to offer is welcomed to allow it.

There are? What's the point? There's a lightning network standing there...

The onus is primarily on us, as bitcoin users, to drive adoption.

It is far easier for an individual to set up a wallet, buy some bitcoin, and then be ready to spend it, than it is for a merchant to set up a wallet, sign up to a payment processor or set up their own self hosted mechanism, set up a conversion in to fiat, educate their staff on how to use it, buy the necessary hardware or terminals, work out all the tax implications, and so on. No merchant is going to go through all those steps unless they know it is going to be worth their time, they know there is a demand to accept bitcoin payments, and they know that they will be a profit out of it. And so it is up to us to show that such a demand exists.

Seek out merchants which already accept bitcoin and use them. Talk to merchants who don't and encourage them to do so, or let them know they have lost your business by refusing to do so.

I think we are already seeing this cycle being broken, before the pandemic businesses did not felt the need to adopt bitcoin as the economy was going well, now that things are not as clear they need to get all the money they can to keep their operations profitable, so some merchants are already accepting bitcoin on their businesses, even if right now this does not bring a lot of profit it is better than nothing, and they think they can get a bigger share of that market in the future as people will prefer to spend their money on businesses in which they have being spending their money for some time, so they see this as an investment that will pay even bigger dividends in the future.

As I see it, there are 4 scenarios:

1. Merchants make the first move and adopt it proactively so clients start using it more

2. Clients massively ask merchants to add Bitcoin option and those follow

3. Both happening simultaneously in roughly equal proportion

4. None of this happens and adoption stagnates



Was thinking more about PayPal and various Bitcoin payment cards on Visa/Mastercard networks, as well as some custodial wallets.

In my opinion, currently Bitcoin cannot be used as a full payment adoption, this is because not everyone, both buyers and sellers, accept Bitcoin. Only a small part and by mutual agreement use Bitcoin as a means of payment, currently Bitcoin is very popular in the world because it is an investment that provides many benefits. I understand that there are some people like you who want full adoption to be used as a medium of exchange but this has not materialized as people prefer it as an investment like gold.

that's why there must be a liaison, in this case a third party to bridge this. let's take the example of what the el salvador government has done some time ago. they act as intermediaries between merchants and users. make regulations and then slowly adoption can be done.

The vicious circle will be broken when the governments starts to re-define Bitcoin as a currency and not as a Commodity. Merchants cannot accept Bitcoin legally if their government does not accept it as legal tender. A lot of these merchants are doing this via Payment processors to bypass these restrictions. 

Just have a look at what happened in El Salvador when their government accepted Bitcoin as legal tender.... the Merchants quickly started to accept Bitcoin as a payment option... even the large food chains like Mc Donald and Burger King. 

Where does that refer to? Bitrefill? You buy the gift card using bitcoin and redeem it without intermediaries.

Sure, but the main reason is that they don't respect those three I mentioned for if they did, I believe we'd all be using bitcoin at the moment.

So here's another issue:  The usage of the investors can affect the spenders' side negatively, but not the opposite. The fact that it's seen more speculatively affects those who want to use it as a currency. This is what, after all, makes it difficult to achieve adoption in a global level.

There is nothing stopping them from sending a request to that merchant asking them to accept bitcoin. For example about 5 years ago people bombarded Valve with requests to accept bitcoin payment and they did it when they saw the demand.

As for your paradox, I used to see it that way too but no more. I believe it is a natural process that will happen slowly. When there is demand both sides will adopt bitcoin.
But the real issue is the price. When we see price keeps going up month after month or year after year, we end up with people who have bought bitcoin as an "investment" not as a currency so they are not willing to spend it in first place so there isn't really that much "demand" for merchants to accept it. Although I should add that even with this situation we are getting adoption in both camps: investors and spenders.

As for my humble opinion, the biggest obstacle for Bitcoin becoming a really utilized form of money is the fact that people are HODLING into the Bitcoin they got all because they are expecting that any day from now the value can rise and they gonna be regretting why they were tempted to use their Bitcoin to buy a shoe online or to have a drink of a cup of coffee with a shop that accepts Bitcoin.

So how would you convince people not to continue speculating? I think that is an impossible mission because we all have the sense of greed written in our DNA and no wants to experience FOMO. The best solution is to pay people Bitcoin as their salary and this can be started easily with freelance work sites- sadly attempts to do so failed in the past and I don't know why. Another strategy is for merchants to offer attractive discounts with their merchandise if buyers will choose to pay by Bitcoin. I am expecting some good level of success with the coming Bitcoin City in El Salvador where we can clearly see how an economy can be run solely on Bitcoin though in a minuscule experiment.

How many years it has been Bitcoin become much popular? I think it's not above 5 years. So do you believe it's easy to break the traditional ecosystem when Bitcoin isn't accepted by global authorities? Due to legalization even merchants who want to accept Bitcoin, failed to do it. Due to legalization as a Bitcoin user, I can't use Bitcoin in merchants. There is a strong centralized traditional payment system, they won't accept Bitcoin anyway. So they are always working against Bitcoin. Although there are many barriers still Bitcoin accepted by many merchants. And day by day more merchants will start accepting. There are so many things related to when merchants accept Bitcoin as a payment gateway, they can't do anything just they want.

The bullish case for Bitcoin, in which Vijay mentioned about Lindy effect. It's important for anything to survive in our society. After more than 1 decade, Bitcoin nowadays is stronger in the past about its survival ability.

Merchants, clients, customers and Bitcoin enthusiasts are all interact with each other in a bitcoin ecosystem. Over time, we will see more implementation of Bitcoin payment gates from merchants, each halving will bring more people to Bitcoin ecosystem, and so on. Together, we will have a bigger ecosystem and adoption will certainly increase.

Personally I have no worry about it.

There are a host of factors involved. And Bitoin's overall price movement, which is the primary reason why Bitcoin is now being treated more as an investment rather than a currency, has a very significant role. Not to mention it's volatility, course, which will certainly affect the operations of the business.

Other than that, it would be very interesting and ideal to approach this dilemma without going outside the Bitcoin story. Unfortunately, it might not be possible at all. Having said this, we cannot avoid but bring up the issue of our current financial and economic milieu. I imagine the kinds of trouble I would be facing if I open a business, which issues government-issued receipts and legally complies with everything, which accepts Bitcoin. The tax bureau, business bureau, licensing department, down to the local village office might be confused and dumbfounded when you indicate that your business will be accepting this thing called Bitcoin. Unless, of course, if you simply use Bitcoin as representative of fiat, which is not really the kind of adoption you meant here.

In the end, I guess the cycle will probably be broken by Bitcoin education. Once Bitcoin awareness becomes widespread enough and authorities begin to acknowledge it as an alternate currency, the commercial use of Bitcoin as Bitcoin itself and not just a form of payment which will reflect in fiat terms in the books will probably start.

back in 2012-2015 was the best era where merchants were adopting it, and customers were using it.
but then the era of expensive transactions and network expansion avoidance occured.

arguments that bitcoin needs to run on windows 98 based specs and people should not be buying daily stuff like coffee and weekly wages of third world countries changed bitcoins ethos from 'banks for the unbanked' to payment rail for the elite

bitcoin is not seen as digital cash payment system, but now as national reserves payment system

The adoption is not massive unlike what is going on in El Salvador where even a local store is accepting BTC. The people there trusted BTC because the government also is trusting it than our governments. And right now most of us are likely to just hold BTC because of the profit we can get when the price goes up.

Not all merchants as well are well informed about BTC, they may have heard of it but just ignore it since they are not seeing its potential. A local store probably has to start adopting and that other merchants nearby will also see how it works.

First move is on the mainstream media when they announced the sudden spike of the price which will make the merchants all around the curious about it because most of them are money thinkers where they will eager to research about the things that will give them fast profit than when they start to implement it on their stores, then the next thing will be the consumers who will gonna get their own crypto wallet to join the trend. That's just how easy it is.

because Bitcoin has great potential in the long term. Bitcoin is more profitable as an investment asset not as a payment and also not all countries legalize bitcoin as a means of payment. As the popularity of bitcoin increases, the more people who own bitcoins in a region, the more merchants start accepting bitcoins as payment in that region.

a person buys bitcoin worth $1000 and years later that person sees that his bitcoin has given him 10X profit, if someone tells that person to take $1000 in bitcoin and make purchases that person will not accept, he will prefer to take fiat and buy what he needs in the real world because it will be more advantageous. in the same way that the merchant who accepts to be paid by bitcoin later will be limited where he will spend those bitcoins, this is a cycle that even though it is being slowly broken will take many years to take effect

Can we really call it Bitcoin adoption when Bitcoin just gets incorporated into the Visa/Mastercard/PayPal systems and real coins are rarely moved on blockchain? I was thinking more about directly sending and accepting Bitcoin without any intermediaries, because that was the point from the beginning.


There's a ton of other reasons why people are not using Bitcoin as a currency, but here I want to specifically discuss the problem between merchants and their customers that neither makes a first move in adoption.

The reality is that you put merchants on one side and the other you put consumers, but the matter here is that two people do not agree in the easiest way that exists, trust, in fact the virtual yellow line with The one who started all this.

That is the matter, regardless of whether it is a merchant or that represents when you make a payment to another person, the incorporation of third parties, whether with a simple contract, SCROW, APP or even the improvements that are being made to improve.

In person you can give money to another without problem or you can send to another person on the other side of the world and this can wait 7 days and step pay more $ 40 for this and it is even possible that a percentage stays to receive the money into account destination , and works.

But all this is eliminated with Bitcoin and there are still doubts about its efficiency.
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OP:...?

Trust and Trust:
In updates that are made to the network, if you do not convince you at least you should start accepting any.

The use of associated third-party projects that deserve it. That exist.

If your client is your neighbor accepts a P2P transaction from time to time, with an amount where the risk is not much.

Of course, I think this goes back to government regulations where the company and the client are located.
when you want to decide on this, there must be clarity first about regulations in one area because if a company in one area decides to adopt payments via bitcoin but at the same time the government still has not made bitcoin an alternative payment it will be difficult and will not run smoothly .
but it would be a different story if there was clarity in regulation, for example, now el savador is so friendly about bitcoin and this is one of the advantages of the company being there by adding the option of paying via bitcoin without worrying about regulation

That's not really the paradox behind Bitcoin and doesn't get to the root cause of the problem. The real paradox is - as Bitcoin is adopted by more people, the transaction fees goes up and the network takes longer to process the increased levels of transactions while also burning a lot more electricity than comparative payment networks. If Bitcoin was much cheaper and as instantaneous as existing card networks, this wouldn't even be a discussion - people would have naturally moved over and Merchant adoption would be much more widespread, however the claimed benefits are simply not there. I find that Bitcoin is very good for one thing - moving reasonably large amounts across borders, it simply is not fit in the current form to handle the degree of small scale transactions that take place each day.

The answer to this paradox lies on this sentence:

The reason this paradox exists is because bitcoin is seen more as a long-term investment rather than a currency. It favors you to keep it instead of spending it and that's true as for speculators as for its deflationary nature.

Only if you put the advantages of it above this fact, you'll use it as a currency. So, in order to break this paradox, the people have to respect privacy, sovereignty and censorship resistance more than their capital appreciation. Tough thing to do.

I posted something about this a while ago. It's getting better, and with places like bitrefill other gift card providers & all the exchanges offering credit cards it will get better still. Just slowly.
Big merchants can get reports about where their gift cards are purchased. So as they see more and more coming from places like bitrefill they might take a look and go hmmmm this could work. With PayPal now slowly letting merchants accept BTC / crypto how long till some do it on their own.

Credit cards are a bit different, the merchants might not know but the credit card processors know who controls the cards. How long till they go out and see that the BitPay / Coinbase / etc cards are being used more and decide to process crypto on their own offering it to more merchnats.

It's just inertia. It takes time to get it moving.

-Dave

i think it depends on how they will introduce their new payment method wherien in order to convince clients or whatever it's to use the same or let say to adopt what's the most useful and easiest ways when it comes paying bills and etc . Because if you don't know how to advertise it of course no one will gonna believe it or use it.. Infact the advantage of crypto is one of the key why the adoption is increasing.. So it's up you how to prove it.

This is only an alternative to financial screening and to make dollar farms grow, the real adoption of money is not expected to be like this. It's like what's happening now is just doing a lot of rounds from Dollar to Bitcoin then back to Dollar. Makes it seem as if the adoption is done but in fact it is not. The value-keeping system was taken for granted and turned back into splattered banknotes that added to the insane inflation value. Where is Bitcoin adoption really going?

I think you could posit that the circle is already being broken. Merchants all over are slowly starting to accept bitcoin payments. Just like consumers around the world are slowly starting to hold bitcoin. I think that it is just a matter of time (maybe a long time) until we see it being used for everyday purchases en masse.

I think the bigger concern is how regulatory bodies will enforce using their CBDC rather than allowing the public to choose what currency they purchase goods/services with.

Merchants don't adopt Bitcoin because their clients don't use it. Clients don't adopt it because merchants don't support it, and people want to have a payment method that can be used anywhere they go. How can this vicious circle be broken? Who will make the first move?

And by adopt I mean adopt for payments, not hodl it as an investment.