Topic: What Bitcoin services do we need for mass adoption? (Read 381 times)

Among the 3 listed, the least that we need for Bitcoin to reach mass adoption is decentralized lending. I don't think we really need that. Bitcoin DExes and Bitcoin-first online merchants are more important.

However, what we need more than those are Bitcoin P2P platforms. We badly need those. They will make Bitcoin more accessible to everybody sans the hassles of centralized platforms. I also wish there are more OTC venues, for everybody to easily convert fiat to Bitcoin and vice versa. At least we don't have to go through banks anymore. We need to make Bitcoin more accessible to everybody.

Well, I personally think that there are a few key services that need to be developed further in order to make Bitcoin more usable for the masses.

First off, we need more Bitcoin decentralized exchanges or DEXs. While DEXs are popular in the Ethereum ecosystem, Bitcoin DEXs are still low volume and illiquid, which leads to terrible prices.

If we can start seeing Bitcoin DEXs with much higher volume and prices closer to market price, then it will become much easier for people to buy Bitcoin privately without getting tracked by centralized exchanges.

Secondly, we need a Bitcoin-first popular website that can become the "Amazon for Bitcoin". While it's great that more and more e-commerce websites are starting to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment, we still need a major player in the online shopping space that operates exclusively in Bitcoin. That way, people can easily buy things online with Bitcoin without having to worry about converting it to fiat first.

Lastly, I think we need a decentralized collateralized lending platform that's specifically designed for Bitcoin. Non-collaterized lending with Bitcoin just won't work due to legal enforcement issues, but collateralized lending can work because it already involves financial enforcement.

This would give people with a lot of their wealth tied up in Bitcoin the option to leverage that wealth without having to risk it on a company that might fail.

The fluctuation of bitcoin price move almost per seconds so it will distract to the customers (if they want to use bitcoin as daily purchase paying methode) how much the exact amount of bitcoin to be transferred since the exchange rate is volatile.


bitcoin transaction fee is quite high that some one may decide to use other payment methode rather than bitcoin as payment methode. They will decide debit or credit card or other payments methode that are less fee transaction. So this is one of the main obstacle to bitcoin to be massively adopted.

For mass adoption of decentralized monetary system first people need to get awareness about its significance, not just only from investment perspective but also the actual purpose for exchange of goods with no third party.

Bitcoin DEXs are bot having user friendly UI that is why people prefer centralized exchanges cause for anyone it's easy to become familiar with the website where with dex when someone do a small mistake can end in a complete loss.

In the bitcoin aspect, why would fiat complicate the process? In fact, that is what is popular. See Bisq, https://bisq.markets/markets. Dexes can't exist on the bitcoin protocol, you have to build it on top of L2 chain or sidechain, like Sovryn on top of Rootstock or any apps over Liquid.


To get business on going, it need not be specifically filled with the bitcoin crowd, except it is a specific case where bitcoin user is the target market. If we talk about adoption, I think it is better to encourage a company or SMEs to adopt bitcoin as one of their payment options, instead of, advocating a new business to open up only with bitcoin publicity.

I agree with your thoughts on the needed services in the Bitcoin ecosystem. I think the Bitcoin DEXs with high liquidity will be a game changer, and it would be great to have a decentralized platform for collateralized lending.

These services will definitely attract more people to use Bitcoin, especially those who are privacy-conscious and don't want to use centralized exchanges.

Regarding the need for a Bitcoin-first popular website, I say YES and agree with you. It will be great to have an Amazon-like platform that accepts only Bitcoin as a payment method. This will definitely help in the mass adoption of Bitcoin as a currency.

Additionally, I believe that a more user-friendly and accessible Bitcoin wallet is essential for mass adoption. The current wallets available in the market are not user-friendly for the average person, and this might discourage some people from using Bitcoin. We need wallets that are easy to use and accessible to everyone, not just tech-savvy individuals.

One more important, for the sake of mass adoption, Bitcoin needs to become more accessible, user-friendly and provide the most common services people are used to in traditional currency.

All the services mentioned by the OP is great and I totally agree with them. However, I have tried to look at it from my own point of view. My point of view of my local community where people are not so tech savvy. Personally, I would love to see people of all age-groups adopt bitcoin and not just the youths which is what is the case in my locality. I think one of the services that will be most crucial for mass adoption is the services of a bitcoin communicator.

In my own words, a bitcoin communication would be someone who can explain bitcoin to people irrespective of their age, social and economic status, religious affiliation in a way that they would grab the concept, what it is, what it holds. The problem I see with bitcoin in my community is that most people do not truly understand what it is. We need a bitcoin communicator who would be able to break it down to their level. This is how to get individuals to adopt it.

1.I agree that we need Bitcoin DEXs. Centralized crypto exchanges must stay in the past. The problem is that the governments want to stick with centralized crypto services, because they are easier to control.

2.Bitcoin would never be popular for daily purchases because of the price volatility and the constant expectation that the BTC price will skyrocket. Most of the Bitcoiners would just keep HODLing their BTC rather than spending it on an "Bitcoin Amazon" or "Bitcoin eBay".

3.BTC lending won't work because of the price volatility. If the BTC price crashes severely, all the borrowers will have to default and the lenders will simply collect the collateral. Usually the collaterals will in a stable currency or stablecoin.

The only way to speed up mass BTC adoption is to make the process of buying BTC as easy and convenient as possible. I don't know how that will happen, with all the KYC procedures and high fees.

It's still a real Bitcoin, the currency doesn't change like WBTC, but the problem is just the network where there's no one can know what will happen in the future. But currently lightning is still trusted and there's no flaws, for the better option just hold Bitcoin on chain network and use lightning network when you want to pay something with Bitcoin. Similar like how you use an exchange, it's not for long term holding.

It entirely depends on where you stay and what legislation is available for bitcoin. In my country, we have an imposition of 30% tax. So as per my country, I would need a debit card service which can be loaded with bitcoin and can be used in all POS terminals.

I think that will become a turning point for bitcoin ecosystem in my country. Instead of converting bitcoin into fiat and pay taxes on it, people will get to spend bitcoin directly into the local economy.

We already have most features. Bitcoin transactions take some extra time to get confirmed compared to Card sweep. Card payments are instant but Bitcoin transactions need time to get network confirmation. I wish Bitcoin transactions take less time. It is already possible with the lightning network but a lot of people argue that it's not real Bitcoin because it's not on the main chain. I saw school kids buying fruits from shops using lightning wallets. It's nice to watch but I never tried it. Another issue could be fees when the mempool is congested, people have to pay more fees to get their transaction confirmed.

No education is not the problem for why people do not like using bitcoin in El Salvador, I reckon. Price volatility is what is discouraging people in adopting it as a currency. I shake my head why we cannot admit this.

Also, I cannot say what is needed for mass adoption, I can only speculate based on what might occur. It appears that many people in the bitcoin community are underestimating the growth of NFTs and the adoption it might bring for the whole cryptospace. Everyone should not forget that NFTs have cultural value because it is art and art has existed before money was invented. People have been collecting and trading art since ancient history. This development should never be underestimated.

For me, lightning networks and technologies will able to accept payments in no hassle and convenient way. For example, when you are paying using your fiat currencies, then I am hoping we can do that in Bitcoin which for me, it is possible with the help of the lightning network. So besides the lightning network, we need some other platform that will help to achieve it for mass adoption, like wallets that can easily to used for paying via a lightning network.

You have raised an important point regarding the legality of Bitcoin as a means of payment.  It is true that many governments have not yet adopted a clear position on how to regulate and legalize Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as currency.  This can make it difficult for people and businesses to use them as a means of payment, as they may not be legally recognized or regulated.

 However, there are some exceptions to this situation.  For example, in some countries such as Japan, Bitcoin has been legally recognized as a means of payment. Anyway I think it takes education about Bitcoin to reach the people.

Meanwhile, when most people are educated but the government and regulations do not legalize bitcoin as a means of payment, then what should I say?

Adoption still fails and is hard to expect when the government doesn't legalize it as currency, this is a problem that is still always expected to be fixed in the future. Many bitcoin users in my country expect many online and physical businesses to adopt bitcoin, but we just have to comply with the regulations because bitcoin is not a legal currency to use. I don't expect truly global adoption to happen in the next 5 to 10 years, but I do expect many countries to consider adoption in the same timeframe.

Well mass adoption can't occur until people actually get educated on Bitcoin. Bitcoin is doing fine in El Salvador but like everywhere else in the world most people aren't educated on Bitcoin so they don't want to use it.

And no DeFi and NFTs are not what is needed. NFTs are a small niche fad, the opposite of what is needed to gain more adoption. DeFi as it has so far existed is basically just a bunch of gambling schemes. We need real services on Bitcoin not collections of crappy NFT images selling to a few thousand people or gambling schemes.

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There's is nothing about Bitcoin's design that prevents DEXes. DEXes do exist for Bitcoin there just aren't many and they have very low liquidity so the prices suck. I think over time with more and more people realizing the when you buy Bitcoin on CEXes all your future money movements get tracked by the govt that could lead to more desire for DEXes. Anyway, I didn't mix fiat and stablecoin DEXes, I would assume DEXes only use stablecoins because using fiat would complicate the process. Of course this means an extra step for people to get onto the DEX until/unless owning stablecoins becomes a standard thing for people to do. I could end up being like at first people just use CEXes but then they once they are in the ecosystem they learn about the privacy issues of using CEXes so then they do future buying on DEXes since it'll be easy enough for them to get stablecoins and send them to DEXes because they'll already be involved in crypto.

By Bitcoin-first merchants I didn't mean forcing bitcoin-only payments. But it could start as Bitcoin-only to get the bitcoin crowd onboard, and then expand to fiat shopping, while still promoting itself as Bitcoin-first.

The reason it's lacking is that the ecosystem of bitcoin doesn't build that way. ETH ecosystems are built around smart contracts where many "tokens" could exist, which favour the adoption of dexes. You also need to distinguish between Fiat on-off ramp dexes and token dexes, since it seems you mixed the two.


Seriously, it is likely not going to work. Why bother having a business plan that needs a specific bitcoin payment option, that is absurd. Enforcement of bitcoin-only payment options isn't going to help adoption. Building a new business and specifically made bitcoin only payment will surely have slow and lack of growth.

Until they are not regulated, we can never expect a change, and these media influencers will keep spreading fake news and wrong information for the sake of money. In fact, they have been paid to do that...
Bitcoin adoption will certainly come naturally but if we expect mass adoption, that seems impossible if the government won't give its support and lead the community to do it. Well, I don't think we need to such thing Mass adoption because what we need is the trusr for the people to use and accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment like fiat as this will also encourage others to try as well.

Don't stress it, if Bitcoin can be used for online payment this will work positively, not just any online payments, I am talking about the big players in online businesses like Amazon, Alibaba, and co, if they can implement Bitcoin it will mean a lot, many will finally accept Bitcoin as a legal online currency for making payment.

Those are all great suggestions for Bitcoin services that would certainly help with mass adoption. Here are a few additional ideas:
Bitcoin education and user-friendly wallets to make it easier for new users to understand and use Bitcoin.

Bitcoin remittances to reduce the cost and increase the speed of cross-border remittances.

Bitcoin debit cards to allow people to spend their Bitcoin at any merchant that accepts debit cards.

Bitcoin-based micropayments to enable low-fee, near-instant transactions of less than a cent for digital content monetization and microtransactions.

That's very true, we have to be able to use Bitcoin in buying our everyday needs. We have to be able to walk into any supermarket and make use of Bitcoin as a means of payment. These are the things that'll bring about adoption from the high demand of the currency. More services who only increase bitcoin to be used more as a store of value.
Accepting Bitcoin isn't that hard anymore, the Marchant must not hold the Bitcoin been accepted, there are service that can convert that Bitcoin immediately to the traditional currency when the transactions had been successful. When more people begin seeing Bitcoin as another means of payment, it'll encourage them to research more on bitcoin.
From this research, we'll get more users joining the market and also when people begin seeing the advantages of using Bitcoin as a payment method, they'll begin joining the market.

Decentralized exchange doesn't increase mass adoption because most people aren't privacy oriented and as long as they can buy Bitcoin through centralized exchange, what's the problem?

As you said above there are a lot of online merchants accepting Bitcoin, the reason why there's no big online merchant is not many people tend to use Bitcoin as a currency, they prefer to hold it as a commodity.

Decentralized Bitcoin lending is impossible to happen, lending is really need escrow or third party who act as a mediator.

I think what we need to have right now is to have fair news concerning bitcoins in mainstream media because until now they haven't given up on confusing people with their misleading news, especially in their news.

But I think if we have more big stores and big companies will adopt bitcoin this year, it will be the best thing to have and it will surely increase the price of bitcoins in the crypto market.

People are afraid of bitcoin because the government prevents it, fearful of its volatility, many people do not like to use it for investment but use it as a currency. So, I think for bitcoin to be widely accepted, firstly, it needs the help of the government, secondly, bitcoin will become more stable for people to use with peace of mind.

There is another scenario in which this may happen and this if people finally begin to think by themselves and not let the governments t ohave such control over them.

Right now governments have a very high level of control, but if their control begins to weaken, due to the economic conditions being unfavorable and people finally wake up and ask questions, then they will soon realize that everything that governments do is to put themselves in a better position even if this means hindering their citizens, and once this realization is made some of those people will begin to use bitcoin and reduce their usage of fiat.

Good question in the title of this topic.

I don't think we should wait for someone else to do everything for us. That is, it is naive to expect that there will be a big online service with the slogan "you want to buy things with Bitcoin just go here!" or Amazon will start accepting bitcoin as payment. You need to start small. Himself. P2P (or small business) selling and buying is the key to this. Little by little it will grow into something big and massive.

It is quite possible that this problem has no solution in principle because of the unfavorable attitude towards bitcoin of the government. While the community hopes for their favor. Maybe stop expecting a miracle from them?

We never stop and we never learn about it. Why do we need billions of people to be onboarded and possess bitcoins? Has it got any first thoughts associated with the increased prices and stuff like that? Then let us drop the idea right there. Bitcoin is designed in such a way that, it will deplete the reserves slowly and increase the demand with the timeline. This will automatically create hype and raise the "value" for bitcoin and every satoshi unit that you can buy.

The problem started when some brainiac used the entire idea of bitcoin to make millions of dollars. They brought in centralized exchanges and got the money from Crypto Investors who still think they are in the crypto sphere. However, they left the Cryptonian space the movement they handed over their coins to an exchanger.

We can't expect billions of people to use decentralized exchanges, the way we have taken our first steps through bitcoin's journey as I mentioned above.

..& let us not bring in alternate network into this mess, because it is same thing all over again with more centralisation out of decentralization claims. Funny.

However, in El Salvador the government did declare bitcoin as legal tender but mass adoption has not occurred. I reckon that from this observation there should be something more in bitcoin that people think they need to use it. I speculate that if Defi and NFTs come to bitcoin, this might bring more adoption and acceptance in 5 years than it has for the last 10 years.

Why can't we just have all of them and drive Bitcoin's adoption at a much faster rate? After all these things are not prerequisites of each other. You can build any one of them anytime. You can also develop any 2 of them. So why don't we just have all of them and many more in fact to make sure Bitcoin is reaching everybody, serving their different needs.

But I think the best thing that would drive Bitcoin's mass adoption is when business establishments accept Bitcoin payment and Bitcoin owners spend Bitcoin.

Today, it's easy to create services or apply bitcoin to existing services, but what keeps it from gaining mass adoption is the government. They are the leading cause hindering the popularity of bitcoin, even though bitcoin is accepted on every service but without government approval, it will never be popular and gain everyone's trust. Bitcoin can work and exist without government permission or support, but if it wants to be mass adoption, it needs a lot of government help.

As the OP mentions, I've heard of some solutions to this in terms of cross-chain restrictions that aren't so common yet.
However, in the case of BTC I think in a slightly different way in terms of application here, in essence it represents the success of this market.
And as this market has become more accepted, more products come to life, it must be no different than accepting bitcoin in life has many benefits.

For mass adoption, we need to make Bitcoin transaction fee cheaper and feasible for everyone especially people who are living with hard conditions or in third-world countries. With them, $0.5 or $1 in transaction fee is a lot and I am sure they would feel painful when using Bitcoin with such expensive transaction fee.

To get it, we need to have better adoption for Lightning Network or even new layer-2 solutions for Bitcoin.

It is best if we can have something in protocol to make transaction fee cheaper in Bitcoin network and don't rely on layer-2 solutions.

Franky!

Can you please comment on the post I made here earlier today:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/today-i-learned-some-us-states-mandate-gold-and-silver-as-legal-tender-5445614

Its an interesting topic, that needs your input.

there are only 87m UTXO's

and following the rule of #not-your-key-not-your-bitcoin
there are under 80m holders.
everyone else is a CEX balance holder. not a bitcoiner

Past studies have claimed bitcoin caters to 4 billion unbanked demographic worldwide. Which could imply BTC has already exceeded 1 billion global users.

For bitcoin to penetrate further into mass adoption, implies wider integrated support on social media platforms. Twitter, facebook, instagram, tiktok, youtube or another major service incorporating bitcoin support would be the best method to it attaining broader mainstream acceptance and support.

We know that cryptocurrencies enjoy the most support with younger generations. The area where crypto could exhibit the greatest growth is with older population demographics. Targeting platforms and media used by older generations could give it the biggest boost.

There are certain spokespersons and celebrities who have the ear of those groups. Who might be used to encourage crypto acceptance in the age bracket where it has made the least progress.

For mass adoption to take place, regulation of this technology is the only way. Many people are still in doubt of this technology simply because of the risk involved. It would be a downward process; Countries to big organizations to small investors and to normal people. In order for normal people to trust this technology, it should be first acknowledged by big industries first. And I doubt it is services Bitcoin is needing for such thing to occur. Bitcoin is simply a digital currency and will only be used as an alternative mode of payment to fiat. It just happened that volatility exist which generates profit for those who manage to make use of the changes on their market price from time to time.

Accepting bitcoin as payment method in large e-commerce like Amazon will certainly adopt bitcoin massively, but bitcoin's price fluctuations that move very quickly, up and down, will be one of the problems. Bitcoin transfer fees which are high enough will also be a fairly difficult consideration for customers who want to buy goods in e-commerce. despite of all that, i agree that this way, will increase the adoption of bitcoin to use massively. 


supporting the mass adoption of bitcoin, Role of the government to legalize bitcoin will have a huge impact because when the government in a certain country legalizes the use of bitcoin, people will be free to use bitcoin in their daily transactions

Ethereum DEXes are popular because most tokens exist on Ethereum blockchain. So those DEXes represent zero useful economic activity, they are just tools for shitcoin speculation.


There were multiple attempts to do it. Like Open Bazaar. They failed because people are not interested in using Bitcoin as a currency today. They trade it and they hodl it.


Collaterized lending isn't very useful in real world. Especially with Bitcoin, the only collateral that can be implemented in a decentralized way is some altcoins via crosschain smart contracts. So this lending can only be a tool for shorting Bitcoin, and not actually giving loans to consumers or businesses.

At this point I think we have all the tools to fire cryptocurrencies to all door steps of the world but the number one inhibitor at the moment has to be regulation !!

 I couldn't think of anything besides regulation because these govt we have try to impose laws that threaten people with stringent laws that will ensure that they look away whenever they come across a crypto but if these are relaxed or made more friendly mass adoption will be triggered.

Of course other obvious factors as having exchanges that won't really require KYC could help the ecosystem but I think investing in the Telcom technology and education should get the adoption game going....

IMO, those you stated above are the main core of services to help drive mass adoption, isn't it?
There are too many various ways that people benefit from the use of Bitcoin services but there's one obstacle that most people are afraid of to keep spreading the mass adoption, and it depends on government regulation.  For the government, it's not easy for them to embrace the decentralized stuff and mix it up with the centralized one.

I think the potential example is Bitcoin wallets with more intuitive user interfaces, better education and support resources for new users, and improved infrastructure for scaling and transaction processing.

How about the banks simply put it that way that they're also having some services that support bitcoin deposits and withdrawals? It may seem odd to us because we know that we can be our own bank by holding it.

But for those people that still don't have the whole trust in bitcoin but trust the banking system, it's like a good gateway for them to be introduced to bitcoin through these banks.

Like those institutions that do offer bitcoin trust although there's already that has an existing company that does it but for the majority of the retailing banks, it will give mass adoption vibes.

"Bitcoin-first online merchants"

I think this is what we have been calling for years, to see some online business as big as Amazon to accept bitcoin as payment scheme and then see how it goes. There are a lot of websites that is accepting BTC as of now, but I think there hasn't been one as huge as Amazon in the e-commerce. Although there are news that they are going to accept it way back, but it didn't materialized. One big negative though that maybe why there e-commerce are not accepting BTC universally is that it is very volatile and this businesses needs that liquidity right away. They don't have the luxury to wait for the price to increase or even break even. So it's really a big challenge for us to see it one day BTC being accepted.

For me, I think Bitcoin-first online merchants will do the magic, I have been wanting to buy some stuff online, outside my country and have it shipped to my country, payment in bitcoin, but unfortunately, I have found none, I have contacted some sellers on Aliexpress, Alibaba, eBay etc., but non of them are willing to take payment in bitcoin, it is really unfortunate, considering the fact that there is no other means of payment available to me since the central bank of my country have blocked debit/credit card payments for international transactions..

Having online shops where users around the world can buy items and pay in full with bitcoin would aid in massive adoption of bitcoin, this is what I think.

I think every Bitcoin service needed for mass adoption is already implemented.  What lacking is the blessings of the authority for Bitcoin to use as either mode of payment or legal tender.  I agree that the decision of the government on the acceptance of Bitcoin will greatly affect its adoption.  Since the involvement of the government accepting Bitcoin, the trust rating of Bitcoin will go up to another level and those who are hesitant before the government acceptance will certainly accept Bitcoin too.

Individual adoption may be a good move to expect more adoption in services or large businesses. I believe one government adoption decision can affect the percentage of adoption somewhere, so I agree if the government declares bitcoin legal as a means of payment then adoption will really increase there.

The problem: how can we expect governments to adopt bitcoin legally when they have always been on the side against the decentralized nature of bitcoin?

For mass adoption I don’t think it’s necessarily more services that need to be created as much as it is the basic acceptance of crypto for existing services. El Salvador being a good example. The government could kick off mass adoption by just announcing that Bitcoin is legal currency. When you can use it to purchase everything that a dollar could buy, then we’ll see mass adoption.

What sort of Bitcoin services would you like to see get built out? And what do you think is required for mass adoption, let's say onboarding the first billion people?


Bitcoin DEXs
I think we need large liquidity Bitcoin decentralized exchanges. DEXs are popular in the Ethereum ecosystem, but Bitcoin DEXs are very low volume and illiquid and therefore the prices are awful. We need to start seeing Bitcoin DEXs with many millions of dollars in volume per day and prices near market price to allow people to easily pick up bitcoin privately, rather than getting tracked by centralized exchanges.

Bitcoin-first online merchants
We also need a Bitcoin-first popular website. Someone needs to create Amazon for Bitcoin. Yes it'll be great when the already established e-commerce websites start accepting Bitcoin at naturally that is needed for mass adoption and acceptance of Bitcoin as a currency, but that could be many years off. In the meantime I'd like to see a successful bitcoin-first online shop open up so that it actually becomes easy for anyone to buy things online with bitcoin. I'm sure there are bitcoin online shops but there's no Amazon for bitcoin where people are like oh you want to buy things with Bitcoin just go here!

Decentralized Bitcoin lending
Probably also a decentralized collateralized lending platform. The lending platforms have gone out of business because they have been centralized companies. Non-collaterized lending with Bitcoin won't work because that requires legal enforcement, but collateralized works because that already involves financial enforcement (you don't get your more valuable Bitcoin back if you don't pay off the loan). I'd like to see a decentralized bitcoin lending protocol start giving people with much of their money in bitcoin options to leverage that wealth without getting rid of it and without risking it on a company that might fail.


What do you think? What other basic services do you think are needed in the Bitcoin ecosystem to make it better, more usable, and more ready to enable mass adoption?