Topic: What is holding Bitcoin back? - page 4. (Read 2636 times)

volatility is i think one of the most important things. especially when people plan to use it to store value. once that changes, it will give bitcoin a much higher market cap.

Every currency in the world is being used for illegal things and I've never heard of anyone who turned away from money just because it's being used for illegal transactions. Let's not forget that the majority of transactions performed in all these currencies including bitcoin is completely legal.

And, with your analogy, Motorola is picking up a lot of the great features of Apple and Samsung and is coming back strong. Bitcoin likewise is looking at some of the developments and strengths of other altcoins. There have been a few BIPs and proposals that pick up some good features of altcoins. The altcoins are like a testing ground for these features, to see how well they work and whether it is a good idea or not. One such is the ring signatures from Monero, which one of the Core devs has proposed to include in Bitcoin. Bitcoin implements these features more slowly because it has the highest market share and transaction volume.

Altcoins could hold Bitcoin back, but I think it happens more the opposite; Bitcoin holds back Cryptocurrencies in general. The most popular cryptocurrency is Bitcoin. However, Bitcoin gets a lot of bad press, such as its use in illegal dealings. This bad press reflects poorly on cryptocoins in general and actually could hold back altcoins too.

I don't really see altcoins actually holding back Bitcoin though.

Another problem is the unstable price. Maybe that wasn't much of a problem these last few months. And not a problem for everyone. Like for those who just buy bitcoins and use them immediately. But I imagine many people may have been scared by the drop from the ath to where it is now.


You can try talking only about that. But a lot of attention bitcoin got was from those hacks and scammers. A lot of people who have heard about bitcoin have heard about it in that context first. And most people can't pay for everything directly with bitcoin and will have to use exchanges or something. So you need to talk about security issues at some point right? Not something to start the conversation with but something you have to address soon after.

1. the problem with adoption is that all the geeks that want to tell their friends about it, fail.
this is because their friends dont need to know what sha256 is, they dont need to know what  petahash is. they dont care about mining or exchanges.. all they want to know is that there is a better system than fiat, which works and is easy to get hold of by handing cash to the friend.
geeks however are endlessly ignoring the face to face swapping of currency, and forget about the usefulness of buying things with it. and get obsessed about mining..
if only the geeks would realise that talking about pickaxes and dynamite in a very technical way, is not what gold purchasers want. then the style of describing bitcoin will change for the better.

2. if you are talking about security issues then your not talking about bitcoin. your instead talking about scammers who own a $10 domain name.. so try to talk to bitcoin, not from a point of websites and online services.. but about bitcoin core making a tx to another person sitting at the same starbucks cafe who presenting them with a qr code.. meaning talk about bitcoin.. nothing else

3. many people talk about the dollar.. its all they ever seen or used.. yet it is only used by under 400mill people.. yet the indian rupee is used by over a billion people.. yet no one really talks about it in international news..
to me a currency is a currency, even the chinese yuanR is not really a big deal in regards to international news. yet a billion people use it. so a currency is just a currency..
did you know that china and india have been around far longer than america.. have far higher usage than america. yet america think they are the topdogs of world economy..
in my eyes bitcoin will be the highest used currency in the crypto community. but that does not mean there is no room for 2nd or 3rd place

If there comes along an altcoin that is truly better than bitcoin (specifically, offers a better way to do proof of work) then it will promptly and properly replace bitcoin.  

If bitcoin is better than fiat, then it will promptly and properly replace fiat.  

If you look at month over month performance and usage metrics as a whole it's clearly not being held back. Rather, it's consistently growing at an astonishing pace.

They need to be forced to use it through banks or other influential channels, oe else i think right now they are perfectly fine with being plugged in and using the scam fiat system.

Now Bitcoin is far from perfect as a currency but when I tell people about Bitcoin I sense three things that might hold people back from really embrasing bitcoins:

1. Not wide enough adaptation, and even when bitcoins can be used it might be too technical (this of course is far from always the case anymore).

2. The security issues - hacking, Mt Gox etc. People feel uncertain in their own capability to keep their bitcoins safe, and they are troubled more when they are told about the no recourse of bitcoins that are stolen...

But let's say that some people think they could handle the security issue.. and they are optimistic that in the future with higher adoption rate it will have higher utility... then the next issue seems to really be a troublesome issue..:

3. So the blockchain idea is great? You are convinced it could be a very important development? Does that assure the success of Bitcoin? No... because there are many altcoins.. Sure, Bitcoin is the original.. first, but others on the other hand are able to pick and chose the best features of Bitcoin. Just like Motorola and Myspace might have been first movers... but Samsung/Apple and Facebook just came along and did it better..

While the two first issues are commonly discussed, I haven't really seen to many discuss how the other altcoins are holding bitcoins back. What do you think? Can and should anything be done to avoid a muddled situation where all the altcoins (including bitcoin) mess it up for each other?