Topic: Will Bitcoin do to Bank what email did to the post office? (Read 442 times)

You have a lot of weird presumptions Omahabit, which contributes to my wondering if you have very many clues what bitcoin is, besides what your handlers may have told you to say. 

Both the effect of bitcoin and the banking systems are adapting with the passage of time, and bitcoin's adoption and expansion of its networking effects (as outlined by Trace Mayer) are ongoing with bigger and BIGger and BIGGER players getting into the mix that affects dynamics in a lot of difficult to foresee ways.

Frequently there are questions regarding how much BTC adoption has already taken place, and so it is not easy to know the various ways that bitcoin is being expanded and used beyond your vague category of "investment," and even the concept of investment might refer to who's holding the private keys in that it seems that more than 70% of BTC are held off of exchanges and are not really moving, so if that is what you mean by investment? and at the same time when there is demand for more bitcoin, then that would come from the circulating supply, and surely if the circulating supply is not increasing as much as demand, then the BTC price has to go up to the extent to which some of the supply might be faked, as what happened with the FTX situation and some of the others who were caught not holding as much BTC as they claimed to have had been holding the various cascading crashes through the middle to late 2022 timeframe.

Your assumption of any kind of an ability to change bitcoin from decentralized to centralized also seems weird, and sure there can be attacks upon bitcoin and even attempts to change bitcoin, but I doubt that it is possible to speculate how the supposed battles will play out prior to their being waged.

yes, it is the wet  dream of status quo government folks, financial institutions and perhaps even the status quo rich to believe that they want to get bitcoin under control,  and so they will attempt various kinds of ways to reach such ends of controlling bitcoin, and so far one of the central selling points of the value of bitcoin is that no one can really control it, even if they are going to make attempts to do so, and maybe even claim that they are making progress in that direction.. .. but I will believe that there are successes in controlling bitcoin when I see it...and I am not going to take it for granted.

I do not agree that bitcoin will replace fiat currency because 70 out of 100% of its owners view it as an investment, which may make it impossible for bitcoin to take over the banking system.

Remember, bitcoin is a limited asset. And government owns the banking system and will not allow it to fail as a way to control the flow of money in the economy.

If bitcoin were to become as common as email is to the post office, either the system or its advocates would betray the public and turn bitcoin into a centralised currency rather than a decentralised one. At that point, the government would seize control of the entire system.
For these reasons, I think bitcoin will not do to the bank what email will do to the post office.

It is amazing that anyone who actually knows about bitcoin and who has been a member of this forum for more than 7.5 years would consider bitcoin as NOT having any disruptive impact on the world, and if you think about it, shitcoins exist ONLY because bitcoin is disrupting the whole ways that value can be attached to information in very powerful censorship resistant ways.  Surely an overwhelming majority of shitcoins are crappy imitations of bitcoin with a variety of variations, but bitcoin still sparked their ability to even exist and to imitate bitcoin in various ways to even cause previously unimaginable ways to print money and to scam people in new ways.

Of course, you are not the ONLY bitcoin naysayer in this thread, and I am surprised by the number of senior forum members who downplay bitcoin's importance and already existing impact on the ways of the world... and surely banks are likely going to continue to exist a long time into the future, just like post offices continue to exist right now, and sure maybe banks are going to be able to adapt to bitcoin, but they are likely going to need to adapt to bitcoin, and we already see various kinds of adaptations taking place, and surely there are going to be banks and other third party custodian who might merge in order to help people with their custody solutions, while at the same time, some of the power of bitcoin allows for increased knowledge that there is power to have options and to even keep some value (maybe not all value) outside of the banks so that they have to compete to get your business, and if they cannot win you over, then you are going to take your coins into self-custody... yes.. the power of self-custody is not without complications, but it is a powerful dynamic, and there are already bitcoin-related products in which people have given up their right to self-custody and they are seeking BTC price exposure, so we are going to continue to have dances with the various rug pulls that may well contribute towards the learning and practice of self-custody... which again, these are not all or nothing solutions, because we might keep our bitcoin in various places, but at the same time, we might also learn that if banks (and other third party custodians) are not actually offering sufficient and/or adequate services, and/or if they are overly taking advantage of the possession that they have of our coins, then we may well not want to be allowing them to have our coins, and we will either take some or all of our coins to another custodian or we may well take some or all of our coins into self-custody.


How would you know whether bitcoiners got rid of their banks in the event that they had a bank to begin with?

It seems a bit ridiculous for bitcoiners to completely get rid of banks in their lives, even though I can see why some might do it or believe that it is better and/or easier for them to try to get by without any banks and/or banking accounts..

I doubt that bitcoin services are even close to being sufficiently wide-spread in order for it to really be practical, meaningful and/or more empowering to NOT have any bank and/or banking arrangements.

Sure there are some folks who are unbanked, who could not get a bank account, even if they wanted to.. and sure some of those peeps might be moving into bitcoin and believing that they don't really need any banking services, but still I doubt that those people are representative, even to the extent that there are some people who likely fit into such a category of unbanked from traditional banks but still holding bitcoin.


That might be another story regarding how much money to keep in bitcoin versus in your local fiat versus in some other fiat versus in other assets.  If all of your expenses are payable in bitcoin, then maybe it is easy to just keep everything in bitcoin, but I doubt that very many people are able to have all of their expenses in bitcoin.. That sounds like a rare bird to me.


sure governments are having troubles figuring out ways to control bitcoin, but they might not have any choices regarding various things that happen in the world.  Governments have to adapt, just like banks have to adapt, and so there can be incentives for certain kinds of activities, but the incentives have to be somewhat lined up with what people want and the public good, so sometimes certain institutions will have to adapt to become more in line with the public good.


Sure.  We need to engage in practices to protect our own assets and our value, and surely there are a lot of ways that people have been robbed from over the years, and bitcoin should help to make it more difficult to be robbed in certain kinds of ways, but bitcoin still does not necessarily solve all problems, especially when governments sometimes might be overreaching and/or overbearing in regards to burdens and attacks that they might make against bitcoin.

There's no gain in exaggerating Bitcoin either. Since Bitcoin was present, the payment system in the world has changed slightly. In the past, people only knew fiat money to make transactions, long before the modern era, the barter system became a mainstay for exchanging goods. The advantages that Bitcoin has must be acknowledged and proven true, the speed of transactions makes people start switching to Bitcoin especially for transactions between countries.

The reason why the government finds it difficult to accept the presence of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies is because their circulation is completely unregulated and not guaranteed by the central bank or local authorities. Another reason why the government finds it difficult to accept Bitcoin is because it has the potential to disrupt the country's financial stability due to the high inflation in the value of money due to Bitcoin trends.

Political will never came from just a leader, drastic political change always happened when people demand it. I am skeptical that there will be leader that will jeopardize government/it's own control over currency by using decentralized crypto as the main currency, people should demand for it, I am not saying it should be street demonstration or a riot, just do the legal action or anything, if majority of people not willing to demand for crypto or bitocin to be used as the main currency then no leader would do it.

I think alot of us are already over hyping and over exaggerating this bitcoin  and I think this is one reason the government is finding it difficult  to accept bitcoin  and cryptocurrency  at large and I think we should just relax and enjoy every moment  that we have with bitcoin.
I don't see bitcoin  fading the banks out anytime soon because at the end of the day, we still have to convert our holdings into fiat before we can conveniently spend our money and I think with all this speculation,  we are already mounting alot of pressure on bitcoin and cryptocurrency at large and rather than accepting it might end up been rejected.

If travel alot to other countries, you will know that bitcoin will not do to banks what email did to the post office. It will not happen. OP you need to understand that bitcoin is in no competition with Banks. Some bitcoin enthusiast get overly zealous in their support for bitcoin and throw away logical reasoning for delusion.

In countries where there is high population of older people who can barely modern tech, or in an underdeveloped country where it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for the tech to support bitcoin for its payment be available, the banks will still be there. They have been here for a century and they will still be for another century. The physical structure may change but the modus operandi of banks won't and this will not stop bitcoin from thriving.

I used to believe and there goes the tons of comparisons like airbnb, uber and other of those outsource services where in they're all centralize services and later on would replace the traditional ones that they've been built upon.

Speaking of being fast, there will always be the moment of time where the transactions will get stuck due to the high demand and also attack in the network. Like with saw with those BRC20 craze but they're just temporary slow downs.

As the world changes, the adoption of Bitcoin is being widened and broadened. I think that we'll still see the existence of banks while Bitcoin will co-exist with it as the banks are backed by government. While us, we do back Bitcoin. 

And many didn't know that its actually a currency since first thing came out on their mind is they can earn profit if they hold bitcoin for long time. The essence for it to use on p2p transaction has been eliminated since to many new people acquire this for investment purposes.

In addition that's why for now we can't really say that it can replace the banking system since this is regulated by government and handled by influential people on society and if they see a big threat of their existence then provably they will do anything to block its existence on their jurisdictions

what might happen is that governments create their own crypto fiat. or create their own digital money with government management. the use of other currencies besides fiat is of course regulated by the regulations of each country. it is not impossible that it can be revised, but it is clear that something that is detrimental to the state will be difficult to materialize.
Such a thing can happen if there is revolutionary thinking from the country's leadership itself. who dare to change and give good breakthroughs to the developing financial system in their country.

That's what the blockchain community hope, and for me I also wish that could happened, but I don't think it will be in our lifetime. And maybe not this Bitcoin that we currently have right now. People should finally realize that blockchain system is better then current Banking and currency system, and when that happened people would demand a revolution for decentralized currency system that is uncontrolled by government, but again I doubt we will witness that in our lifetime.

That makes sense. At first sight one could think that replacing the payment system is the most important, but then we should agree that a bank on blockchain would be a reasonable solution, and I don't think many colleagues here would like it. On the other hand, if we focus on the peer-to-peer currency, then yes, Bitcoin is not only the technology, but the ideology also.

For faster (and smaller) transactions, one can always use Lightning Network with Bitcoin, instead of other centralised services that may seem more convenient (from their point of view, of course).

We have to let time speak for itself, there's going to be that period whereby some will be left without a choice than to embrace bitcoin adoption, for now many that have realized about this change are doing well with the use of bitcoin while those without are not knowing what they are missing already, but when fiat system and centralization pushed them to tip, they will then begin to think of having an alternative, bitcoin not not need to loud itself for people to know it's relevance, tge needs in demand will do the rest for its adoption.

This phrase is one of the best words to shut people back then who don't believe in the crusade of bitcoin, if people could see the transformation of Email in how they revolutionized the way of conveying letters from senders to receivers, then Bitcoin has a future to change the financial institution but deep down, there are limitation to what bitcoin can do, I hope you do see how the price fell from $29k to $24k within 4 hours of yesterday, volatility is the primary concerns here, not to talk of the transaction speed.

However, I'm happy that financial institutions now recognized bitcoin in their portfolio, and the increase in adoption has been great adoption for bitcoin, it may not really change/transform bitcoin the way banks works because the ways of bitcoin is just different from the ways of the banks.

What Email did to the post office is already happening to bitcoin and banks, but it’s a different case. I notice that most people who know about bitcoin don’t really keep their money in banks any longer; they prefer leaving their money in bitcoin rather than somewhere where there won’t be any increase in it. But we all know that the government is against bitcoin and they are in support of banks, so they will never allow bitcoin to replace banks. I know the government will do everything possible to stop that from happening. But with time people will start reducing the amount they leave in their bank accounts and increase the amount they keep in bitcoin.

Bitcoin is 14 years old now. In their first 14 years other inventions have achieved huge adoption and disrupted their sphere. You just can't say the same about Bitcoin. It's mainly used for speculative trading. People don't use it as money for a variety of reasons. One of them being transaction speed, because 10 minutes is not good enough for small physical purchases. Meanwhile banks these days have instant transactions through Visa and Mastercard.

If Bitcoin were to achieve widespread acceptance worldwide, what you said could be really possible. However, at the moment it's really early to say that Bitcoin will have the same impact on banks as emails did on postal services. Post offices are still in need atm and heavily used by many people. I mean emails leverage the internet, eliminating the need to physically mail letters unless when you need to send original documents.

Regarding Bitcoin and banks, it's really hard to predict the complete disappearance of banks if Bitcoin were to replace all global currencies and gain a huge usage. I think banks would be really in use but people might increasingly adopt and use bitcoin or crypto in general in the future, that's just my guess.

It took hundreds of years for emails to make the post office old-fashioned. Bitcoin is popular mainly in the developed world and among the educated population. Many people in the world have zero knowledge about bitcoin, so it will take hundreds of years for Bitcoin to be generally accepted like bank-issued fiats. It took the banks some centuries to displace traditional financial systems. It might also take Bitcoin the same or more time to penetrate every part of the world. It will continue to be an alternative to fiat until it becomes the dominant currency.

I don't think the government will watch bitcoin become uncontrollable in their territory and do nothing. They will always introduce regulatory laws to curtail the excesses of Bitcoin. Some nations are introducing CBDCs, regulating exchanges, and even banning Bitcoin all in a bid to control the currency. Every knowledgeable individual knows that decentralization outshines centralization but because the government benefits more from the latter, they will do everything within their power to resist it.

Unlike what we saw with email and the post office,I honestly  think the benefits did outweigh what would happen to the post office and we moved on, though these are still in business as they have evolved with time to be more efficient!
As for Bitcoin and fiat , these are actually not far apart... I know how much we want Bitcoin to succed but the fiat system is one robust one that can't be broken just yet, besides they say if it ain't broke don't fix it and fiat imo has no problem..though Bitcoin can compliment our local currencies to help make trade much cheaper with the super low transactions and these benefits will trickle down to everything and we shall enjoy cheaper goods and services.

This is absolutely right and that’s why bitcoin stands out from the banking system we have been using all along. Bitcoin is gaining wide adoption and acceptance which will undoubtedly bring fear to the government of the likelihood of it  overthrowing the financial banking system they’re use to and have control over. Government have the total control of power in a country and as such, they will do everything in their power to prevent that from happening. Amidst that, bitcoin wide acceptance won’t stop and people will continue to embrace it. It was formally introduced to serve as an alternative to fiat currency not to eliminate the use of fiat.

In as much as Bitcoin is a striving digital currency, for me, I think the banking sector will always continue to be in existence due to the fact that the only means by which governments take control over the masses money, and government won't want to lose such control over to Bitcoin, and the reason why the bank will always be a top priority to government. Secondly, people need the banking sector in other to enable them buy and sell Bitcoin from their various locality through the use of fiat,

Nope- I do not think that BTC would be able to make obsolete fiat just simply because of its nature.

Remember that when the e-mail was invested, it was also the birth of the internet. People were lost and discovering the limitless potential of maximizing the use of internet until they have tried e-mail and realized that it was more efficient and faster to use it compared to the conventional mail via post office.

In bitcoin, I really do wonder on why people think that it will remove/replace fiat. Again, they can both co-exist with each other while exercising their nature. Bitcoin can be used together with fiat even if people think that their purpose is like oil plus water.

It's true that the adoption of Bitcoin is widely growing, and quite a lot of people are enjoying to carry out transaction Bitcoin in the sense that they can carry out a transaction right in their house without visiting the financial institution, there are even Bitcoin ATMs in some countries which Bitcoin are still using to send money to some of their loved ones or business clients but the government cannot allow Bitcoin to fully replace the banking institutions like email and the post office. One of the reasons is that they basically cannot get it (Bitcoin) fully controlled like they are doing with the fiat money and banking sectors.

Post office still exists today but they are getting fewer clients and fewer earnings but they have changed there types of services they used to provide back then in the hype of the new future. Like, they become more friendly now idk why maybe due to fewer customers. The point being made is, even in the existence of emails people have to use the post office for different purposes. Same, Bitcoin users do need banks to withdraw their assets at least I have to. Because there is not such services like BTC ATM here in my country and I can't do p2p trade person to person (mean Face to face). So, we have to withdraw our funds in different finances apps but we do have the option of withdrawing or depositing without banks but I prefer banks because they charge me less.

The point is, I do not think Banks will be eliminated for once at all instead chances are they will get fewer users than before and I think it's already happening. Because of 5 bankruptcies in the USA.

What are changes you think Bitcoin is changing the global payment system?

Not all people use Bitcoin for their payments and Bitcoin network has yet served all people on Earth. The adoption curve is good but changing the world payment system is something too big.

Bitcoin transaction speed is not fast enough compares to bank transfer or altcoin transactions. If you say its transactions are always fast, it is not correct. Waiting 10 minutes to have a first confirmation is not fast.

It is true. Because regardless of how many people are using bitcoin or how many are keeping it. There will still be many people who will become and have less tolerance to risk. Those people will seek the banks. They trust the banks to manage their money and their savings, often their investments too. So bitcoin might get pass the currency but won't make the bank obsolete.

No, it is not a fair comparison of mail and emails with Fiat and Bitcoin cause Fiat banking is also completely digitized now so you can make payments from your mobile, or cards, and in case you need Physical cash then there is an ATM at every corner. So the point to be considered here is decentralization and a system that runs based on the PoW concept along with all the transactions being public, irreversible, etc. It means you are going to act as your own bank which is completely different from the banking system.

Bitcoin transactions aren't cheaper and faster either compared to existing payment processors...

Bitcoin has only shown itself to be getting better and better in this world so that people who believe in it and have the power to always accept Bitcoin as payment are starting to agree to it in any way. So what changed the payment system was actually not Bitcoin, but the people who owned the system and already believed in the benefits that exist in Bitcoin so that now there are several companies that are willing to serve payments via Bitcoin on the products they sell.

This will actually be better for the development of Bitcoin and its users in the future. Because the acceptance of Bitcoin into the payment system will divert more people's attention to using Bitcoin when they want to pay for something and will also encourage them to try investing in Bitcoin so that Bitcoin can be more widely known in this world.

I understand your curiosity, mate, as anyone who is new to the system will definitely have a lot of questions to ask based on the little that they have understood about Bitcoin.
Email was able to completely overtake the post office because the post office was not fit for the current century, which has a lot of technological advancement, as everything is entirely digital.

But when it comes to Bitcoin and banks, the banking sectors have somehow figured out how to meet users needs in this technological era, as they have moved from normal note-book keeping and physical savings to everything online, although they do experience network downtime some times, and their being centralized is one thing that discourages most people from using the banking sector.

But that does not mean that Bitcoin will entirely replace the banking system. The only thing I understand is that it has successfully changed the mindset of many on how to view the monetary system, how to be self-dependent, how to take control of one's finances, and all of that. The banking system can't be completely replaced, as we still need it to execute certain traditional transactions in our locality.

I agree with the general line of the responses, I do not see the analogy as an appropriate analogy. The financial system felt threatened by bitcoin, and indeed it was an invention against it, but as things have developed it is not going to pose much of a threat. The use of P2P bitcoin on a mass scale coming to be used for all day-to-day payments was once dreamed of in the past but presents too many technical difficulties, bitcoin is too valuable to spend on buying trinkets and there are too many alternatives for such payments.

So no. Bitcoin has many good things, but it is not going to make banks obsolete.

No matter how optimistic anyone is when it comes to Bitcoin, the answer is that it won't happen, and there are very good reasons for that.

First of all, banks have existed for thousands of years and are powerful enough to defend themselves against any competition, especially from something like Bitcoin. The majority of people in the world do not understand or do not want Bitcoin, and they have shown this from 2009 until today, and I do not believe that this will change in the next 10 or 20 years (and probably more).

People who think that Bitcoin is something that should or must change the world are living in the illusion, because it is only an alternative for those who want to try something new that did not exist before. For most people, financial sovereignty or independence from banks is not and will not be an option, because the average Joe will never see the advantage Bitcoin has over his plastic card and the PIN he uses it with.

When you already mention post offices, in some countries it is possible to sell and buy BTC in such offices, so regardless of the fact that people no longer send postcards, post offices are adapting to new conditions, and there should be no doubt that banks do nothing when it comes to adjustments.

The convenience offered by Bitcoin will greatly impact the system that has been used in banking. Since Bitcoin has gone global, the process of sending money across countries has become easier, bank customers will of course switch to Bitcoin every time they want to make a transaction because the process is very fast. Bitcoin is also starting to replace fiat money in payment systems, you can order goods from abroad using the payment method via Bitcoin. The easiest option is of course everyone's first choice. In the past, people used the services of the post office to send letters, then Email took over the system because of the convenience it offers.

the government manages the Bank for the financial strength of the government. there may be fears from the government about the adoption of Bitcoin which is feared there could be a shift in people using fiat to Bitcoin.
that is what makes the government not ban Bitcoin, but regulate Bitcoin with restrictions so that it is not used as a means of payment to replace fiat. the government includes Bitcoin as a class of investment assets, which builds the view in society that to use Bitcoin we have to exchange it with Fiat. instead, the government gets reinforcement of taxes from the management of Bitcoin and crypto assets.

I don't think that it will be possible for bitcoin to make banks not effective. As long as there is a government ruling a country, the banks must exist because the government is working hand in hand with the banks to make sure the there is enough fiat in circulation for daily transactions. This is one of the reason why government prints money to give to the banks for business. You need fiat to buy your daily needs especially tangible stuffs,and bitcoin and fiat works hand in hand for easy usage. What if because of the value of bitcoin and all bitcoin holders decides not to use them but keep them in their wallet how will you pay with botcoin for goods and services. Email took over post office because it is letters that we are sending but here we are talking about currency that is recognized and used world wide. Every country has their own currency which was created by the government but bitcoin is not a currency for only one nation but for all. Fiat will always be used,no matter how popular bitcoin adoption is.

A lot of countries have their own iterations of PayPal; and if a certain country isn't technologically advance enough to have their own version of PayPal, chances are, most of the people can't afford to pay Bitcoin non-lightning fees. Also, stablecoins through Tron and Solana.

Bitcoin's importance is still mostly the currency itself rather than the payment system.

Technology is taking over everything globally, which is easing people's work. That is why emails, SMS, and other means of communication take over post office work.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, can also take over payment systems with time if the rate of adoption keeps increasing, but it has almost taken over banks in some places since some people prefer to save their money in their wallets rather than leave it in the bank for bankers to use.

PayPal is not in many countries in the world. It can make fiat transaction easy for you but what about others. In my country, to send fiat to people has no fee while using some banks. But what about international transaction? That is where bitcoin is an advantage with low fee.

On the white paper, bitcoin was created as an alternative to fiat, but why did Satoshi make bitcoin to have fixed supply of just 21 million coins? Why did he make the supply to be reducing every 210000 blocks. Why did he make demand to make the price of bitcoin to increase? The purpose of bitcoin as an investment is in its design and that is the reason most people are using it that led to more bitcoin utility.

Bitcoin was originally created as an alternative to traditional money. It has shown its reliability and benefits compared to regular money in various ways. Even if some governments have banned its use bitcoin remains decentralized and people can still choose to use it. While it might not completely replace banks which handle a country's financial system and provide easy access to money it's possible that in the future more people will use Bitcoin and traditional money might become less talked about.

Users only need the internet to be able to make deliveries or payments that can be used via mobile. Payment or delivery with bitcoins around the world only takes a fraction of the time compared to official state-owned banks where it may take up to days.
Another convenience for transactions with bitcoin, users can set their own amount of fees to make transactions fast.

In many countries, maybe people use bitcoin as an investment asset rather than using bitcoin as a means of payment.

Bitcoin replaces more of the currency rather than the payment system. If you only wanted something faster, PayPal and other centralized services exist. A decentralized peer-to-peer currency though, we didn't have before Bitcoin.

Let me be really straightforward about this question. I think that if people in general start using and accepting bitcoin a lot, it could eventually take the place of regular money we use every day. Right now, our banking system relies on regular money that governments control. But imagine a new system where the government doesn't control how you use money. Regular money tends to lose value over time, but bitcoin doesn't have that problem. Here's an example: If you work and save money for when you're older, the value of that money might go down over the years because things become more expensive.

But if you had put your money into bitcoin instead, it might have actually grown in value. So, in simple words, learning about bitcoin could be really valuable and worth the effort.

I do not think bitcoin will do to bank what email did to post office because the government do not use bank to joke and they will do what is necessary to make sure that the bank will not collapse. Even as fiat is not stable, people still like the stability of fiat which we used people from El Salvador to know about. Bitcoin helps El Salvadorans in remittance but almost all the bitcoin are converted to USD.

People prefer bitcoin as an investment. But in the process, it is possible for people to think to send bitcoin instead of fiat for international transactions which is faster and cheaper.

People should not also be fooled that fiat is stable. Fiat is not stable but decreasing in value gradually. Bitcoin is a good alternative.

Bitcoin is changing the payment system in the world right now. Payments made in Bitcoin are always fast to receive and do not days to receive.