Topic: Will Bitcoin ever be more than a 'fringe' asset? (Read 1529 times)

Nonetheless it isn't that hard for the average joe to look online and work out how to download something like Electrum and spend literally 5 minutes setting it up. While for the absolutely lazy it might help, I suspect the issue with not enough acceptance is simply a merchant issue. If more merchants offered to accept it (or even passed on the fee savings they get) then you might see an increase in the overall adoption.

Nonetheless it isn't that hard for the average joe to look online and work out how to download something like Electrum and spend literally 5 minutes setting it up. While for the absolutely lazy it might help, I suspect the issue with not enough acceptance is simply a merchant issue. If more merchants offered to accept it (or even passed on the fee savings they get) then you might see an increase in the overall adoption.

I think Circle is going to help in that regard. Realistically the average person is not going to go download BitcoinQT and download a multi gigabyte blockchain. But using a service like Circle makes it much more likely that average people would be able to try bitcoin out without doing anything too difficult.

I think Circle is going to help in that regard. Realistically the average person is not going to go download BitcoinQT and download a multi gigabyte blockchain. But using a service like Circle makes it much more likely that average people would be able to try bitcoin out without doing anything too difficult.

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- Although there is more acceptance, there doesn't seem to be a growing 'mainstream' acceptance....

I think the opposite needs to happen for bitcoin to go "mainstream"

People in society are too lazy today to want to learn about new things. They want instant gratification.

When wallets and apps are more user friendly (they have already come a very long way and the level of technical knowledge necessary is very small) the many more people will start to use bitcoin.

As people get more tech savvy more people will use Bitcoin. In it's current state Bitcoin is simply to complicated for the average customer.
The smartphone apps are actually pretty easy to use. It's still to complicated to get Bitcoins though. You can't simply buy them with your credit card.

I guess it depends on if you're talking about Bitcoin itself or crypto's in general.

I could see a situation in which a basket of like the top 10 biggest cryptos could make a good addition to an investment portfolio, particularly because of their unique price behavior, which could actually potentially reduce risk in a portfolio.

I could also see, as more billions come online, the need for some kind of cryptocurrency. But a lot of the explanations offered so far are unabashedly optimistically biased - in reality, they aren't wrong, but things just aren't so certain. In my opinion.

You see this is just a fan boy response, totally blinkered to the reality of it all.

As I say I am not a bitcoin hater, look back at my old posts, I have had Bitcoin since 2010 and I have spent thousands and thousands on mining equipment. I believe in the ideal, but I don't agree with how Bitcoin is progressing.


As for the other guy's arguments about buying bitcoin, holding a month and then buying effectively cheaper products.....bah that is such a bad argument.

One - the price can totally collapse as well as go up
Two - if it's going up, why sell at the end of one month and buy those jeans? Why not wait another month and buy 2 pairs, or wait 6 months and buy a boat? The volatility both ways is not good for Bitcoin in use as a form of currency.

I have long thought positive thoughts when it comes to Bitcoin. In theory it's a really good thing.

A few recent events have started to shake my belief slightly, for the following reasons:

- Although there is more acceptance, there doesn't seem to be a growing 'mainstream' acceptance. It is still too difficult to use and way too difficult to understand for the vast majority of people.

- There's no incentive for buyers to use Bitcoin. Why spend one's fiat to buy Bitcoin to spend on a product when one could just spend the fiat directly? By buying Bitcoin to buy a product, one will likely be paying more in fees via companies such as Bitpay and losing out on any sort of 'buyer protection' offered by credit card companies.

- Too many clones and copies are diluting the market and causing even more confusion among 'ordinary' people that don't understand the difference.

- Talk of impending financial collapse in the US and the collapse of the dollar at first would appear positive for Bitcoin. When one takes into account the likelihood of civil unrest leading to martial law and the internet kill switch, suddenly a hoard of Bitcoins look less like the smart move.

- The expectation of massive growth in the price deters use of Bitcoins. I made the mistake of paying 2 Bitcoin for something a year ago to pay the equivalent of 30 Euro, if I had kept the 2 BTC I would have had closer to 1500 Euro.

- The only reason the authorities aren't taking it seriously is because it isn't big enough to do any real damage. Once it is, who can honestly say that the US/China/Russia won't shut Bitcoin down. Pah!! Shut Bitcoin down? That's impossible.....well, no, not really. If they impose enough of a penalty for dealing in Bitcoin, the majority of people won't touch it with a barge pole, and certainly any large investors won't come within 100 miles. The extreme end to this scenario is that they force ISPs to block P2P traffic. I don't know if or how that would work, but governments are NOT going to give up their power without a fight.

- Lastly Bitcoin itself has nothing special to offer when compared to all the other copies other than it was first, but, so was Myspace and where is it now, and where is Facebook?


Don't get me wrong I am not a Bitcoin hater, I hold Bitcoin myself and I do hope that I am wrong, but these doubts are (IMO) real and quite worrying for the long term.

Elmer FUD is here!

Acceptance and main steam adoption is all around you if you take the time to look. Millions of dollars in fiat are melting into bit coin as we speak.

I have long thought positive thoughts when it comes to Bitcoin. In theory it's a really good thing.

A few recent events have started to shake my belief slightly, for the following reasons:

- Although there is more acceptance, there doesn't seem to be a growing 'mainstream' acceptance. It is still too difficult to use and way too difficult to understand for the vast majority of people.

- There's no incentive for buyers to use Bitcoin. Why spend one's fiat to buy Bitcoin to spend on a product when one could just spend the fiat directly? By buying Bitcoin to buy a product, one will likely be paying more in fees via companies such as Bitpay and losing out on any sort of 'buyer protection' offered by credit card companies.

- Too many clones and copies are diluting the market and causing even more confusion among 'ordinary' people that don't understand the difference.

- Talk of impending financial collapse in the US and the collapse of the dollar at first would appear positive for Bitcoin. When one takes into account the likelihood of civil unrest leading to martial law and the internet kill switch, suddenly a hoard of Bitcoins look less like the smart move.

- The expectation of massive growth in the price deters use of Bitcoins. I made the mistake of paying 2 Bitcoin for something a year ago to pay the equivalent of 30 Euro, if I had kept the 2 BTC I would have had closer to 1500 Euro.

- The only reason the authorities aren't taking it seriously is because it isn't big enough to do any real damage. Once it is, who can honestly say that the US/China/Russia won't shut Bitcoin down. Pah!! Shut Bitcoin down? That's impossible.....well, no, not really. If they impose enough of a penalty for dealing in Bitcoin, the majority of people won't touch it with a barge pole, and certainly any large investors won't come within 100 miles. The extreme end to this scenario is that they force ISPs to block P2P traffic. I don't know if or how that would work, but governments are NOT going to give up their power without a fight.

- Lastly Bitcoin itself has nothing special to offer when compared to all the other copies other than it was first, but, so was Myspace and where is it now, and where is Facebook?


Don't get me wrong I am not a Bitcoin hater, I hold Bitcoin myself and I do hope that I am wrong, but these doubts are (IMO) real and quite worrying for the long term.

I have long thought positive thoughts when it comes to Bitcoin. In theory it's a really good thing.

A few recent events have started to shake my belief slightly, for the following reasons:

- Although there is more acceptance, there doesn't seem to be a growing 'mainstream' acceptance. It is still too difficult to use and way too difficult to understand for the vast majority of people.

- There's no incentive for buyers to use Bitcoin. Why spend one's fiat to buy Bitcoin to spend on a product when one could just spend the fiat directly? By buying Bitcoin to buy a product, one will likely be paying more in fees via companies such as Bitpay and losing out on any sort of 'buyer protection' offered by credit card companies.

- Too many clones and copies are diluting the market and causing even more confusion among 'ordinary' people that don't understand the difference.

- Talk of impending financial collapse in the US and the collapse of the dollar at first would appear positive for Bitcoin. When one takes into account the likelihood of civil unrest leading to martial law and the internet kill switch, suddenly a hoard of Bitcoins look less like the smart move.

- The expectation of massive growth in the price deters use of Bitcoins. I made the mistake of paying 2 Bitcoin for something a year ago to pay the equivalent of 30 Euro, if I had kept the 2 BTC I would have had closer to 1500 Euro.

- The only reason the authorities aren't taking it seriously is because it isn't big enough to do any real damage. Once it is, who can honestly say that the US/China/Russia won't shut Bitcoin down. Pah!! Shut Bitcoin down? That's impossible.....well, no, not really. If they impose enough of a penalty for dealing in Bitcoin, the majority of people won't touch it with a barge pole, and certainly any large investors won't come within 100 miles. The extreme end to this scenario is that they force ISPs to block P2P traffic. I don't know if or how that would work, but governments are NOT going to give up their power without a fight.

- Lastly Bitcoin itself has nothing special to offer when compared to all the other copies other than it was first, but, so was Myspace and where is it now, and where is Facebook?


Don't get me wrong I am not a Bitcoin hater, I hold Bitcoin myself and I do hope that I am wrong, but these doubts are (IMO) real and quite worrying for the long term.

I have long thought positive thoughts when it comes to Bitcoin. In theory it's a really good thing.

A few recent events have started to shake my belief slightly, for the following reasons:

- Although there is more acceptance, there doesn't seem to be a growing 'mainstream' acceptance. It is still too difficult to use and way too difficult to understand for the vast majority of people.
to use: QR codes and phone app's are still developing to make it easy to use
understand: once the geeks stop showing off by talking about mining and what SHA256 is. and do the proper intro of showing how to just spend and buy bitcoins using ATM's and apps (as thats all consumers need to know) then it will be understandable.
EG decades ago no one needed lectures on the exact chemical formula of the bank note ink, or how the bank notes are printed, they just need to know how to spend bank notes.

- There's no incentive for buyers to use Bitcoin. Why spend one's fiat to buy Bitcoin to spend on a product when one could just spend the fiat directly? By buying Bitcoin to buy a product,
if i bought 1bitcoin last month instead of 9 pairs of jeans.. this month i can buy 13 pairs of jeans

one will likely be paying more in fees via companies such as Bitpay and losing out on any sort of 'buyer protection' offered by credit card companies.
your right buying bitcoin to instantly buy a product costs more. but instead of receiving your wages and saving thm up for a month to then go buy something.. if you bought bitcoin and then saved it for a month to then go buy something. you will save money

- Too many clones and copies are diluting the market and causing even more confusion among 'ordinary' people that don't understand the difference.
ordinary people wont even touch altcoins. they will just buy bitcoins and hoard them, if you tell friends to go to exchanges and play around with altcoins, your to blame for their actions. stick to the simple 'savings' explanation, do not over complicate the simplicity of bitcoins by explaining EVERYTHING, specially if the consumer will never and should never or simply see's no need to use it

- Talk of impending financial collapse in the US and the collapse of the dollar at first would appear positive for Bitcoin. When one takes into account the likelihood of civil unrest leading to martial law and the internet kill switch, suddenly a hoard of Bitcoins look less like the smart move.
take your tin foil hat off and stop dreaming of apocalypses.

- The expectation of massive growth in the price deters use of Bitcoins. I made the mistake of paying 2 Bitcoin for something a year ago to pay the equivalent of 30 Euro, if I had kept the 2 BTC I would have had closer to 1500 Euro.
if you kept 30 Euros as Euros.. last year you could have bought atleast 30 loaves of bread. now spend your 30 Euro's and you will see you will get less loaves

- The only reason the authorities aren't taking it seriously is because it isn't big enough to do any real damage. Once it is, who can honestly say that the US/China/Russia won't shut Bitcoin down. Pah!! Shut Bitcoin down? That's impossible.....well, no, not really. If they impose enough of a penalty for dealing in Bitcoin, the majority of people won't touch it with a barge pole, and certainly any large investors won't come within 100 miles. The extreme end to this scenario is that they force ISPs to block P2P traffic. I don't know if or how that would work, but governments are NOT going to give up their power without a fight.
governments done a real big job with making file downloads illegal. heck itunes, google, netflix is making megabucks out of file downloads AFTER the 2000 Digital millennium copyright act

- Lastly Bitcoin itself has nothing special to offer when compared to all the other copies other than it was first, but, so was Myspace and where is it now, and where is Facebook?
wow, if you hate bitcoin so much, donate all your coins to seans outpost and move on with your life. as for what bitcoin offers that altcoins does not.
1. proper developers that have coded bitcoin line by line. altcoins are just script kiddies altering 3 lines of code.
2. coinmaps, exchanges, localbitcoins. all are able to swap fiat for bitcoins. altcoins cannot really be bought with fiat direct
3. shopping carts, merchant gateways, payment tools. all aimd for bitcoin only
3. merchants using bitcoin and sticking with bitcoin. name me a altcoin with atleast 1000 merchants. (bitcoin has maybe 100,000)

fuck it, i have a question for you. coca-cola has been round for so long, there are immitations (pepsi) which have big PR behind it, there are cheap variations (stores own brand soda) yet coca-cola is still around, so dont think everything dies or gets replaced.


Don't get me wrong I am not a Bitcoin hater, I hold Bitcoin myself and I do hope that I am wrong, but these doubts are (IMO) real and quite worrying for the long term.
you do sound like a hater. and the long term picture is actually more positive then the short term.. maybe its time you research more and dream less.