Bitcoin Forum

You're not going to find a middle class guy who is remotely tuned in to CNBC or Yahoo/Google Finance who hasn't heard of bitcoin by now.

In the past, bitcoin expanded into new demographics. It started with the Slashdot crowd in 2009. Then the Wired/Silk Road article crowd in 2011. Then expanding more towards the VICE/Reddit/CNBC crowd in early 2013. By late 2013, it was on major network television in places like China, Russia, India, etc. You can't be a Wall Street Journal reader or a Google Finance reader without having read about bitcoin. It's been on the front page multiple times.

The next push won't be expanding into a new demographic. It will have to be on the strength of the technology itself.

Can't argue with that.

True, but there's a universe of difference between hearing a word and actually knowing all it entails.

I obtained my first mobile phone around fifteen years after becoming aware of them. I had heard of the internet many years before i actually got on there and realised the potential.

I first read of btc in 2009 but didn't bother to comprehend it until 2012/13.

Today's Satoshi's are working in the altcoin sector. The next big push will probably come from there.

Very observant. I got a mass communications degree. You're spot on.

jehst always post good stuff

This is actually a good point. Hopefully, Bitcoin can re-stablish itself somewhere and bring in the people that matter.

Thought I might chime in on this.

We setup a pop-up gallery at SXSW --> 90%+ had heard of Bitcoin.   

A couple weeks ago, we setup a pop-up gallery in Memorial City Mall in Houston -->  10% had heard of Bitcoin. 

http://cryptoart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/patriot-MemorialCityHouston.jpg

These numbers are anecdotal of course.  Memorial City is in a wealthy part of Houston, but has a diverse crowd. 

Most of those that had heard of Bitcoin didn't have animosity towards it, they just hadn't taken the imitative to get involved.  This seems to support your last point.

-Troy

People have heard about bitcoin, but doesn't really know what it is. So in that sense, they still need to "hear" about "what" it is.

But yeah, bitcoin needs more big names for the general population to have any chance of trusting it.

people's behind Bitcoin development should have to begin to think of technology innovation for a new push to the front so that bitcoin is not only the demographics

A while ago, I thought the same thing... Then Microsoft on the console side, started to accept Bitcoin as a payment method.

A bunch of us on Reddit, went into the Xbox sub-reddit and went on a tipping spree to celebrate it, and to introduce more people to Bitcoin.

I got PM's for a couple of week after that, from people on that sub-reddit, who wanted to know more about Bitcoin. I had to create a custom reply to these PM's with links to resources on Youtube and forums like this, to answer them.

So there are still a lot of people, who have not heard of Bitcoin.  ;)

and there is also another difference between hearing about a thing, and actually use it to discover how it really work

i doubt that even the 10% who heard about it, are using it

Er that's exactly the OP's point... most people have heard about it, yet bitcoin is still quite small. How do we fix that?

I think that if every single person who has heard of bitcoin uses it, bitcoin is already mainstream.

True, one can not argue with that.
I believe Bitcoin will be in the spotlight again when the price starts to rise and get back where it was on it's all times high.
When that will happen, nobody knows - except maybe those who f*ck with the exchanges?

I think the next big push should be on education. Some people where I'm at might have seen an article or heard the word "bitcoin", but they don't know what exactly it is and aren't aware of how to use it. It's not a topic that comes up in converrsation. I think there should be more awareness on what bitcoin it - and it's already happening, with more startups and exchanges being established and more people starting to mine.

yeah i did a mistake i wanted to say 10% not 90

what i mean is that there is really no a great correlation between hearing about it and going mainstream

one does not cancel the other

I have met several people who still have not heard of it.

Several ? that is actually great. In my college specifically my major, Im the only who know about bitcoin. I have introduced it to several friends and only 1 is interested in it



Yes there is no correlation but atleast if bitcoin had been heard before it makes things easier if you wanted to convince someone into using it rather than introducing it to someone who is still blind about it

I think this post highlights the key issue.  Most people may have heard of bitcoin but there is a big difference between having heard of something and using it.  This example is so good because it combines introducing bitcoin to people as well as showing an immediate use for it.

But as to the OP, I agree, the days of a popular media outlet mentioning bitcoin and the price moving up are gone.

I see OP's point about the next push having to be technological. (Using the cliched "Internet circa 1994" analogy...) Mainstream people don't talk about HTTP, they talk about YouTube and Facebook. Perhaps the next big push will come from killer apps on top of Bitcoin.

You're wrong, or at least are expressing your self in a wrong way.
I've probably heard about a lot of things in the past that I'm not aware of. Where I live (information not to be revealed) not even 5% people heard (yes, just heard) of Bitcoin.
I've been asking regularly and different circles.

Even if they have heard the name Bitcoin they either have no idea what it is about or have a wrong idea. They need to be taught what Bitcoin is and why it is useful. People need to start waking up and realizing in what a corrupt system they're living.

They were trained to be guided and told what to do.
Ever since they stepped foot in school.
They "taught" them all the things they need to DO and only what they wanted them to know.

I hope you haven't discount the fact that people are generally too lazy to bother about something relatively new. When i first heard about bitcoin my first thought was it was some kind of scam since there was nothing tangible to back it up. No country nor nation to endorse it and of course that was totally idiotic because that was what bitcoin was trying to achieve in the first place. I only thought it was important after having read more about it. I think our focus here is still getting the information across which is making people understand what bitcoin is all about.

No, definitely not *everyone* per se. But I get what you're implying... Still, it's only a small number of people who really started getting to know about it. People often need repeated nudges in the right direction in order to finally get up and find out what "all the fuss is about". It's the same with Bitcoin!

I think we still have a ways to go, we need more big companies under our belt to be able to really reach the layperson. I believe Overstock is currently the biggest retailer we have which is really awesome, it's just a bit of a shame that they don't seem to have Bitcoin mentioned anywhere on their front page, it's only when you go to pay that you get the option. People need to be able to see the Bitcoin logo more places online, if the word Bitcoin is always popping up, eventually some will try to learn more about it.

I've seen the PerfectMoney, Webmoney, and other logos about 10,000 times. I've never felt the desire to learn more about them. Why? Because I'm doing fine with the things I'm using now. I won't start using something new unless I get a big discount. It might be the same with most people and bitcoin.

Kind of like the internet. By 1990 most everyone had heard of it, had a strong opinion about it, and had not even a clue as to what it really was.

it's ok.  we don't need more people in the bitcoin space right now.  i like the price where it is.  gives us all time to accumulate more coin.

As most people on this thread have pointed out, knowing about Bitcoin, has no relation to knowing what Bitcoin is, or why it's useful. I had heard of Bitcoin 2 or 3 years before actually looking up more information on what it was. As soon as I understood what it was, I was hooked.

As jehst said, people may have seen the word Bitcoin or heard it mentioned, but they don't go looking for information on what it is.

IMHO, for a large population of people to understand what it is, there needs to be a specialized nationwide commercial in each country about what is wrong with fiat money, and why Bitcoin solves those problems. Play it enough, and you'd have a LOT of new interested people.

I have seen a lot people comparing the early internet as to how Bitcoin is now. The internet really changed our lives, and that happened worldwide.

With Bitcoin it's quite different. In rich and well developed countries the need for something like Bitcoin is low.

I Simply Don't Agree with this.

I Don't think that everyone is aware about the bitcoin. If you talk about US and European countries then I totally agree that they would heard about it but If you say that Indians are also aware about it then I totally disagree having heard and having a knowledge about it its a vast difference.

I don't think this is true many have never even heard of Bitcoin.

They may have heard about, but they don't KNOW about it. Also foreign markets.

What is this Bitcoin?

Believe me there are more people who never heard of bitcoin at all. World is a big place. Some people don't have even mobile phone and PC so how could they hear, not to mention use - bitcoins.
With bitcoin, there is requirement that society will be highly technocratic. We are not on that level yet.

Most people I have spoken to haven't heard of bitcoin. Perhaps the OP is living in the USA . Just because it is occasionally was mentioned on chinese or russian news broadcasts doesn't mean most people have heard about it there . There is a very specific demographic that even pays attention to financial or technology news. I would suggest the following -

Everyone Most people interested in finance news and IT who's going to hear about bitcoin has heard about it.

Of the fraction of people who have heard about it no practically nothing about it as well.

I Don't think that many would have heard about the bitcoin. And if they have heard they don't the actual functioning of bitcoin . But it's not their fault actually if they keep updated themselves with latest technology they would be surely aware about the bitcoin but generally it doesn't happen.

Reminded me of White men can't jump scene where woody and wes are fighting over Hearing Jimmy and Listening to Jimmy.  Many have "Listened" about bitcoin but few have really "Heard" about bitcoin.  Here's the clip from the movie:

https://youtu.be/G1FshIXjOMs [NSFW]

Completely agree... How many times each of us has heard about Bitcoin and dismissed it before jumping in a year or two later? Even Andreas A. has dismissed Bitcoin as useless "nerd's money" first time around, just to become Bitcoin evangelist a year later. It's a common story around here.

Yes but nobody talks about PM or WM and those rare people that do don't put it across with nearly the same amount of energy as when Bitcoin folks talk about Bitcoin. The reason is simple, PM and WM have never made anyone rich and hope is not a sentiment associated with these two. Bitcoin on the other hand has made plenty of nouveau riche and has given plenty more people hope. The energy involved is not nearly as dull as with PM and WM. The person who's seen the BTC logo 10,000 times only has to speak with 1 BTC enthusiast to have a good feel of this energy. Having the Bitcoin logo displayed in more places is never going sway the whole world, it merely increases the likelihood of the Bitcoin fever spreading  ;)

i meet people who have never heard of bitcoin all the time

This is true about most new things. With bitcoin as pretty much anything else there will be waves on adopters, but like the internet or computers or mobiles phones it could become where it's just another every day thing. This wont happen overnight and will take some time but it certainly could happen for us if we just have some patience.


Bitcoin is different from things like PerfectMoney etc because not only is it a payment processor, but it's something completely revolutionary in that it is it's own decentralized currency as well. Bitcoin really has the power to change things and make people's lives better, PerfectMoney doesn't - it's just a money transmitter at the end of the day.

Well if you put it like that, it would mean that the ones that are awake are either special or haven't gone to school (?).
I guess it will take us a lot of years before people really catch on and Bitcoin becomes more mainstream.

It's not true. Still many people are not aware about bitcoins and its functioning. They would have heard but dont possess any knowledge how it works. Thing at present is that everyone is so addicted to smartphones that they can't take their eyes off it so how can they know about bitcoins??

same.

Not everyone pay attention to CNBC and Yahoo/Google Finance, or even use Internet too much.

Some people just don't care about finances, so they won't care or give any importance to bitcoin and stuff

Hearing about bitcoin is a long shot from knowing the uses, and adopting it some aspect of their life.
Even in countries such as Korea where Bitcoin ATM's are everywhere, hardly any businesses will accept bitcoin and more so, the general public are still at large oblivious to what exact it is.

Bitcoin does have some challanges and hurdles, which to the general public is quite hard to overcome.
Over time, i expect alot of the services developed for bitcoin will help people get into crypto with little barriers of entry.

Very Rightly Said. Nobody is interested in keeping an eye on financial news so how can we expect that they have heard about bitcoin. Everyone is busy with their own businesses and thinking how to make money they should start looking for diversification and thats only possible when they know what exact bitcoin is.

All the people in the Asian and African remittance markets haven't heard about it. All the people in the gambling industry haven't heard about it. All the people in the adult/sex industry haven't heard about it. Those are three huge industries that both merchants and consumers/users can benefit from bitcoin and there's many more. Bitcoin probably hasn't even reached more than a few percent of its true potential. It can easily go global so I disagree massively with this thread.

In 1955 most people had heard about "computers" in the U.S. Doesn't mean they were using them. Ditto with cell phones in 1990, or GPS technology around that time. So it's fallacious to say we are anywhere near a ceiling based on minimal awareness.

So like.. 1% of the population has heard of BTC... such large %  ...........

Yes, which brings us to the "strength of the technology" point. People heard about computers in 1950s to a sort of saturation level. Then it took improvements in the tech to foster further adoption. I believe the "easy-gains" (of speculative investment and attention) that come from expanding from obscurity into celebrity are over. Now bitcoin will (or won't) progress based on what it can actually do. I'm not saying any kind of ceiling has been reached, except the ceiling of novelty.

Why do you think that bitcoin cant progress on it is now? Bitcoin may not have a lot of space for progress but atleast it is the technology that will be use in the future. Furthermore what we need is just to educate people on how awesome bitcoin is if you compared it to fiat

Many reasons. Two that come to mind:

1. The bitcoin ecosystem is rife with hacks, theft, and fraud. It's not ready for grandma to use.
2. Scalability.

We are working on these things. Bitcoin's current state is not suitable for most regular people's use.

Fiat is surrounded with the same things as well , theft, fraud, launder and such but I agree that it will be hard for a grandma to use especially it involves in copying and paste-ing address which is hard for the old person to do. But all this reason doesnt mean that we cant educate people in using it. The same thing with computer, all I remembered that it takes a lot of cash just to learn Microsoft Words when there is a "computer" coming into my country

I heard of Bitcoin years before I even cared to actually use it. "Hearing about Bitcoin" in some vague headline doesn't mean understanding what the fuck is Bitcoin and why you are literally retarded if you aren't getting in at specially the current mega low price. But you know what? People that chose to ignore Bitcoin don't deserve benefiting from it, so fuck them, they'll be late and sorry, we'll be sooner and celebrating.

I think there are many  people who have heard about the bitcoins but don't know the actual functioning of bitcoin. So i dont agree with the above thread that everyone has heard about the bitcoin. Hearing about a bitcoin n knowing it thats make a vast difference.

I'll have to agree. I've stumbled upon several people that have heard the word but have no idea what bitcoin is. And to be honest, the whole concept sounds too good to be true at start. When I try to introduce it to friends they struggle to believe that you can use it to transfer money anywhere, at any time with close to zero costs and no restrictions at all. More people will learn how to use it day by day, I'm just hoping that the pace this keeps happening ramps up.

But hey, there are middle-aged people that refuse to use the internet still, why would we would they use bitcoin just by hearing about it?

I also wouldn't neglect the power of word-of-mouth. I've done some street-campaigning for charities like Doctors Without Borders. When this type of solicitation first began, many people had no idea what some of these charities were, even though they're pretty big. Now, I stop people on the street and most of them know what I'm talking about and had even learned about it from another person like me.

It might be difficult to apply that strategy to Bitcoin but I feel like combining media exposure with person to person interaction with informed people would make a big difference.

My daughter is 1 month old today and she hasn't heard about it. But she will.

There is still people who don't know what Bitcoin is that could benefit from its use.

I watched the first episode of the documentary series Pot Barons of Colorado yesterday about the cannabis industry there and it was interesting that banks were shutting down their business accounts and refusing to work with them and as such they were forced to keep millions of dollars in their store and carry dangerous amounts around to make business transactions. Bitcoin seems like it could be a real benefit to the cannabis industry if the laws don't change on a federal level which they are unlikely to do for quite some time. There's so many benefits to many industries and they just need to realize this but will they or how long will it take?

I Simply Don't Agree.

Ask the people from Developing Countries. The reply would be What the hell is this?? There are many regions where they do not have access to internet many doesn't know what the smart phone is?? How can you expect that they are aware of bitcoins?? Still long way to go.

Not only on the developing countries but even in the country where the majority of bitcoin trader is like china. I suspect still a lot of people hasnt heard about bitcoin yet. It is normal because some people are not aware of such technology yet. Especially something like bitcoin which is used as trading tools

those must be the minority, because i know that even africa are aware of bitcoin, how could any others industrialized country did not know about it? sry but it sounds like bullshit

Country means entire country as a whole. Just look at the population of China & India and half of the population would be minors that means 50% of population doesnt know what bitcoin is and even the educated people are not aware about the bitcoins Industrialised country doesn't mean that everyone is aware of all the technologies.

I went to China early this year, and my grand-aunts/uncles, who don't even know where Vietnam is relative to China, has heard of bitcoin.

The state news CCTV1 must've talked about it occasionally, and pretty much everyone in China watches it so I'd say the vast majority of Chinese people have heard about it. But they probably don't really know what it is.

I was living in Taiwan. The security guard at a property I was looking at knew what bitcoin was. This was the guy standing at the desk with a walkie-talkie radio. I said it in Chinese (比特幣) and he said it was a kind of money. Random Indian guy I met in Cambodia knew about it. Random bartender I met in Korea knew about it. I've traveled around the world over the past year and you'd be surprised how many people have heard of it. They haven't heard of anarcho-capitalism but they know something about bitcoin.

it's not easy to make those who have heard of bitcoin actually use it. i wonder what the reason for them is that they don't use it. did you ask them?

The same was said about the internet in 1996. We've all seen how that turned out.

I just told a coworker about it two weeks ago for him to solve a financial problem to get around banks. Today he bought his first coin.

I really think it's just starting

My country is way better than most country in africa but it doesnt mean that the whole people of my country know bitcoin. Like 20 % of the population in my country knows it and that conclude the means that people from developing countries doesnt know it. Things will change for sure but it will be still years later

and how do you know that, did you ask to all of them if they know or no about bitcoin? you guy are talking a bit random here, there is no proof that they don't know about bitcoin, you can only say that your acquaintances may not know about it at best

i still think that those who don't know about bitcoin are only a tiny percentage(in each country)... we have internet nowadays, the info are spread very fast, it is almost impossible to not know about something like bitcoin

I don't agree with this statement.
I know many people in my country who are often on Internet, even buying and selling online, but they didn't hear about BTC.
Even merchants with company web shop didn't hear about bitcoin and if I or someone else try to suggest them to accept bitcoin in their business or start using it as buyer, first a lot explanation is needed.
I think that you are speaking from your own viewpoint and experience but reality is still very different.

To say Everyone who's going to hear about bitcoin has heard about it is quite a silly and ridiculous statement in my opinion. On the grand scheme of things bitcoin hasn't even even reached a few percent or its capability. Many people might have heard of it but are not interested in it currently but they may be in the future but there's still masses of people that haven't heard of it at all or have little to no idea what it's about.

Because I know that from my own experience. Im in the science major here and guess what Im the only guy who know bitcoin. I know them since last year btw. Since you are not living in a developing countries I assume, you would not know that people care less about technology, especially the old people around.

The benefit has been privacy and private production of new coins. Today, after Edward Snowden, we know more.

And people do not anymore mine Bitcoins at home.

This is just ridiculous. Many people who regularly uses the internet have never heard of ( care enough enough to find out when someone mention it) bitcoin.Most of my immediate friends and family who are quite internet savvy have absolutely no clue on bitcoin's existence(yes, it's  anecdotal ) .Even among us who knows/interested about bitcoin that doesn't mean we're using it.I myself don't see my using bitcoin for the foreseeable future.

Exactly, I meet a lot of people on the internet on social sites/forums etc. and many of them still have no clue about it. Some have heard about it but didn't bothered to look into it as they didn't think it was worth looking at, others had simply never heard of it and these people are well educated and tech savvy and they come from countries where there are a lot of people use bitcoins and there are exchanges there who deals in Bitcoin.

I think there's still a lot of scope as far as making people aware is concerned and I don't agree with OP or other people who think that everyone's heard of it.

define many people, because you guys are always talking about your acquaintances, that it is only an inner circle of people, they don't represent many at all

and do not confuse "didn't hear" with didn't knowing how it work, because this is what i get from the "first a lot explanation is needed."

because there are many out there that did hear about bitcoin, but they do not have the faintest idea what it is

hear about bitcoin and actually using bitcoin not same. Many people hear about Bitcoin but they do not know how to use it.

Less than half of the world will have even heard about bitcoin never mind use it so we've still got a long way to go, but it's use will be growing daily. Give it a couple of years and I'm sure its use will have doubled and in five years maybe doubled multiple times.

You live in a country where everyone else aware at bitcoin. You dont leave in the country where the majority of people dont know about this thing. You cant ask many people about bitcoin just to make sure if the entire country know it but you can take a sample of some people and asked them and that is what I am doing and most people dont know/never heard about it.

There will always be people leaving Bitcoin and people entering its sort of like a life cycle.

Spot on!

The next push WILL be expanding into a new demographic.

The problem, as I see it, is that you have to give people a reason to take time to understand or show interest Bitcoin. I hear all the time, "I like using my credit card" or "I like using my debit card". They like the convenience. You have to move them out of that convenience, if that is possible.

For example, I have a PMA package with Wells Fargo. My credit and debit cards cost my nothing each year. If someone ever uses my card numbers, I get reimbursed completely. Convenience. This is what Bitcoin is up against, and Bitcoin needs many more people to use it if it is to grow.