Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin is a sophisticated globally distributed asset register that, at this moment in time, is mostly being used to register value in USD or other fiat currencies.

The question is:Is bitcoin more currency or payments system?
I want to paraphrase this..
Can you answer me? :( :( >:( >:( >:( >:(

I'd say it's more of a payment system atm but it still has long term potential as a currency during these times. Could be a currency near term rather than later tho. Either way, it's prime time to get bitcoin now at these prices.

From what it has become, it's more of like a payment system rather than being a true currency imo. The usage rate is not that widely distributed among countries, but the potential is there.

We should consider it more as a share which when hold by someone, is owned by him only and no one else has any grasp on it.
I would rather consider it as a commodity than a currency.

With the current market cap, it is safe to say that it is still a payment system trying t make it's way into the word's market. But I think it has the potential to be a global currency with proper support. Till then, global payment system it is.

As others said, it is currently more of a payment system.
Hopefully, in the future when Bitcoin is more widespread and adopted it will also become a currency - even though many of us consider it a currency already.

I would say Bitcoin is a currency which is becoming more and more popular day by day.In any payment system or processor we pay money to make some payment or transfer of it and that's all.Bitcoin is an asset if you don't accept it as currency at this stage.We can hold Bitcoins in wallets for long time while payment processors don't allow us to do that.

Exactly. Even though it was probably not meant to be one. There are several factors at stake here.
Some would even see it as an asset or investment; because that's how they use it.
Bitcoin has to become a bit more stable and reliable before it can start being a currency.

not a true currency indeed i had this exact debate in another thread, payments system(but i like "instrument of the blockchain more") suits more the description of bitcoin, seeing how it is alike to visa or mastercard, those circuits are also its real competitors

Exactly!
And that is why we should stop trying to get people to use Bitcoin over fiat because it's not going to happen.
We could however explain to people that instead of using VISA or Mastercard to do your shopping you can use Bitcoin and save yourself the transaction fees plus get real discounts as most businesses that accept Bitcoin give up to 25% discount if you pay in Bitcoin.

That is something that I see happening but Bitcoin replacing fiat.....
I don't think it's going to happen.
At least not in our lifetime.

You can't have a payment system without a currency... That's like cooking without food. Or swimming without water.

I would say that it's because bitcoin is a payment system and a currency, an investment and a store of value, it is more than all of the "traditional" ways of categorizing things. It belongs in a new category.

Just as the internet isn't merely a communication system. Is the internet more like a newspaper or a fax machine? Neither. It created a whole new category.

I think that's why bitcoin has potential. It's not because some anti-government kids in that rebellious youth stage trying to rebel against everything that it's valuable.

For me, it's more towards behaving like a currency than a payment system. If somebody were to create a paypal-like service with a payment gateway, bitcoin as a currency can be used and in this context we are referring to it being used to serve the payment system. Others might look at it differently though.

In the white paper Satoshi focuses more about the payment system than the currency: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf) but the most of people seems to consider BTC neither a currency nor a payment system, but an asset.

It will never be a currency, it is barely a payment system it is what it is a black hole for fiat.

It's obviously both and I don't see why it has to be one or the other. The currency is bitcoin and the payment system is the blockchain.


Care to explain how it's not a currency (it is) and how it is 'barely' a payment system (works perfect as a payment system to me).

it is everything you want it to be i think a hybrid of many systems

To me Bitcoin is a fluid thing. It can have several features depending on how people use it. Imo right now it can be used as a payment system, a few already use it as a daily currency, others hodl and use it as future investment and store of value. Bitcoin is not only just one specific thing. Bitcoin combines all of those.

How does it register value in other fiat values? It registers value in bitcoin, which is the currency that powers this ledger system. Therefore, bitcoin is a dual technology that is both a payment processor system and its own decentralized digital currency and I think that's the beauty of it.

Soon BTC will become currency.New financial system will be based on digital currencies.BTC will have same role as $ now. Block chain will be processor of all payments in future.BTC will always be based currency to set the value of other crypto currencies.

Indeed, everyone will be using the blockchain (the BITCOIN blockchain, not some third party one) to process their stuff on the side. But for this, we need to solve bloat problems, like the block size thing and so on.
If VISA ever wants to join, how will they do it to process their amount of transactions, when BTC only can do 7 per second as we speak?

I think Bitcoin is more likely a payments system, because Bitcoin is the stuff that used to trade to other stuff that we want to buy. And the price of Bitcoin is determined to the buyer and the seller with the currency price, so it's the stuff not the Currency ;)

It is a currency and the same time it is a payments system, and for me it is more like a currency.

Your logic doesn't make sense. I can by Euroes for dollars  but they're both currencies. Bitcoin is a payment system but what do you use to pay with? Bitcoins of course. That's why its both a payment processor and its own currency.

Its pretty much confirmed now that the blocksize limit will be updated to 20 in 0.11 at this point, everyone knows that if we want to reach mainstream status the current blocksize limit of 1MB is tiny.

Bitcoin permanently alters concepts such as currency and payment system, so trying to "see where it fits" is a fruitless exercise. Bitcoin shifts paradigms.

you should say this to the banks, who in order to taxing bitcoin,  they give to it each type of position you could ever attribute

movable property fit it the best imho

A debatable topic. *A poll is needed

It's more of a payments system. There isn't enough adoption for it to be a currency and it's price is too volatile. At this stage to me, it's actually neither. It's more of an investment for myself. I treat it like a commodity-  My digital gold.

*edit

What if you buy a gold(bitcoin) with Euros(currency)? You will determine the price with Euros right? Bitcoin is a currency but what do you use to pay and determine the price with? Currency of course.

In its current form, Bitcoin is a payment system that is treated as a commodity by many.

Yeah that's right, I agree with you that Bitcoin is treated as a commodity. Bitcoin as a currency, it's too excessive for me ;)

Banks figuring out where bitcoin fits into their business is like Xerox figuring out where email fits into their fax machine empire.

Irrelevant.

I think it is like a mix,because money itself can't be transferred electronically,but in cash
But as bitcoin ir pure electronic it has a mean of transferring electronically but it may need of payment systems more complete like bitpay

Bitcoin breaks free from the old definition of currency. They need to re-define what it is because bitcoin is the next step on the evolutionary ladder in finance but regardless of whether a country accepts it or not doesn't mean you can't trade it for other currencies as you quite clearly can.

 For sure bitcoin is not asset.My opinion it is much more payment system than currency,bitcoin value is blockchain easy transfering money all over the world at lown cost
But if you can buy and sell with bitcoin it is currency,if you can exchange to fiat money,it is like gold,virtual gold,oil etc

There is not any regulation for bitcoin,so for now it is only definition

Definitely a payment system. 

Bitcoin has kind of failed the store of value and unit of account aspects of a currency due to it's volatility.  I happen to think it will still work out, and it's done better than say the USD as a store of value over many date ranges (since the USD is always down) but in the near term it has just bounced around too much and too frequently those bounces have been down. 

If it was still trading around 1000 USD my answer would be different, in fact at that time I would have said it was a deflationary currency, so I've been wrong before.

My vote will go more towards a better online payment system, than a currency. I had this discussion with a friend of mine about this and it boils down to two things in my opinion :

1. How many people use it.
2. Does any government have control over it. {Most people say, if it's government controlled, it's a currency}

For it being a Store of value... well that is open for debate. 

I have tried all other online payment systems and I feel none of them are more secure and easy to use than Bitcoin. {But that is only my opinion}

Most governments don't have control over their own currencies and the banks run/own the government not the other way around. The banks and state are usually separate entities like the fed and USG and bank of England & UKG etc and they usually set interest rates.

I dont think bitcoin is gonna fully accept by bank as their currency, may be it will never be as currency until government make a new regulation but for now government wont even care to bitcoin progress, whether it will be going good or bad since it will not affected their things. But I can't said that bitcoin can become the payment system too because out there wont be many company that used bitcoin as their payment, just in some case in this forum that people can get bitcoin payment. So my conclusion bitcoin is in the air for now and just wait time to take action whether it will become payment system or currency it will depends on us too