Bitcoin Forum

I often meet newbies and try to explain to them what makes Bitcoin special. I am trying to compile a list of advantages of Bitcoin.

Is there anything anybody feels I should add to the list below?

Also I think its better to keep to concrete, succinct,  advantages. Not what might be considered wishy washy hype about how it will 'help bring sub-saharan Africans out of poverty by allowing them to purchase goats with Bitcoin".

Some of the reasons which I currently state:

-It allows you to have full control of your money, nobody can take away your money.

-It is not controlled by anyone. Its a decentralised peer-to-peer network. Based on open source software. This means it can not be manipulated, Bitcoin supply is fixed modelling it after gold. Nobody can stop or prevent transactions.

-It has low fees compared to other online payment methods like paypal, credit cards etc.

-It is truly global.

-It is programmable money that allows for smart contracts.

-Anybody including kids from their basement, can create financial applications without permission. This is because its open source technology and the network is not controlled by anybody. Nobody needs to ask permission to use it and nobody can restrict access. If you have access to the internet you can access it.

-It is pseudo anonymous and with some extra effort it can be very close to anonymous. You need sophisticated state actors using significant resources to de-anonymise if somebody takes extra effort.

-It is less hackable then traditional payment systems because it is a push system. That means you dont provide your 'secret keys' to receiver/merchant when you make a payment, unlike with credit cards.

it looks good to me.

although i would add security to it.
when using any other payment systems online you are risking your information being stolen like your credit card information, and there is always risks of malware, keylogger, and other things that can steel your information and abuse it.

however with bitcoin since you can do everything offline all the said risks reach zero. you can have a air lock system using a Live linux offline for example, and make the transactions (use your sensitive information like private keys) there and then only broadcast the public data (non-sensitive) online.

also there is no charge back. it means the trust is shifted from users trusting the merchant with their personal information into merchants trusting their users not to double spend. also users trusting merchants (based on the merchant history) to send the product.

You should definitely mention speed. On average, a transaction will confirm in 10 minutes. Compare that to international bank transaction time. Also, you should expand on "low fees", as in the fee for sending $10 and $10 Million would be the same (assuming they have the same TX size).

You also should include the disadvantages, it doesn't seem honest just to show the good stuff, you should give a complete picture.

Well paying people using bitcoin is easier and more convenient way, we dont need to carry the money around so it's safer and we can make bitcoin address easier than opening account, so it should make people easier to do transaction

Such as?

That does not make it safer at all. Regardless of whether or not you're carrying cash, someone at gunpoint can attempt to force you to move your Bitcoin (no, don't tell me you're not carrying anything on you, because the argument is moot then).

While the latter correlates with the first, it does not cause it.

Yes there are several disadvantages as well and as well all know comparison = similarity + dissimilarity. On this note I would like to point out some relevant points regarding this matter:

1. Volatility of price of bitcoin is there which makes it a prime target for traders. Bad news for stores/shops
2. Payment Gateways integration is low for bitcoin with respect to fiat currency.
3. Payment Availability in bitcoin is also low. Not many people get paid in bitcoin for offering their service (I am talking in general which means outside this forum)
4. Acceptance and Popularity - bitcoin needs more acceptance throughout the world, that does not mean the US/UK - the rest of the world is also there.
5. Irreversibility of transaction - though I consider it as the least because it is a fault of the user to mis-click and not system. However we are all human and we tend to make mistakes.

Edit: I did remove one about which I am also not very confident as a disadvatage but is rather a misconception.

Very volatile (https://btcvol.info/) indeed.  ::)
https://i.imgur.com/s4ij5g8.png

That's a feature of a immutable chain, not a disadvantage.

This is not a disadvantage of Bitcoin; it's just a misconception.

You forgot to quote the rest of the post -

Bitcoin provides ease of access to merchants and clients alike. No weight of coins, and no clumsy handling of notes. Exact payment amounts, too.

So, once in 20xx, you'll look back to 2013 and say Bitcoin is volatile?  ::)

You're wrong. That's where the intrinsic value of a blockchain stems from; without immutability Bitcoin would likely be worthless (or near this).

My bad, it cut of for some reason. You shouldn't list it as a disadvantage anyways. Also, please learn how to properly respond to parts of a post (the way you did it is very wrong).

I don't know any disadvantage of bitcoins yet. I can do pretty much everything noted above from other users and if I feel like, I can immediately convert it to cash hassle free through a lot of exchanges that are available. In certain countries with very low standard of life bitcoin can even make a BIG difference to their life.

Bitcoin is helping a lot of people since it has been created and I hope and believe it will continue to do so in the future. Advantages of it are already said here so no need to repeat others.

Its good that you have given time for this and prepared the list of advantage of bitcoin and yes agree with all of those points and that is the reason why we are using bitcoins and we also love it.The two most features in your points that i like the most about bitcoins are pseudo anonymous and low transaction fees.And good work by you.

Bitcoin is faster,cheaper and anonymous.Unlike traditional system,bitcoin doesn't requires middleman or third party to interfere in your transaction

Lack of consumer protection, network congestion leading to huge confirmation times, and lack of scalability are the main disadvantages.

Also, I don't think it's fair to compare Bitcoin with a payment system as bitcoin is not suited to be used for shopping, specially online shopping.

lets address the elephants in the room

1 ) although the core fanboy leaders are using a softfork to slide in a change without the network nodes needing to upgrade/vote/consent.. the fanboys have faith that their leaders are doing it with honour. but they forget that even having the ability to slide in changes without consensus, can be used for bad too.
thus bitcoin is not indestructible as it relies on the TRUST that a group of devs are going to be honourable.
.. now imagine that it was used for bad..
2 ) doesnt mean malicious/or unintentional bugs cannot be slid in.
3 ) softforks can and do manipulate
4 ) pools stop and restrict transactions every day: no fee, not meeting the rules, being a double spend. miners can CHOOSE any tx they like to be added or avoided.
5 ) low fee's of $0.06 may seem a low minimum in the western world, but is an hours labour in developing countries
6 ) not if the fee-war has anything to do with it. it is already causing a barrier for entry in many countries.
7 ) and we have to 'trust' those programming it. again emphasising the softfork weakness
8 ) proves my point of points 1,2,3,7

what i do find funny is how people who already know about bitcoin are trying hard to brush the weaknesses under the carpet to oversell bitcoin to other people who already know about bitcoin (if you are on this forum you already know bitcoin, so no need to over promise bitcoins abilities to eachother)
and if these over promises are going to be used to explain bitcoin to those that dont know (mainstream world) they will just become distrustful when they see it had been over sold to them.
EG go to india and tell them its "low fee". and then give them just enough bitcoin for an hours labour and see it evaporate in the fees alone.

No chargebacks. Freakin paypal.

This only happens if you don't know what you're doing.

Decentralized systems tend to be less scalable as we've observed.

Is this a bad joke? Bitcoin is optimal for online shopping.

Nice relative privation.

1. It is anonymous
2. Faster and cheaper
3. It is deflatory
4. No/Low transaction cost
5. It is divisible to 1billionth part

True we should also have to discuss what are the disadvantages of bitcoin from other online payment modes in order for that certain person to understand more of what are the things that he/she might considered before joining the community.

I think this is so simple but a lot of perception is make this issues be a big problem, just back to the purpose of op "Are this for make the another people is interesting or not?" So we are no need to be a honest for telling them the disadvantages of bitcoin. For my personally made him be a curious person is better. 8)

No. Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous.

Correct.

It's called "deflationary", and listing this as an advantage may result in heavy debate from some.

Zero free transactions are mostly a thing of the past, so that "no" isn't correct anymore.

Not sure how this is an advantage. You could just as easily introduce smaller units for any currency if they're needed.

Care to elaborate on that? I'd say it's perfectly suitable for online shopping, especially recently with relative low volatility.
Also, many retailers would disagree with you, since there are quite a few that have implemented Bitcoin payments and they've not removed it for years now.

The list of businesses accepting Bitcoin is growing, maybe not as fast as everybody would like, but slowly it's winning over even large corporations.

And for OP, having a list of places that accept Bitcoin, especially large retailers or service providers is always good to mention when you talk about the benefits of using Bitcoin. No point in talking about benefits to a regular person if you don't provide him with practical use cases.

Yes there is always advantage of using bitcoin for transaction because it doesn't have transaction charge. It's faster , secure and anonymous then traditional payment system. And yes we can do the transaction with ourself we don't need to cross those net banking system, no need to enter account number, ifc code and all those boring old system. So bitcoin transaction is best.

Merchants will add bitcoin as a payment method because of the publicity it brings to their business, and to capitalize when bitcoin increases a lot in value and bitcoiners want to spend their new riches.

Bitcoin was not designed for online shopping like, for example, Paypal, bitcoin is slow and has no consumer protection, if you want to be scammed by strangers over the Internet you should shop with bitcoin.

Paypal was designed for ecommerce, it has buyer and seller protection, it's fast, and very easy to use.


By the way, it doesn't matter the merits of bitcoin as a currency, the same way it doesn't matter the merits of euro or dollar being used in Paypal, I'm speaking about payment systems to be used in online shopping.

Three advantages which are important to me.

1) It is global (as you stated in your opening post). There is no border or regulation limitation. You can send Bitcoins to every corner in the world within minutes. There is no other payment system that could deliver this.

2) It is cheap. Very less fees compared with other payment options. Especially to such ones like Western Union.

3) Every service could implement Bitcoin API within minutes. You do not need to ask anyone.

Nice work and yes bitcoin has many advantages over a traditional payment system as already mentioned by you not only one but many advantages.
Having to pay low transaction fee is the best feature for me for using bitcoins.

Well thats not true because for the soft fork to work miners have to run their code so ultimately devs have no real power. Furthermore thats only for soft forks and soft forks can only be a subset of what is already allowed my nodes.

I agree there are disadvantages and I certainly mention them. For the proposes of this post I just want to focus on advantages.

TBH most people are already sceptical so they have plenty of disadvantages in their heads. I want to provide them some real reasons why they might consider Bitcoin interesting.

Their are many advantages like, bitcoin gives you oppurtunity to earn online through lot of option in this forum, like doing signature campaign, giving your skill work for bitcoin and altcoin trading and investing on new coins and earning through trading with them.

Through bitcoin you can do gambling without revealing your identity.

I agree with you.

I did mention security but I think more can be said as I believe ultimately Bitcoins model is less prone to hacking the the current financial system.

For example there were the recent hacks   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Bangladesh_Bank_heist

Bitcoin is less prone to these kind of heists since the money is distributed and held by individuals (mostly apart from exchanges). Banks get hacked all the time any one way or other consumers must bear the cost.

Not sure how to succinctly phrase that.

I just love the decentralization of a digital currency which  really proves that our systems is innovating, all things will not stay at it is for the period of time because just like the saying that goes " the only constant in this world is change" and bitcoin system really is the start

The low fees are the one who are inviting to the eyes of many. I got hooked with this because of that. I can do a lot of my transaction at low cost. The bad thing that did happen was when it got so slow before it was sent unlike before.

I am really a fan of number one on your list.
Of cours people have to be careful not to make any connection from their names to the wallets they posess, but that's the responsebility of the users and has nothing to do with bitcoin.
Another advantage is the transparancy. Every transaction ever made is recorded in the blockchain.
Nobody can say he did not get the money to a certain wallet when he actually did. Everybody can look at the blockchain and find out if the transaction in question was made.

Great list OP. I love bitcoin mostly because it’s free from any control and thus has no limits of time and quantity so one can make any amount of transaction at any time during a day. Bitcoin transactions are cheaper than fiat transactions on international level and fast too so I prefer bitcoins over traditional methods of payment. Thanks for the list though, I would use it to share with my friends who don’t use bitcoins yet.

Ever heard of MtGox, Bitfinex?

Or a shit load of other thefts: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337.0

Yes I know but thefts happen in traditional system also. I feel that fundamentally Bitcoin is more secure against thefts then legacy systems. Not sure how to explain why I have that feeling. Some people might disagree with me.

Thefts don't matter. Difficulty of use doesn't matter. Transaction time doesn't matter. Bitcoin has one redeeming feature that each successive altcoin derivative improves upon. If you use it correctly you can use it to make money more difficult for law enforcement to track. Bitcoin and many of the derivatives help hide illegal purchases. If that's the only thing Bitcoin does that's good enough reason to use it.

You want to buy a loaf of bread go dig some change out of the ashtray of your car and buy one. You want to buy black tar heroin use cryptocurrency.

But in bitcoin you lose your money...

Bitcoin can actually be used for online shopping. Bitcoin was at first, thought to be useful for online transactions due to its difficulty to reverse after the transaction has been confirmed for a number of times. Digital goods and credits can be quite hard to purchase with PayPal since merchants are reluctant to accept Paypal as a payment option as it would result in chargebacks. Not to mention the fees are quite steep.

Bitcoin can arguably become Paypal if there can be an escrow service which can allow 2-of-3 multisig where the seller and buyer each hold one and the escrow holds one of the keys too.

The thefts occurs mostly due to the user trusting the exchange/service too much and holds all their money in the exchanges/services. The thefts could easily be prevented if the user practice proper security measures and use their own desktop wallet for storage of their own BTC.

There's more advantages of bitcoin over traditional payment.
These are: low costs, less fee, faster transactions, less efforts,
and secure payment. These advantages could help a lot to many
users of bitcoin.

What you're saying is that bitcoin can become Paypal if we put a Paypal in bitcoin. :D

I like your listing but i would like you to add that bitcoin transaction are irreversible one making merchants to feel safe against chargebacks with traditional payment systems.

Unbanking people can transfer, use, etc this "money" without control. And in many countries you can be outside government domain by simply create a wallet on localbitcoins and trade your physical cash into bitcoins without any intervension of the state. The track system is also very cool and the small taxation is beatiful. There are so many advantages that you could write a huge list. Nothing compares with this freedom.

there is many advantages of bitcoin transaction specially for heavy amount because.

• it's safe and secure than traditional bank system
• it's anonymous, no one will know to whom you have paid money
• it's faster and transaction fee is much lesser then bank system

To all this I would also add freedom of payment and independence from the bank. You can freely choose where to keep Bitcoins and how to spend them. Also, no one is checking you credit history or reputation. You can stay anonimous or reveal your identity. And with just few coins you can feel rich.  ;D

It is safe, if you use it directly {person 2 person} NOT if you use some 3rd party service or a dodgy exchange. It is not anonymous, but

rather Pseudo anonymous. It's definitely faster, if you compare it with international wire transfers, but the transaction fees might be

comparable, depending on what 3rd party service you are using. Some services just hide their overall cost, and make the transactions

look cheaper.  ::)

I agree with your list,but the biggest bitcoin advantage is the irreversible transactions.

There are people who think that irreversible transactions are a flaw,but they are wrong.

Anyways, you said advantages? Is their any advantages of bitcoin over traditional payment systems?

Mind me to share your thoughts  :)

it is Decentralized.

i don't care about any other feature bitcoin has, although a lot of them are excellent and i like bitcoin because of them too but in my opinion the decentralized feature of bitcoin is the best one.

i can use it however i like and there is nobody in the world that can ask me why.

with fiat i go to one site and it says we don't accept your bank, another says we don't accept your country,... with bitcoin nobody can say we don't accept your bitcoin!

Decentralization is a pretty big thing when it comes to economics, and quite impressive when you can have a currency built around that concept that works, however Bitcoin isn't miraculously something that is going to be accepted everywhere because it isn't some sort of fiat. Bitcoin is still kind of fiat-like right now when it comes to value, the only difference being that the value is crowd-sourced, which is better than just being told $1 = $1.

Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology of modern money. Which Satoshi had invented for first time and this have lot of advantages. Transaction fees in bitcoin it's comparatively less then bank system. Byron transaction transaction is much faster then traditional bank system. Notun transaction is highly secure then bank system. Transaction in bitcoin system is anonymous and automated.

People talk about BTC being anonymous, which isn't exactly true. It's better to say you can easily hide money with BTC. You can create a wallet in a place which offers public wifi, sends a few BTC there, and it would be next to impossible to prove those still belong to you.

I can count a lot of Bitcoin advantages, but the most beneficial features are: user anonymity and the small transaction fees, as well as no one can freeze your money, these three feature are the most important reasons which push people to buy and store Bitcoin and other Cryptos.

For me the best advantage is that without that I was a jobless and now I do not need any job and I am earning a good income with trade from bitcoin and altcoin.

It has been fast for me when making payments versus the traditional methods that I have been using so far.
It is a god sent actually if you ask me. ;D

All of those things are great...if you're computer savvy, which most people are not and never will be.  And to that population, fiat is so much easier to use and so much more available that there's no true need for bitcoin.  I do wish you luck in proselytizing, because bitcoin needs pumpers out there.  I just think if you're trying to convince Joe Blow on the street that he needs to use this funky internet currency, he'll laugh in your face.  Anonymity is big, but a lot of people don't care about that.

yeah it is a basic difference when you use the bitcoin for methods to send money than traditional methods. you do not need the hassle of sending money to bitcoin, because you only need to open the gadget and send bitcoin, and the transaction is completed, let alone a very small transaction fee in bitcoin

The Bitcoin can be traced easily. If you were to send 1BTC from an address to another address, there is a high possibility that they belong to you. If you were to use a mixer, it wouldn't be so easily traceable. Tor is a better alternative for users to connect their wallets to. Most wallets do have the option to setup a proxy and Tor offers more privacy.

Most wallets have a good user interface and it would require an average Joe minimal knowledge to know how to use Bitcoin. They only have to understand whats an address and confirmation and that's it.

I think that its best advantages are fast Payouts, low fees, you can simply change it to any currency, its value grows with time, anonymity payments and it is decentralized.

You pretty much summarize the advantages of it so I will just add that since it can be access by anyone then for those people who cannot open bank accounts because of the lack of supporting documents will now have opportunity to store their money without the need of those documents as long as they have internet connection. Yes there is a risk that their money will drop in value because of the fluctuation of prices but the advantage of it is that they will be able to keep their money somewhere wherein they would not be able to spend it immediately whenever they have impulse in buying something that they don't actually need compared to just storing the money in their wallet which is more likely to be spent immediately and in the end they would not be able to save.

Its not necessarily about pumping or proselytizing. Some people are interested in Bitcoin and want me to explain it to them seeing as to them I am a 'Bitcoin expert'. For such situations I want to be prepared by having a good explanation of its advantages.


Anyhow I think there were some good suggestions here. I will rewrite my op and post update next week.

There are many advantages of using bitcoin as a payment, But the main disadvantage i look and also afraid is trust. Only way to buy something through bitcoin is we have to trust the seller or use an escrow (again have to trust escrow). So buying something from a newly launched store or service is always a risk.

Even establish stores and services can cheat the buyers, If that happened buyers cant do anything else rather shout scam scam everywhere.

So non-traceable, anonymous, decentralized most of the times scary for buyers.

But in point of sellers that's an advantage, buyers can't scam them or ask for charge back etc...

Agree, its really fast compared to other means in my opinion and its a cheapest way to send payments. Also, its safe and I may add that it is more convenient also to use bitcoin as a payment mode.

See, if you buy anything using traditional payments, you have to give your personal details.The government could easily track your earnings and levy taxes. But in Bitcoins, there is no need to give any personal details.

It's only scary for buyers that are accustomed to be pampered by fake buyer protection policies of big online stores. In the real world however, you can still get scammed easily even when using Painpal or bank transfer. As a sane individual and customer, you will always have to check, if your contracting party is trustworthy and reliable. Chargebacks are not a solution against scams - in fact they open the door for new types of scams (for example pretending of not having received an item...).

I think you're greatly exaggerating the real risk of getting scammed by ordinary businesses. Maybe you're falling for the Painpal propaganda, that use fear of getting scammed as a justification to use their scammy (= account freezing) service. I've been buying products from online shops since years and never had any problem that wasn't resolved quickly via simply talking with the seller.

ya.ya.yo!

It was just for payments how they can monitor the earnings? Also this practice is present up to today, does it hurt harder in most of the cases?

And besides, a legit store that offers payment windows must follow the rules about money transactions law so it's a must if they at least know some of the personal details of the customers.

The main advantage of Bitcoin is the time, effort, and fee. With just a few clicks and some keyboard action, you can send money to the other side of the world. The time that it will be there is just a few minutes. The fee is also almost zero, in some websites, the fee really is zero. In blockchain, there's a few cents fee but that's not much considering how many advantages that you get.

I could not think of anything because all you have listed were good and true to the nature of bitcoin.  Maybe I could just give an example of how bitcoin works in our country.  Here, our bitcoin wallet allows us to make a deposit to banks then for just a moment you already have the money on your wallet.  You can convert it to bitcoin automatically.   To it you can buy loads, pay your bills, your loans, contribution to your retirement, and even school tuition fees.  All can be done through it in just a fraction of time.  Hassle free transaction with no to a minimal fee.

Yes bitcoin have lot of advantages over traditional bank system.

• bitcoin transaction is secure
• bitcoin transaction is faster
• transaction fees in bitcoin it's very less that is agonist negligible

That is the advantages if you use creditcard for payment. But fiat is free way to use, it faster if doing hand to hand but it is not so pratically becouse fiat cannot divided until 8 decimal. In this case bitcoin is the winner.

Advantage of bitcoin tramsaction in terms over traditional banks is it is faster than traditional banks and secured but disadvantage is it is sometimes too slow and got delayed

i think some important heading missed .
you should add following advantages

1) we can trade with Bitcoin at local and also globally
2) we can buy every altcoin with Bitcoin .
3) better option to save like gold .
4) no taxation .