Bitcoin Forum

Very generally, there are two classifications of how people see bitcoin, and people tend to fall to different degrees into the two camps. The first is the to the moon camp. These folks believe bitcoin is solving a fundamental problem that fiat currency doesn't address and that it is only a matter of time before bitcoin replaces the USD as the dominant currency in the world. Now, that's written to the extreme end of it, but I'm sure you've all seen variations of this sentiment on these boards. Also falling into this camp are people who think that the next major recession or market crash is going to send the bitcoin price soaring, as people flee the broken fiat currencies of the world and buy up all the digital gold (btc, of course) they can get their hands on.

The second group thinks bitcoin has serious flaws that will prevent it from ever becoming a major currency for the purposes of trade or commerce, and that it is at best a speculative investment. (Again, written to the extreme.) These people believe that the next major recession or market sell off will tank the price of bitcoin along with everything else, as capital flees the riskiest assets first. This group also believes that bitcoin is a flash in the pan, and other digital currencies will eventually surpass it or they will all diminish in value together.

There are degrees along this spectrum. If we were plotting this out on a scale of 1-10, let's call the first group a 1 and the second group a 10, and a 5 would be someone right in the middle who doesn't think going to the moon is any more or less likely than going to 0.

Where do you fall, and why?

I'm a 3.

I believe Bitcoin is a moon-worthy rocket, but it's just not yet lit. The challenge is that outside of the the Bitcoin community you have the rest of the world, who mostly align with 10. They think bitcoin is like pokemon or second life or something tech folks do with friends.

The fact that Wall Street and the SEC is having serious conversation about Bitcoin is a great thing. And the support that was found after the brief dip following the SEC news is further reassuring. Although it doesn't get me any confidence that i'll be buying $200 bitcoin any time soon.

Another question to ask is whether currency acceptance is a requirement for Bitcoin to be successful. I don't think it is, but there are also two camps for this debate.

I am on the side where majority of people believe that bitcoin would surpass all challenges and bitcoin would become digital gold as it is called now and obviously i fall under the category 1.We could see bitcoin has doubled in price since last six months.Lots of new companies are accepting bitcoin as payment.Still now,majority of people around the world dont know about bitcoin and when they come to know,then bitcoin would surely move up further.

I dont belong to any of those two. After reading those two groups are extremist and are lining up on both edges while I stay on the middle. Though I redeem bitcoin to be a good currency and can reach the value that is very high, it could even each a one million dollar price but I do not leave the possibility that there are many factors that will cause the breakdown of bitcoin. Thus I belong in the middle if I earn bitcoin some of it were placed on savings and some of it were spend.

I would say 6.The second group of people have a more realistic view about bitcoin and how the market economy works.I wish there was a third vision about bitcoin,where btc is accepted offline and there is no need to have a computer or electricity in order to use bitcoins.This is the real bitcoin adoption,because if bitcoin stays fully digital,it will be easier for the governments to destroy it.This is just my theory.
I might be wrong....

I personally belong to both groups, I believe that bitcoin will eventually go to the moon however, unless the development becomes active and developers work on a solution for BU and SegWit that we are currently facing and It could result into two coins instead of one, we will never get there and Altcoins will end up surpassing bitcoin with no doubt.

I think you are wrong because my vision of Bitcoin is quite different from the two you highlighted above. I will like to also know which of the two visions you hold for Bitcoin

How did it happen ? If only it was really a truth, then the transfer of fiat money with bitcoin requires a huge damage in a fiat currency, so that people flock to the bitcoin currency change. damage fiat currencies is inflation and deflation due to goods production and circulation of counterfeit money very much,and a world war.

Altcoins surpassing bitcoin won't happen, because bitcoin gets more adoption and acceptance just due to its decreased volatility compared to altcoins. However technology gets updated, altcoins got served following bitcoin's base. So bitcoin popularity might decrease not the usage.

Possibilities are always there because nothing on this world wont be permanent on the top but we can always say such thing about bitcoin that it can be hardly replaced since we all know its the first cryptocurrency and those coins being created after it are just total alts.

Well there's a little chance for bitcoin to be surpassed by another alt if those alt have good devs with good plans for future developments and great expansion and doesn't think to scam their holders, Bitcoin is vulnarable to anything and remember its price is not stable so if their will be bad fud will spread surely bitcoin will collapsed for that and it is a great time for another alt to shine.

In the first place, I don't think that this classification is very meaningful

Not that it is meaningless as such (it is not), it just doesn't reflect the full specter of reality (or even significant part of it). It is like classifying the world on a gray scale while completely discarding color from the picture. Basically, you claim than one end of the range consists of folks who think that Bitcoin will be indisputable success eventually, the other of folks who don't think so, while in reality the vast majority of people involved with Bitcoin don't think in these terms altogether but just grab at the opportunity to earn profits whenever such an opportunity arises. In other words, they are more interested in Bitcoin volatility overall rather than in Bitcoin hiking to the sky or plummeting to the floor

i kinda of agree with your view, we can generalize two big category like those you mentioned, but there are some in the middle who believe bitcoin will go to the moon but are sceptical to buy, and other who think it's risky because it can go to zero but will buy anyway, because they want fiat money only they don't like bitcoin anyway, for me i just want bitcoin to be a currency a real currency

Very clear bitcoin may replace USD as the world most acceptable currency as most of the elites like Jacob Rothschild said of recent that the new world order is failing. Since the beginning of this year with all odds against bitcoin it value keep on rising and people now see the benefits of bitcoin as a decentralized currencies all over the world. In bitcoin the more you look the more you see it benefits.

3 on the scale
I lean towards Blockchain technology in one form or another superseding state currency mechanisms especially where significant transactions occur in global finance and trade where intermediaries such as exchanges and fees in conversion interfere and act as unnecessary parties in day to day transactions.

Why do I need to pay a middle man to convert my USD into Yen and Vice versa on currency exchanges when myself and my business partner make a transaction and use the blockchain for peanuts instead.

Of course the 3 comes in because the volatility may scare others at any point when it needs to be converted to  currency and the implicit exchange risk is greater than a government backed currency as a part of the volatility of the asset.

At the same time I recognize that an implicit scale does not mean that I would be static in it, some parts from 10 are just as valid as the points from 1 and the weight I would put on any factors would variate based on the potential future outlook and utility it has relative to my point of view and the information available.

I'm more of a 4 but most of that is because of bias. I've just been introduced to this a few months ago and am definitely hoping it would become widely-used. But then again there seem to be some problems (don't know exact details, only used it to send money). The most glaring ones are the confirmation time and transaction fees and I believe that's really important to fix. If bitcoin could become popular as remittance service then that would increase the number of people becoming familiar with it.

I'd consider myself somewhere between 2 and 3, although I completely agree with one negative point, that bitcoin will never be a global currency used by all. It's simply not made to be a currency, it's more of a payment system + investment vehicle. For it to be a currency a country would have to drop its current one and start using bitcoin, which will never happen unless we're talking about some banana republic.

I am a crypto 2 but a bitcoin 6.

The problem for me is that Bitcoin could and should be the answer, but it is becoming bloated and slow. The new sleeker and faster alts are usually scams or junk though, so we are left with Bitcoin to solve the problems of fiat.

I think it is a shame how things are going with Bitcoin. It is all about the price, but the actual development doesn't really seem to be happening. I never fair to be disappointed by the lack of opportunities to use Bitcoin.

I'm optimistic, but grounded.  Bitcoin has potential but it's not ready yet because it's not scalable.  I also think that there are a lot of cons with a deflationary investment e.g. all the hoarding which is resulting in a decreasing circulation of the currency.

yes there is no doubt about this. i am hopeful that the price of bitcoin will be trading too much high in future, as the rice of bitcoin has still good potential in the price of bitcoin to increase.

I'm a 2. I like how Bitcoin is doing and I like the community. Why not 1? Because the block size debate makes me a bit worried. I hope people will find a way to update the code in the way that everyone will accept and there won't be any fights among the community.

I would like a scale from 0-100 but according to @OP preference I am between 3 and 4. I believe the potential of bitcoin but it is a technological innovation which the most people are not well informed and educated to understand its value. It's not easy not only for people in underdeveloped countries due to poor infrastructures and obvious problems of everyday surveillance but for the average Joe too. More people and especially the middle-aged ones are not willing to learn something so different and are scary to use it due to their fear of everything which is not tangible. The next or the one after that generation will be appropriate to embrace and incorporate into its everyday life the bitcoins usage.

Yeah, I guess that thing should get fixed fast because the way I see it bitcoin is becoming like any other payment method out there, it is starting to take a long time a,d take fees for it, and that is why we left them in the first place and started to use bitcoin and I am sure many people thinks so as well.

I don't know what category I be, but I still believe in bitcoin has seriously flawed in the beginning but I'm also on the positive side that it will go to the moon but we are still far from it. Seriously flawed like the scalability issue but it can be fixed, whether when, remains to be seen. And if this can be fix bitcoin can be very well going mainstream go the price will go to the moon.

That is a fact that not until the problem on blocksize will be solved there will be more complains and fear among the bitcoin community. The debate is still going on and there are no consensus yet as to what will be the choice of the majority of the miners on the adoption in the increase of blocksize. It is very disappointing that even though the price of bitcoin is increasing the system tightens as if bitcoin will die from being choke if no solutions will come in sooner.

I may have personnality disorder because i think i am mixed in this 2 groups.
Firstly because i think bitcoin has the potential to be huge and may solves multiples problems with currently have in this monetary system. There are lot of advantages in bitcoin and of course disadvantages, i don't deny this. Wich bring me in the second group at the same time: One of the problem is when we see all those private chains created here and there, wich somewhat show us they are not really interested in bitcoin but more about the technology behind it. Sometimes i  think the blockchain technology has far more feature than bitcoin. Not talking about bitcoin market wich could die in the long run and the same apply with its price of course

Exactly. I hope we can come up with the solutions already because its really becoming so frustrating as times to wait for your bitcoin to go through your wallet. I think they should step aside for a while and make the decisions already. This is already dragging for some time now, too much politics I guess, which makes the issue kind of disappointing for the bitcoin community. The future of bitcoin is looking good, but if the issue remains, this will somehow prevent bitcoin from moving forward.

I guess you are fine, people with sense of reasoning will be a mixed of these two.  We can be optimistic but know the flaw and fault of Bitcoin that can hinder its growth and needed to be address.  This is like being attached to the reality but knowing the possibility of Bitcoin soaring up.  We can also be too concerned with the flaws and know that if ait is fixed, Bitcoin will really go up in price but also knew that it will never be able to replace fiat currency like USD.  It is not bad being cynical :) as long as there is a valid reason to be one.

First vision in bitcoin is worldwide adoption for people who happen to know btc with a strong knowledge. And second vision is for the bitcoin use for goods purchase in different parts of the world which is having to adopt bitcoin purchase payments, can be accepted as a recognized currency as optional spending to mankind. Those visions will bring good future to bitcoin system profit, due to more people will become a part of this general implementations happening in the future of currencies.

Worldwide adoption might be far from us today, but daily the growth of bitcoin users has been exponentially growing. So probably in the near future we can expect to see some great uses for bitcoins and when that happens we'll also see a sharp rise in prices. So hold on to your coins everybody!

But the main thing here is, to be accepted globally, bitcoin as mode of payment should be fast and without much of a waiting time. But unfortunately, the current situation its not. How will it be mass adopted if the network is being clogged everyday and transaction time is absolutely absurd. Mining fee is also at its ATH. Unless this roadblock been fixed we are still far from worldwide adoption.

i never like this type of categorizing stuff because as they say, world is not black and white.
bitcoin has problems (not sure if we can call them flaws) but has many other good features too. it is being adopted but there is a long way to go still.
being a fanatic and blindly following others like a sheep is never a good thing in my opinion. i love bitcoin and i have obviously invested a lot in it but i am well aware that it is still a risky move.

I think bitcoin will rise to new heights and there is no stopping to it. You can see currently there is a serious problem of delay transactions in bitcoins still its price sky rocketing.  This only shows that bitcoin is trusted by all the people using it and  these small problems will be overcomed sooner or later.

Well on this point, the decentralized nature of bitcoin keeps any one person or entity (government or otherwise) from having the ability to disrupt or take offline the bitcoin ecosystem. Since a copy of the blockchain exists in literally millions of places (every computer propagating the network), the only way to destroy bitcoin would be to compromise every computer running the network. I think in this regard, this isn't a likely outcome.

It's a scale from 1-10, so you can fall in the middle somewhere. But the two positions are on each end of the extreme, so the spectrum should be all encompassing.

I fall at about an 8. I don't see bitcoin becoming stable enough to be useful as a currency. If it ever does settle into a stable value, then I think mining fees will prevent it from ever being a cost-competitive payment method compared to traditional payment options. I think it was some utility for transferring money quickly across national borders (very useful for remittances), but that's about as far as I see it ever going on a practical level. If there is utility elsewhere, I don't see it at the moment. I can see more widespread familiarity with bitcoin in the future, but I do not see it leading to mass adoption because the it's not tremendously more useful in most areas of use than traditional money.

This is true no matter how bitcoin would experience problems it would really be overcome no matter what happens and the price will remain stronger and would gradually rise in the longer years to come. Bitcoin would really give us or always surprise us in terms of its price.

This is an interesting distinction, and one I have thought about before as well. I also am more bullish on blockchain technology as a whole over bitcoin specifically. Bitcoin's utility is as a currency or medium of exchange, which is one I don't particularly find more compelling than traditional payment methods for a variety of reasons. Blockchain technology, however, has implications of a wide range of information storage and record keeping that is not relegated to commerce. Many large companies are already researching how using a blockchain can be utilized to record various types of information to cut their costs or otherwise alter how they operate. There's more promise there in my opinion.

one thing you should remember about altcoins being "faster and sleeker" is that these altcoins aren't being used!
go check their blockchain, through a blockexplorer for example and check the history of it. and then go to bitcoin blockchain explorer and check the history. see how many transactions are being made every day.
how many of these altcoins do you think can handle that many transactions? how many nodes do you think are going to continue running for example Ethereum because its blockchain is already nearing 100 GB and will be even more with more transactions lets say if it was around as long as bitcoin!?

now check how many attacks are happening against bitcoin. for example the spam attack (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1776143.0). now do you even know any attack against any of these altcoins?
how many of these altcoins do you think can even withstand an attack for an hour let alone for over a year?

I think it is ambiguous situation about bitcoin. On one side it is really showing us picture where it is gaining tremendous attention to reach to moon. That is obvious scenario where bitcoin is equal to million dollars! While the second side says bitcoins is still far away from solving its current situation of blocks. Firstly, bitcoin was equal to penny while in few years of time only it took giant leap of thousands of dollars, if we check out current market it is still gaining more value for its hard block work. However, it is also incomplete artefact with few complications in its nodes, formulas etc. This leads to bitcoins fluctuating price that we currently se in the market. Anyway, for me personally the first option would really come up with some solution for sure. So fingers crossed for bitcoin to the moon.  :)

I strongly agree with this attitude

What I want to add is these coins are more than certainly contain a huge number of bugs, and the recent crash of BU network when the majority of BU nodes had been taken down proves just that. I can't say that Bitcoin code is polished or perfect (I didn't see it myself), but I can say with a high degree of certainty that it is free of severe bugs that could threaten or otherwise compromise the stability of the network itself. Simply because too many people would be too happy to exploit them if there were some and they hadn't been fixed earlier. If some altcoin gets traction, we will see a lot of bugs discovered in less than no time and then used against that coin. Bitcoin Unlimited is just a glaring example of how it will happen in practice

I don't belong to those group.
I think i am in the middle because there is something need to settle before bitcoin can become dominant currency in the world.
I think bitcoin is still a relatively high technology stuff for general people, this is because if we use traditional way to store all those currency, we can store in the bank. We use it easily daily through cash, credit card, debit card, online payment or others. If someone store his/her life saving in bitcoins, and someone(hacker) rob all his/her saving through technology, how do he/her get back compensation? However, if in bank, government has the power to fix those issue.
No only to the security issue, payment systems for bitcoin is still very lag behind nowaday payments system and majority of financial institution wouldn;t make costly and time-consuming effort to change their payment system.

Scalability is a big issue and probably the reason of the growth of other Altcoin like litcoin ripple etc.If the issue is not addressed,bitcoin will become stagnant.