Bitcoin Forum

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What exactly is the threshold for Bitcoin be considered mainstream?

With a few millions of bitcoin users it is far from being mainstream, anyway.

I think the biggest obstacle for mainstrain adoption is the difficulty to get mainstream adoption is the difficulty to invest with fair rates.Most of the exchanges are without proper regulations.

Also have full responsibility for their money isn't for everyone.

One day closer than it was yesterday.

For now we can not see it because it is too complicated for them who does not have any technical knowledge and for a lazy person,
It will be mainstream when everything is ready and fully operated,for now we can heard about Bitcoin ATM and only in some country implement that,we need to successfully implement it first and then slowly planting it around the world.it should be take a years to fo this,but at least we should understand that Bitcoin still has a lot of room to grow.

We need to make something more easier and other people can start to learn it,and we need to fix the problem about transaction fees and else to gain more momentum.


That was the best statement to describe it all

Bitcoin is already mainstream. Big media platforms are writing articles about it. Also when you look the unconfirmed transactions, the amount increases every second. It passed PayPal's marketcap a couple of weeks ago. PayPal is quite mainstream, even my mother knows it.

I don't know a specific gauge but I think bitcoin will be considered mainstream if it will be available for almost all basic services as a mode of payment or some side street food that you can purchase through bitcoins.

uhhh i don't think so. mainstream means a dominant trend to the point that it'll become a basic knowledge that almost all people knows. as i see bitcoin now, its not even close

to that. the trick is to pay attention in your surrondings? Have you asked your peers if they know bitcoin? i bet odds are low to that. Is it easy to look for merchants who accepts

it? no because they are very scarce as of now. Although having said that, bitcoin is growing constantly and the odds of having it mainstream is not low

Far.

I am a bitcoin enthusiast but this is true. A freind of mine which is not into bitcoin, recently visited japan (which should be the bitcoin friendliest country) and had not the slightest contact with it.

To go mainstream we need old powerful people to retire. So my guess maby 10 to 15 years if it still exists then (I hope so).

Press releases are raising extremely. More and more people are hearing about BTC, Ethereum etc. I think we are on a good way. But it is still a long way to go.

Bitcoin is far from the mainstream. It took a long time to make bitcoin into mainstream in my country. I measure it by looking at people who are not currently using bitcoins.

One of the ways to gauge it is regulatory involvement and institutional investment options. These things tend to be purely reactive; they are not the "early adopters" of a technology. The fact that Bitcoin is getting so much attention from these groups (e.g. CFTC formally registering LedgerX for swap execution, or the new Bitcoin ETF to be listed on Canadian markets) says that it is definitely here to stay.

Commodities market insiders are also indicating that the SEC is getting closer to approving an ETF in the US as well. Once that happens, a big potential pool of investors could have access to BTC options.

It's far from mainstream.

This is bad and good news.

It's good news because the price still has a long way to go, to reflect mainstream.

Press releases are doing nothing other than inside the crypto community. The average Joe who never heard about Bitcoin etc is not going to read coindesk etc...
Comparing with paypal marketcap is so useless and oesn't bring anything valuable

I think we are very close. I see a handful of restaurants accepting bitcoins in the US. Cryptocurrency is the future and I believe it will continue to gain popularity as our economy struggles.

I think bitcoin is far away from being mainstream and I gauge that by looking at the current number of users it has now. It can also be clearly seen that it is far from being mainstream not just because of the current number of users, but because bitcoin still has it's bad image to some people. They think bitcoin is illegal money or whatsoever so for bitcoin to be mainstream, it needs to be made clear to them that btc is safe and good to use. Besides that, it needs more exposure.

I think about the next 5 years, people who know bitcoin will be more and more, bitcoin will become more famous and mainstream than now , and will used in life everyday ..

Much closer thanks to Japan, but still not close enough. You can see that there are people working every single day to take us there, but it really is a struggle.
Bitcoin is facing many obstacles on its way and may never reach a goal of becoming a secondary currency, though I'd just like to see it accepted worldwide. Not as a mainstream currency, but like a foreign one. For the people to know what it is and how to use it and be able to transact if needed.

not very close. It all comes down to fees. If fees are low people may just start using it for paying for food etc. That way it will become common knowledge.

Nah... Bitcoin has become more widely known and people are just starting to realize that there might be something to it, that's true. But it's still quite far from mainstream, albeit we're slowly getting there.

Knowing about something and using it are two very different things. A lot of people knew about cars, computers and the internet before the general populace started using them.

PayPal's market cap is a useless metric in this regard, unfortunately. It will be mainstream once the userbase is the size of PayPal.

You gauge a lot of "progress" for Bitcoin by determining whether or not people are actually using it, and one major incident, such as walking to your local grocer and seeing that they are accepting Bitcoin, would be a pretty good indicator of how Bitcoin is doing on the world stage, and how it is being integrated into the rest of the economy. If you start seeing people talking about Bitcoin or paying with Bitcoin very consistently, then you know for a fact that it has become "mainstream". Beyond that there isn't much.

It is already mainstream, haha!

I think it is still a far way away. I think that is still a good thing since it gives us early adopters a chance to gather as many bitcoin as we can before it goes mainstream and be rich.  :P

Still a while to go before bitcoin is mainstream. When people are using it regularly like fiat for their usual everyday purchases, without thinking twice about the fact that they are using it.

Same with computers and the internet. Before they became mainstream, when people first started using them, they were like, "Oh wow, I'm using a personal computer and I can surf the world wide web. AOL is so cool."

Nowadays, we take computers and the internet for granted Everyone has a device with access to the internet. And we don't really think much about it when we use the internets and apps on whatever devices we have. That's when you know something is mainstream. When it is so ubiquitous and widely used, that people don't even think about the fact they are using it. They simply just use it without any extra thought.

Yes using it regularly is a sign of mainstream and bitcoin is going on that if the different country continue to accept bitcoin as a legal payment method. It would be a helpful currency for everyone if this make a legal payment method because the money that you hold via bitcoin will grow even there is a high transaction fee.

Depends on what you consider 'mainstream'. By mainstream, do you mean widely used by everyone in the world? Then we're very very far away. If you mean mainstream coin within cryptos? Then bitcoin has always been mainstream. It depends on what you define mainstream as.

I think we are one step away from it being mainstream. However, one needs to consider the cycles Bitcoin needs to go through first, as the "next" step may still be one to two years away.

The first cycle was from Bitcoin's inception to the Nov 2013 high of $1000. This period included pretty much the computer nerds and hobbyists, and eventually some tech savoy investors. The later's involvement propelled Bitcoin into the wider world of public awareness, but with the peak and bursting of the initial bubble much of its early momentum was lost.

The second period, that we are in now, many people have seen the first rise and fall of Bitcoin and may have gotten in because they decided to ride the on the way up. I think many are now starting to see the writing on the wall and may be selling their assets in anticipation of another crash. I don't think the crash will be as severe as in 2014, but it will still hurt a lot of people. Once this next period is over and Bitcoin is sub $1000 for some time, probably at least a year, will people start getting in again once it stabilized and hopefully rises again with more restraint.

In the meantime, 1 to 2 years, hopefully more establishment type of exchanges come online that are following regulations of their respective governments so as to eliminate much of the current drama and probably much of the "mainstreams" hesitation to get into Bitcoin. Once it is not subject to being shutdown or banned simply on a whim of a government, or the exchanges are not so shady as to simply vanish overnight, then the more mom and pop type investors will start to enter.

As far as day to day usability, we will need more and some major merchants to start accepting Bitcoin directly, giants such as Amazon, Walmart, as well as most online stores will need to make taking crypto payments as easy as they now offer credit card payments. Again, much of this will depend on how much larger exchanges and possibly banks deal with Bitcoin and of course the surround government regulations that are sure to be in place by then.

Hopefully soon, users who continue to increase make very strong bitcoin. besides the support from the government will soon accelerate bitcoin to being mainstream.

As of now, it is not even close for bitcoin to become mainstream because if bitcoin is mainstream right now then we don't need to worry for the price of bitcoin because it will pump more and more because of the demands that are coming from different parts of the world because of being mainstream, bitcoin still needs to prove something before it gets mainstream.

Not at all close before the China exchange ban, and even further after that. To be fair, though, China's actions kind of acknowledge Bitcoin's growth, in a way. It is making waves so to speak. We currently have a problem of a few groups/individuals holding a large percentage of coins such that a little cause of panic can cause these players to move, and the market along with them. We also have people like Dimon who tries to manipulate the market for enormous gains. A larger population base holding coins should alleviate these problems somewhat, making Bitcoin value more stable, and then we can go from there. I believe volatility is really the only big hurdle for Bitcoin to become mainstream.

We may have seen many developments related to bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general but I think we are still not that near yet to being mainstreamed. Though there are other countries that legalized bitcoin, there are others who are banning it. Some countries are ahead in technology while in other countries even electricity in some places are lacking so it would be hard for it to be mainstreamed.

As we are already part of the crypto world, it seems that we are getting closer to it but if I ask people randomly if they knew about bitcoin, many don't still have an idea what it is. Step by step we may be able to reach the day cryptocurrency will become mainstream.

Every single day that goes by sees Bitcoin becoming closer and closer to going mainstream.

Still a long way to go. Can you explain bitcoin and blockchain to someone who can barely use his computer/smartphone in less than 5min in a way they can understand? Until we manage to do that, it won't be mainstream - adoption it growing yeah, but still a long ways off being mainstream.

Do you mean the word "mainstream" is used as a means of payment like fiat currency? Still not close enough for me, not all countries can accept bitcoin as a means of payment, and people only apply it as a commodity to take profits through trade (including me).

bitcoins is so related and close because it can buy you anything

I think it takes time for bitcoin to prove to be mainstream. we all know that the price is too easy in control though bitcoin is decentralized, if loyal users of course they are not easy to sell.

Isn't BICOIN is not mainstream

many of well known CEO's like bill gates who owns lots of BTC
some says that this need more attention but the thing is now bitcoin popularity is becoming strong
the thing is many of people not know and how these coins behavior and how it works I think that is the reason

Bitcoin is already catching up the fire and there is no doubt about its mainstream performance. It's been while since bitcoin has formed its presence and the investment, portfolios, media, news everywhere bitcoin is having best performance. Yup, it's true about bitcoin ATMs but there is a glitch in that picture and that is, it's not present yet in the developing countries because they might not be having that much advancement in the world of cryptocurrencies.

That's important to bring it here because that's the x percentage of crypto investment we are loosing for now. Otherwise bitcoin is outperforming already.

It depends on how you define mainstream. I mean you and I consider it as normal, for doing payments. But how much people need to consider it as 'normal' to be mainstream?
In my country iDEAL is widely, it's considered mainstream here. But if I would ask about it in the United States, almost nobody would know it nor use it to make payments.
And you can't really compare Bitcoin's user base to that of an one account per user service. I think it's better to compare the amount of transactions per second to that of PayPal.

Haha it's so close. but anyway it's perfect opportunity to gain money, so go for it. just invest!  I think you should invest into real products or stable btc
If you are sure you wanna take risk, I'll ttry some of those: UnikoinGold or Confideal.
I have already invested and get some profit :)

I doubt that bitcoin will ever become mainstream like any other government regulated fiat currency because bitcoin is not structurally build that way. It has already created a parallel economy around the world but the legal status is still not clear in majority of the countries. While Holland has legalized it and Japan has started showing interest in legalizing it, but that will be just another currency inclusion in to their economy. It is far from being mainstream.

Also the major threat for bitcoin is the banks and organized financial institutions. They are loosing business because of crypto currency. The money invested in cryptos are mostly not channelized through the banking system. So they will try to create pressure on government and speak for banning bitcoin. So the road is still long and we have not completed even a quarter of it. Till the time governments don't show interest on bitcoin, is good for us.

I think a good indication that bitcoin is mainstream is that most stores accept bitcoins as a means of payment on all things including physical and digital products. You gauge it by how much people have their hands on bitcoins.

Not close enough. And I don't think that it would be ever close enough to become mainstream. Bitcoin is too volatile for that. Such an unstable currency can never be accepted as mainstream. If this happens then it wouldn't have a good effect on our economy.
Also it is decentralised and although that gives bitcoin power but it also prevents it from going mainstream. Do you think the government will ever allow a currency to go mainstream over which it has no control? I don't think so.

It's possible in my opinion. Certain governments have already accepted the rise of Bitcoin. They don't really need to control it, they just need to gain revenue from it. For as long as they monitor the exchanges closely, there should be few problems. That being said, I don't think Bitcoin going mainstream means governments will have to abandon their own currency. State issued fiat still have far too many advantages over Bitcoin, including much better stability. I'm sure people would much rather prefer having the liberty to choose between the few.

As for the volatility, I believe it has to do with the fact that Bitcoin is still too concentrated as far as distribution goes. The smaller the user base, the more unstable the demand is. More users should stabilize its value some.

I will put it bitcoin place in mainstream is on the door step already. In due time as more people will be hooked in bitcoin phenomena the mainstream will don’t have a choice but to support it all the way. When? If I’m right a 10000$ per bitcoin price is enough to convince them that enough of pretending that cryptocurrency doesn’t exist because if we don’t support it, bitcoin will eat them all.

Bitcoin will become mainstream among the public if their country legalizes, contains transaction-related regulations using bitcoin, supports bitcoin in building bitcoin redeployment facilities in public areas.

We're getting there.  I've noticed more and more storefronts are starting to display the "Bitcoin Accepted Here" sign around town.  Just today I was visiting my family and we talked about Bitcoin.  My mom asked what its purpose was if noone uses it.  I did a google search and found a gas station up the road and a couple local restaurants accepted in.  She was surprised since its not a large city.

Hmm, care to share which country you are in and what city it is? I haven't seen any of it here in mine, though I would say that my country won't be the first ones to adopt bitcoin. But so far, I haven't seen many post about people sharing about stores already placing signs that they accept bitcoins.

Though, I heard a lot of good things about the lightning network, it could possibly speed up the implementation of bitcoin payment systems once it gets released.

There are some cities in which there is a growing number of merchants accepting Bitcoin as a payment in most of the countries but if we are talking about global scale, the current situation is not even near to the scenario where we can call Bitcoin a mainstream thing.

However, I am impressed with the growing number of merchants and ATMs supporting Bitcoin because down the road, it will spread in the rest areas in most of the countries. Even though we don't have a Bitcoin-friendly market environment as of now, I am sure we will have a good picture in next 5 to 10 years.

I believe some countries now are preparing in having bitcoin as their official currency and as the value of bitcoin now hits more than $6000 it is consider to be mainstream we are just waiting fo the declaration of most countries that bitcoin will be legally adopted. But now I can that the success of bitcoin will continue for a long period and its future has a very bright picture to take.

5 to 10 years is a good range of time for bitcoin to have a good environment and friendly government because as you can see that the bitcoin is not acceptable until now but if the bitcoin will have good records and progress in the next 5 to 10 years then i think that it will be enough for the government to become positive about bitcoin and fully accept it.

Bitcoin is a liitle bit near to be accepted by everyone but still way too far to being mainstream. Being in the mainstream is very hard to attain because it means an overall change in the system of our currency; there are so much things that bitcoins must accomplish first. Bitcoins are hindered to become legal and adopt our current systems that we have at the present because of its loop holes and disadvantages. As long as opposers of btc see something wrong in using it then they will try and try to pull it down.

So I think bitcoin must prove something more in order to convince all for its implementation. Let's just wait for the mean time and trust in its potentials. :)

i think we are still far for bitcoin to being mainstream because many people in out there still don't know bitcoin and i think we will need more years to make bitcoin known by globally. but there is possible that in next year, many people will attract to bitcoin and they will figure out what is bitcoin and why bitcoin is being famous among the other. i think right now, people have many question why the price now is too expensive especially for people from the government and they will curious, why this is happen with bitcoin because bitcoin itself is still in young age.

Actually, it is obvious that Bitcoin is already on mainstream. The demand is continuously rising making its market valur more expensive. To think that it already have a value of 6000$ it is consider to be on mainstream since it is now widely known especially to the investors  Also, its narket value is way larger compared to other coins. So yes, it is already on mainstream.

correct. not only from articles, even on youtube already have ads. Bitcoin is one of the most popular virtual currencies. Since its emergence in 2009, although in the beginning there may still be some people who are skeptical about this asset, in fact now Bitcoin is growing in number of users around the world.

Oscar Darmawan, CEO of Bitcoin Indonesia, in 2016 ago, targeted Bitcoin Indonesia users two years to reach 500 thousand.
that is, the more bitcoin years the public recognizes.

THIS is to true! It's one of the main reasons China banned so many crypto related projects, Chinese people simply went crazy for coins and projects they don't understand (or care to understand). The government literally acted like a parent banning TV time because they weren't doing their homework.

Even the use of ATM will further distant Bitcoin from the anonymous status of its holders it seeks to protect. This is even a cog in the wheel of its progress for me. Besides that, I really think Bitcoin is still far removed from being mainstream. The 21million total supply (which is really infinitesimal compared to global population) and the erratic nature in price are two major issues for the Bitcoin to contend with.

Same here. It would be convenient if bitcoin as a payment were to be available in my country.

In light with this, I am happy to say that the popularity for bitcoin has been increasing here in my country. It's still not mainstream, yet it's no longer just an unfamiliar term for most. It's been gaining some attention by the business and financial sector, and I've been seeing it all over social media. Just recently, I saw a news article from our local news website.

Bitcoin still has a long way to go before it becomes mainstream - it'll even experience some road bumps along the way but it is definitely on the road towards becoming mainstream.

When  bitcoin was first introduced it was on the exciting things it started to gain momentum very quickly and before you knew it, it was in the mainstream at this point it is on everyone's mind to earn.

We are getting there but not as much as we want too.  News like overstock.com has made profit on shares a few days ago was pretty much good news to help move  companies into adopting it, the problem is getting the general public to adopt it,  still many people know what bitcoin is.  IF each of us can talk about it daily and condition it into peoples minds, then maybe we can bring it through the mainstream faster than what it is now.

It's already a mainstream since ICOs are growing more these days raising for bitcoin and other alternate cryptocurrencies to support their project. It's market value being dominant (even if it has not reached its peak yet) against all alt coins is enough to prove that it's already the mainstream of cryptocurrency world.

Comparing the market cap in connection with Paypal is not the best method to decide if bitcoin is mainstream already or not. Maybe the market cap is already similar, but the number of processed transaction per second... Bitcoin is far away from Paypal's processing power, and really far away from VISA and MasterCard's processing power. We need some technical solution to increase the processed transactions, but the solution is on it's way years ago. Sooner or later we are going to have a solution, that will enable bitcoin to be mainstream.

Not only the government decisions but media attention and positive coverage, mouth publicity, existing exchanges & merchants are collectively putting the efforts to build a positive perception about Bitcoin but still, it will take some time to inculcate the awareness of the various aspects of the cryptocurrencies. That's why I think that the time span of 5 to 10 years is an ideal period to see the results of current efforts on a global scale.

Bitcoin to be similar to mainstream currency is not possible in the short or within few years time. The growth that has been happening with bitcoin is much bigger, but the capital volume is not that similar to the conventional currency. So being mainstream is not gonna happen.

Last night on one national television in my country Serbia had reportage "Life in bitcoin mine". First I was surprised, I didn't expect to see anything about bitcoins while I was searching something to watch, and surely I didn't expect to see something about bitcoins on national channel.
I believe this is a good step forward, one television already started advertising bitcoin, in my country many older people are watching national televisions and now awareness of crypto currencies are slowly coming in my country too. Bitcoin is already mainstream in some countries, in mine that is in beginning. Soon bitcoin will be mainstream in all world.

We can't really gauge how closer btc is to being mainstream. Though we think that more people are now aware of it, we're still not yet reaching the 5% of the population. And with that then it's safe to assume that it is very far from being mainstream. I think this is due to the fact that even people heard of btc they have no idea how it works. Mostly (if not all), tech inclined people are the ones who have the more understanding and have the initiatives to study cryptocurrency. There are more people who tends to steer away from things they don't understand simply because they don't want complications especially if they are busy working on their day jobs.

With all sincerity, bitcoin is still far from getting to the mainstream but the attention is gradually. Hopefully in the next ten years, we might get there and if things are being fast tracked with the level of work being done, we might get there faster but the challenges are equally there and one thing is see posing a threat is the several forks and that is an issue of consideration.

The confusion is not about the people already involved who knows when the fork happened but the people that will be coming in the next 5 year. A lot of this forks are claiming to be the real vision of the founder and the question is, what is that vision. This will go a long way in creating a confusion in the minds of authorities and multi nationals on which one exactly to adopt.

I think it's also like that, it takes a long time for bitcoin to be mainstream, not so easy to do such thing. if the bitcoin is already mainstream it will support the rising bitcoin price.

Well Bitcoin is far far from being mainstream, I think we will have to wait at least 10 to 20 years before Bitcoin go mainstream.
But I do think that other cryptocurrency is going to be mainstream faster than Bitcoin, since Bitcoin technology is clearly outdated by other coins today.

Bitcoin is already mainstream. Information about it is already out on big media platforms. The volume of people who knows about it is increasing as much as how the value of cryptocurrency is rising. It is already an acknowledge form of online payment globally.

I would say that bitcoin is already very mainstream,  as there are atm's,  and it's accepted some places.  It's discussed on social media like the platform we're using right now and all.