Bitcoin Forum

My fear has never been with price analysis or future stakes. It's always been about scalability and adoption. Cryptocurrencies have seen remarkable growth in the past 4 years and continue to show promise. But the one outstanding question is - how long before adoption port?

Scalability? Ask it to core developers and miners whether they will agree on a specific scale solution.
Adoption? Ask it to the government, whether there will be regulations to legalize cryptocurrency or at least let people trade it.

Yes, both of it are important for bitcoin development as digital currency. But, scalability always cause a drama in consensus to achieve an agreement to resolve the problem.

Lightning Network.

Adoption starts from the bottom, cryptos need to be accepted at smaller retailers and such and then the demand for their adoption will grow and eventually larger corporations will accept them.

Right now the general public does not really understand cryptos and most of them view bitcoin as being the only one and so it's really the only one with much of a shot at being accepted right now. Bitcoin though has two major hurdles to overcome before it's a viable payment method:
1. Transactions are too slow and too costly (should hopefully be resolved with lightning network later this year)
2. Price is too volatile - this is the difficult one to solve, the only real hope is that further adoption leads to a better understanding of bitcoin and where its price should be and then stability arises. It's kind of a chicken or the egg thing with this one.

Adoption depends almost entirely on the lightning network, if bitcoin cannot offer cheaper fees than banks and other payment options then no one is going to use it to buy and sell stuff, once that is out of the way we are going to be able to start our way to major adoption this is why even at 2018 we are still in the early stages of bitcoin, in a way bitcoin is still in a beta phase.

That's a truly sad fact, as bitcoin is 9 years old and all we can think of is being in beta stage. I think it's a fundamental glitch. I know the dev team will not admit it but BTC is damn too slow for current adoption rates and efficiency. The good news is, as more people are trying to understand why bitcoin protocol exists in the first place, they are in their own ways paving the ways for blockchain adoption.

Are you saying lightening network is bitcoin panacea? Well I couldn't agree more. It's just that the very core developers still won't agree a different version of bitcoin should exist.

  I think this year we will have happy surprises. Cryptocurrency will not be used first for domestic transactions. In this they are still a long way from fiat and credit card options. But for international purchases will be quickly the best option. When the big global sellers start to accept them for wholesale and retail sales. And for this it is crucial that China does not ban completely. LN and other scalability solutions will be critical to the future of this economy.

  It's horrible to have to ask permission to spend my money. And this is what happens when you have a bank account or a credit card. I do not want a third person to intrude and tell me how to spend my money

You have to stop it with this fear

If you look at crypto as a whole, there is plenty of scalability in aggregate. For example, while bitcoin does about 250,000 transactions every 24 hours, ethereum does about a million. So scaling is happening, but using other chains.

As long as people are able to move money and merchants are adopting a variety of cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency is here to stay. The winner might not be bitcoin, it might be another coin. But this stuff is not going to disappear.

That's quite the optimistic view there. But the reality is that people are naturally fanatics, like me. Always been a fan of bitcoin blockchain and seeing how other chains are outdoing BTC is sore. However, you are right, scaling is happening on different chains and at different levels, but will all that be enough to rid qualm from the system, when most people are used to seeing bitcoin as the crown of cryptocurrency. Besides, most alt pairs are to the BTC and that has made it have a more profound influence on market perspective and blockchain enterprise as a whole. In other words, people will always judge the summary of blockchain by how well bitcoin is doing - in price wise and technology.

So many altcoins are bringing out portable and credit cards systems. BTC ATM has long been around for a while now, yet this scaling issue isn't just about how to use it for payment nor is it even about security; rather I think it's more about the volatility issues that worries people the most. You could buy something at a store and 5 minutes later, either you or the merchant feels extremely cheated as the value of the cryptocurrency can vary within that period by HUGE margins!

China's ban shows how much the system can't take, if another nation were to follow suit, then we may have to return back to the shadows and darknet operations.

I have to say I'm in agreement, if it turns out that people decide bitcoin cannot be used successfully there will be many replacements waiting in the wings that can solve people's concerns.

The main issue with such an argument is that right now the general public are quite uneducated when it comes to cryptocurrencies and for many Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are synonymous. It is why we see such a strong relationship in terms of other cryptos falling when bitcoin falls.

Lightning network is now testing on main net with number of channels growing dramatically.  8) This will solve the scalability problem soon.

As for adoption, it comes after the scalability issue. In the past we have seen some services no longer accept bitcoin payment be cause of fee and confirmation time, but when that problem is solved, nothing can stop bitcoin anymore.

The government can ban bitcoin, in fact, we are seeing that battle right now. If they really want to ban it and go really harsh on cryptocurrencies, we will see another bloom in the anonymous-type coins for sure, and maybe bitcoin can adopt some more privacy technologies like those of Zcash or Monero

It will offer better overall scalability to a certain extent, but it won't solve anything in that regard. Don't forget that lightning network is an off-chain scaling solution that is somewhat of the only actual way of moving forward.

Good thing is that you aren't forced to use lightning network if you for whatever reason don't want to. I personally prefer to settle all my transactions on-chain, and I'm sure that I am not the only one thinking like that.

In terms of micro transactions, lightning network will tremendously boost Bitcoin's adoption and usability, and let the majority of the people like cheap and ultra fast transactions.

It will drain the altcoin market to such extent, that people won't even bother looking at altcoins anymore aside from speculation purposes. Definitely something to look forward to, hopefully this year.

Some people say "fear will never solve the problem, but do while you are able to do it and can control it".

I don't know, i don't understand about the current adoption port.


According to the information i hear, is it true (lightning network), can damage or even destroy the bitcoin ecosystem?

Fear? I will tell you something about fear.
All types of fear originated from the fear of the unknown. Whatever it is, dark, height, water or death, it always because of our lack of knowledge of what is behind those. You can analyze a person's head by knowing his fears.
That's why people are into discovery and research, we need to know everything.

So, you fear about Bitcoin's future or the money you invested?

"Adoption" you voiced it out yourselfes. Teh scaling debate buries the crucial parts.

A company like Amazon could just run a customers portfolio that gets funded by Bitcoin. Sending a transfer for funding your expenditures once a month. Not really a thread to scalability, ain't it?
Starbucks could do, too.

Regarding "fear" well there are scientist exploring the trustlessness of crypto currencies. Assurance in financials. Fears are irrational advisors. Vires in numeris, trust in numbers, in math, that's the path.
Nuff said. Feeling batshit crazy again about recent market moves. We are only back again to "fear" because of the recent crash. Fuckit

If the numbers had a pattern then the tabs will be easy to fill up, and it would not be a question of fear or doubt but of rationality.

   Great comment, you deserved merit from me. If I can answer on that
question people mostly fear from losing money they invested. They do
not care about Bitcoin or any other coin.
   That is why we need to research before we get into something. If we
decided to invest that should be cause we believe in that, not just to
earn money. I do not run away from that, I wish to earn here a lot. But
I am very sure that with investing in right projects and holding I will be
rich one day. This is the futrure, it can come for one year or 10 years, I
am patient and I know that in future crypto-currencies will be only types
of currencies.

Either he fears about the future of bitcoin or he fears about of the money he invested or it could be both because he doesn't know anything but here if we learn everything those fear will gone slowly because you already know what to do and if bring you a courage to face that future someday.

I know it is sad but it is the truth we are in a way the beta testers of bitcoin, we are the ones using it when it is still to be fully developed and dealing with the issues, but as the protocol is improved we are going to see more people adopting it, this is similar to the Internet, at first very few used it but as it began to be faster and more reliable more content appeared and more people used the Internet, this created a snowball effect and now many people cannot deal with not being connected for five minutes we will get to that point but it is not going to be soon.

Those concerns are certainly beyond your control and the best you can do is to hope for the best. There have been many voices on the scalability of Bitcoin and its inconclusive nature has been a more reason for a number of hard fork Bitcoin have had to have and even now, the last have not been heard. As for the massive adoption of Bitcoin, I think that's on going, we would get there by the time we start to have lot more merchants and investors in the system than speculators.

That's what we called risk mate because in the trading industry we can never be so sure how long it's gonna last. It's just a matter of adoption and preparation for the worst-case scenarios because one should always have a contingency plan if anything were to happen on one's investments.

I think we need to look deeper, than cryptocurrencies themselves. As I was discussing with a friend of mine today, cryptocurrencies are children of blockchain development. Put it simply, if there's no crypto - there's no more blockchain, as crypto is used as an incentive for the developers of blockchain. And the future of blockchain in the world looks very bright.

Actually, I think it's the other way around. blockchain technology can do without cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are simply by-products of blockchain activities. Besides the potential of the DLT is why government agencies have not cracked down completely on the whole ecosystem.

Someone wanting an immutable ledger without the use of a pumpable token to trade? Imagine that.

This kind of fear is more associated with Bitcoin's future. Not just money involved. Bitcoin's future should be bright and lead us to a better economic valuation especially on a global scale. But with the torrential price relay of bitcoin, it's hard to really figure out where we are headed. So yes am worried about bitcoin and price is also an issue. It's hard to separate them both.

I feel that pain too... with more pump let loose and unimaginable depths of droughts we are still not ready for bitcoin's potential. IMO. ;)

Aren't we promised for a solution about this one even before the crisis happened a couple of weeks ago? I have read about how Lightning Network can solve bitcoin's scalability problem. I really hope it can, in the proper time, if not today.

Scalability should never be considered as an issue, it is an legality between the developer and the mining community. When these arise automatically the development will progress higher than that of the present. Nothing needs to be worried, what we sow will be reaped.

I agree, governments and banks and other business see a great future for the blockchain and many are creating their own developments in the area but they hate bitcoin on top of it, in a way the blockchain not only allows the concept of bitcoin to exist in the first place but it is what it is keeping it alive, I'm sure governments want to destroy bitcoin but at the same time they want to see how much pressure it can resist, in a way they are getting R&D information for free.

It takes time to be able to apply bitcoin and cryptocurrency in our lives. Since bitcoin can be said to be new to most people, it seems like we need adaptation in a few years, with technological advances we must be willing to start a new era and bitcoin is one form of technological development in the financial system. Several sectors have begun to implement bitcoin and now we need a regulation made by the government because it will encourage how bitcoin will be developed in the future. If the regulation is positive then it will be very useful for the advancement of cryptocurrencies.

But isn't that strange, we invest because profit is involved despising whether or not we understand the technology behind it. However, the truth behind our investments are hinged upon hope and coin speculations - hence the fear. But I need to understand what happens when people begin to join crypto simply because of economic profit rather than pursuit for tech advancement. It causes a lot of worries.

I also made that assumption once. I thought the reason why most government are hesitant is because of a global economic experiment to test different variables that could pressurize decentralised ecosystems. I went as far as thinking the alleged 'bubble' is being trained to be resistant or resilient to economic depression. But till now all that the system responds to is FUD and FOMO, and with these, there's not much data there to correlate with. Especially when you place it side by side with traditional financial instruments.

Mass adoption is always the eventual goal for bitcoin.

I think that we're probably not to that stage right now, though.

People aren't urged to use bitcoin in every day transactions. They just see it as a speculative tool, which it naturally is but defintley isn't the only thing that it is capable of doing. I actually think that come another GFC we'll see bitcoin adoption go up as a result.

When people lose confidence in central banks, that's when they'll switch to BTC on a massive scale. Before that I think we'll just continue to see pumps here and there, every halving.

Like you said, we are a bit far from that stage. We should give it a little more than 5 years to ensure that mass adoption problems are solved. In the meantime there are many ICOs launching mainstream projects for daily usage of cryptos

It's quite ironic how an off-chain solution is the only hope for solving the blockchain problems. Either way, I just don't see how LN is going to be a success: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2792933.0

Who cares about your opinion? Regardless of whatever arguments people give you to think about, you don't seem to take any of them serious in your thread -- the only thing you are doing is making yourself look like an obsessed anti lightning network freak. You are not forced to use LN as off-chain scaling solution, nor are you forced to make use of something that you don't think has long term viability. If you see more potential in whatever altcoin, you are free to shift completely away from Bitcoin. Everything is better than rehashing your dislike towards LN, which you have been doing for quite a while now. It's known already, you don't see how LN is going to work, now move on....

Adoption is being done on since the past years and its amazing on how many countries are already accepting bitcoin. And not just a country but those countries are really well known for having a good market and economy, like Japan and South Korea.

Did you ever see it implemented? We are not yet there how come you ended up with that opinion. LOL

The fear of the unknown has got people thinking LN will not work. Off-chain scaling might be the long awaited solutions for bitcoin adopters. If you don't believe it will work without a a reasonable technical analysis to present your case,  that's sheer speculation regardless of your analysis and invalid - your gut could be wrong.

Personal speculation just like many on btctalk. I have high hopes for LN and right now, with btc transactions way better and faster than a few months ago, it seems SegWit is doing what it's supposed to do.