Bitcoin Forum

If Bitcoin ever gets mainstream and replaces the fiat/debt system who will protect the people from being stupid? Even with all the precautions and arbitrary limits that the debt system sets for added security the average person who isn't aware of computer security can still easily compromise his account (it is especially obvious since fiat accounts with tens of thousands of dollars are sold on the deepnet).

Elitism? Natural selection anyone?

I feel that "banks" can still have a roll to play in BTC, providing security and storage for those that don't feel that they can, or want to, handle it themselves. The big difference is that it's optional. You no longer need to choose between keeping a mattress full of bills or having a bank account. Now you can store all your wealth on a single thumb drive if you so desire.

yes, any real economy will develop trustworthy actors that will serve the role of banks and the like to serve the very people that you mention.  :)

I think it's good that people need to have responsibility. Maybe the human race will finally grow up.

in the future i will presume (and hope) to see a phone app that is like a pre-paid bartab for shops you regularly visit. basically you top up your starbucks app account(wallet) monday morning which locks in funds to be classed as preconfirmed. that way you can walk into starbucks press send and the funds move to starbucks own corporate main wallet, meaning they don't have to wait for confirms as it is all preconfirmed and the funds are technically looked after by a standalone(opensource) app, meaning trust in a middleman is not required.

and to add to security. have a private key generator that uses the shops name. a password the customer uses and their phones IMEI number. that way its lengthy, unique and even if phone is stolen or someone gets the imei number they still need the password.

so if you have the app 'manager' taylored to starbucks even on the same phone, ssame password it will produce a new private key compared to walmart.

that way the app manager can manage many private keys and able to restore them if the customer provides the password and IMEI of their phone, should their phone go missing.

What lets these people use computers now?  There is a market to serve by making easy to use products that are safe.  We are already seeing this with hardware wallets.  A requirement of it going mainstream is for casual users to be able to easily use Bitcoins, and there is money to be made in doing that.

there are people out there that don't want to handle their own money and are afraid of it

there will always be people out there that are more than happy to hold on to your money for you

Bingo. Even with bitcoin, people needs miners (and will have to play by their rules and pay their fees), but some people will still prefer to use banks and pay their fees. ::)

If electricity ever gets mainsream who will protect the people from being electrocuted? Elitism? Natural selection?  ;D

That's why we invented protection, and only some people can go in the dangerous place with electricity ... :P

And yet people still find a way to kill themselves by opening such protection or just scaling fences :P

Does anyone envision a regulatory body making a list of "verified" bitcoin addresses in an attempt to keep people from sending coins to scammers?  (Not suggesting I would support such a thing, just wondering)

"Who protects you from yourself"

In a free society the answer is "Anyone you choose"


Ignorance will always be a factor. There will always be a user who underestimates the importance of their own security and loses.

Most people will be using layered services that obscure and simplify the process for the end user, who doesn't need to understand the inner workings any more than someone using Visa/Mastercard has to understand how they work (and most people don't). It's quite possible many people who eventually use bitcoin won't even know they're using bitcoin.

Whitelists are definitely coming at some point. Blacklists won't be any more effective in bitcoin than they are in email due to the near-zero cost of creating a new btc/email address.

whitelists would become a form of prejudice. with millions of legit businesses all with hundreds of addresses, the whitelist database would become massive, and those new upstarter companies wont be given automatic whitelisting status, meaning new business will have to go through red tape..

in a free society it is about removing red-tape. removing silly paperwork and stuff preventing businesses from flourishing.

a white list would also be used to ensure established businesses come first, which is not good for competition.

what we need is for businesses to adopt bitcoin and have their own solution to verify their clients. EG, gun shops requiring ID, etc. and starbucks not requiring ID.

where regular small spending businesses such as starbucks have a app which is 'topped up' by customers to pre-confirm funds. and then this makes 0 confirms transactions easy to do as the funds are simply moved from one wallet to another.

the idea of bitcoin is not to give all of our life savings to a third party, but to move away from this way of thinking and to control the money ourselves. only giving small amounts to these third parties because thats all we would spend on them in a small time period.

the use of technology and cryptography secures bitcoin, and using technology and cryptography to babysit our bitcoins is the way to go, not third parties.

if you want a 3rd party service, stick with FIAT.

many third parties love to have clauses and separate them with paragraphs of Blah so that average joe does not put '2 and 2' together. imagine a bank that holds your gold has a clause that at any point government can demand the seizure of gold a bank holds and pay at market rate to the customer. this could happen with bitcoin. leaving customers holding FIAT while gold/bitcoin prices suddenly skyrocket the following month.

if you think that gold and houses are a safe asset, think again. governments can take gold and replace it for a FIAT value under certain circumstances. governments can seize your house. remember all of those redevelopment places where the governments uproot people using different red-tape. such as in england 'compulsory purchase offer'.

we need to move away from 3rd party control, red-tape, clauses, and trust.

there are many ways to keep bitcoin in the control of average joe, in a way even your grandma can handle using cryptography and technology

If Bitcoin does go mainstream, then I think that most people will become more proficient with computers, and they will probably be able to manage their own Bitcoin wallets. If not, then yeah, you'll get banks that hold your Bitcoin.

Managing a wallet is something I could teach my grandmother. But most people couldn't keep their electronic devices free of malware even if their lives depended on it. Even if a bank holds those bitcoins, as long as you can spend them from your computer, they wouldn't be safe.

Hardware wallets (either like Trezor or a device that can be used directly to send and receive bitcoins) are the only way I can think of that would allow most people to manage their bitcoins without risk.

Armory sounds like something I'd use myself if I had enough bitcoins to make it worthwhile (I even have an ancient laptop that would serve perfectly as the required offline computer), but secure transactions have to be as easy as making a phone call before Bitcoin can ever become mainstream.

Sigh, I hate how this is true. I guess that if Bitcoin did come to be mainstream, you'd get more specialized AV software ("Protect your Bitcoin today!) for protection.