Bitcoin Forum

Hello!

I've been seeing many people with many views and opinions on what bitcoin is for. What do you think bitcoin main purpose is and do you think it may change going forward?

Thank you!

Bitcoin was originally created as an alternative means of payment to the current state payment system. That is, new financial relations were created, in which intermediaries, and above all banks, were removed, and transactions became faster, more confidential and without geographical boundaries.
However, like all means of payment used as money, they simultaneously have the function of a measure of value and a store of value. Unfortunately, for many reasons, cryptocurrency is now performing its main function as a means of payment very poorly, and in the main it is used as a speculative asset, that is, preserving and accumulating value.

The main purpose of bitcoin is whatever you mostly need it for.

• Bitcoin is a cheap borderless way of sending money without much fees for overseas workers.
• Bitcoin is a store of value for the people skeptical with their country's economy.
• Bitcoin is a method of payment for the people who doesn't like banks messing with their consumer decisions.
• Bitcoin is a short/mid/long term investment for the people who want to take advantage of the hype.

The point is you don't need people to tell you what it's for and what it's not for. You just use it for whatever you want/need.

I particularly agree with that point. I believe while it is still relatively new as compared to other means of payment "Fiat" crypto as a means of payment will still take some years before a near full adoption will happen mainly because of its volatility and also to some, this is also a negative factor to crypto as a store of value. However like you mentioned, I too believe it is mostly use as a means of accumulating Value rather the the other two options mentioned.   

Benefits of Bitcoin:

-User Autonomy. The primary draw of bitcoin for many users, and indeed one of the central tenets of cryptocurrencies more generally, is autonomy. Digital currencies allow users more autonomy over their own money than fiat currencies do, at least in theory. Users are able to control how they spend their money without dealing with an intermediary authority like a bank or government.

-Discretion.

-Peer-to-Peer Focus.

- Elimination of Banking Fees.

-Very Low Transaction Fees for International Payments.

-Mobile Payments.

-Accessibility.

Bitcoin is both, that is a store of value and a method of payment. For me, bitcoin can be anything we want. Bitcoin is how you use money freely. You can send money with bitcoin anywhere you want on a peer to peer basis without having to involve banks, the government and the countries. you can also invest like a commodity with bitcoin. You can also buy goods and pay bills easily using bitcoin.

Today it is more of a store of value than a payment method, although it can be used both ways.

It will take time, if ever, for it to come into widespread use as a payment method. Bitcoin has a problem for day-to-day payments: the waiting time for transaction confirmation and fees. This may be solved with the Lightning Network, but it remains to be seen.

Another point to keep in mind is that the price of Bitcoin revaluates enormously, so it is more profitable to keep the Bitcoin and spend worthless fiat than to spend it.

In short, it can be used as both, but today it is more useful as a store of value.

mk4 has it on the nose, Bitcoin can be used by anyone in numerous ways.

There are people here on the forum who spend Bitcoin weekly to live, there
are lots of market places online who accept Bitcoin as payment.

Thinking of the future? Bitcoin is speculated to out perform any FIAT based
pension plan and we can manage it ourselves.

Try moving $50,000 or $100,000 in cash outside the country! with Bitcoin its
invisible and borderless.  

Bitcoin has a lot of benefits and uses in our daily lives, many said that it can be used in paying in transactions, store of value, and etc.

But for me, in bitcoin, I found financial freedom when using it and I became aware about the economy and cryptocurrencies.

I knew that there are a lot of opportunities and there are many choices in investment.

^ Bitcoin was only being considered as a payment method alternative for banks and cash or fiat.
However, due to the high demand and miners being very much persistent. Bitcoin started to become a store of value. It was the best option to store value because confidentiality is really effective. You can stay anonymous but still keep a lot of assets on your hardware. But today, these advantages are slowly fading as Bitcoin has now become mainstream. But just because it fades does not mean it is negative.

IMHO, I think both, I mean Bitcoin can be used as a store of value and also for payment purposes But lets us accept the fact the Bitcoin Network was base on outdated technology thats why it needs to be upgraded and the Ligthning Network (LN) functions can be the best solution to make Bitcoin transaction faster thats why it needs to be implemented widely as soon as possible.

I say both. However, there are some countries like Turkey and Russia who bans Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as mode of payment directly or indirectly, but they can either treat it as a store of value or trading.

The reason I liked Bitcoin so much is because it’s free from all government insight (unless that you are using a centralized exchange or wallet that is regulated by the central bank or government), has transparency and cannot be tampered because of the blockchain technology. It’s also a deflationary coin with only 21,000,000 in total supply and all of them are gonna be completely mined in 2140. 

Store of value or use it as a payment for service or product it's up to you on how you use Bitcoin. Though Bitcoin was originally created to eliminate the need of the third party companies to transact from one person to another. But, Bitcoin is now currently being used as an investment tool or a store of value due to it's rapid growth and adoption. So, I guess it doesn't matter how you or someone will use it, because they have the freedom to choose what options they want to use Bitcoin.

bitcoin as a revolutionary form of future exchange tool. have you ever heard of the Mayan prophecy? well bitcoin, the existence of bitcoin is one of the answers to the forecast as well as the revolution that provides fast transaction services without third parties.

To make it simple, bitcoin is a multipurpose asset which can be used as a store of value, as a trading asset and as a payment method.
I have used bitcoin for all the 3 purposes. I have used it to make payments, trade it at times and also hold it as a store of value the rest of the times.

satoshi created bitcoin in 2008 when at that time the world was experiencing a financial crisis, so in my opinion the main goal of bitcoin is to change the world economy, and with its increasing popularity, it's no wonder that nowadays almost everyone makes bitcoin an investment and other transaction asset.

There are many uses for bitcoin and great benefits to using it and the ones to come.
Think for a moment that you can help anyone anywhere in the world buy medicine, food by sending them bitcoin and you can save their life.
This magnificent creation has broken the borders and has empowered people without banks, without a job because it has promoted freelancer jobs that are also called social miners as promoters of projects based on cryptocurrencies.

Both.

Transactions/payment transfers or store of value.

That's like the hybrid use of bitcoin that can be seen as a good characteristic of it. But if you want to ask about the specific use of it during the early days, it's mainly for payments.

It just so happen that it's different from the usual currencies that we use that have a stable value, bitcoin is volatile which suits as a store of value.

Very well said. The use case of bitcoin really depends on your necessities. And each individual has their own needs. Some will use it as payment or convert it to their fiat or some will hold it for the purpose of long term investments. So you can't specify what particular use case a person can do with his bitcoin, because it entirely depends on him. With today's market performance, I believe, a lot are buying and holding it for long term for the purpose of gaining profits. But not all can afford such holding. So it is on you how you will decide where to use your bitcoin.

In my opinion Bitcoin is a valuable currency. Buying and selling Bitcoin can have words and change your life. Bitcoin can bring you huge profits. In the future Bitcoin will become a payment method if everyone in the world uses Bitcoin.

I think it can be used for anything, it all goes down to what you want to be using it for . I invest in bitcoin and I also make use of it for transactions anytime I want. So it’s really up to you. And I have friends who only make use of bitcoin for transactions, and they don’t invest in it, they just use it to be sending and receiving money, and when they receive money they don’t waste time in converting it to fiat. They have all got their own reasons why they have bitcoin , and that’s what they continue doing all the time.

So, bitcoin is kind of like made for everything and everyone, once you see the way it works best for you, then you can go with it

While Bitcoin might be every thing that has been listed which I believe are very good aspects to its existence,this two points, Elimination of Banking fees (there is also fees to Bitcoin transaction) and Mobile payments is still tributes to Fiat currencies. To me basically, amongst many other things, Bitcoin is a source of wealth accumulation since every other facts that could be mentioned are really not as much a problem with my fiat transactions.

I agree, btc also has transaction fees, infact i would say more higher than what you would ordinarily be charge from the bank, the other day i wanted to send $18 worth of btc and i was charged like $9 for fees, at the end of the day, this type of high fees affect small transaction more that bigger transaction, i don't think bank will charge me $9 to send $18 to another bank account, too high in my opinion.

Bitcoin was created to provide an alternative payment system that would operate without any 3rd party, such as central banks and it enables people to buy/send money over the internet. Moreover, BTC has no intrinsic value in which the value is dictated by the market, which runs under the law of supply and demand. BTC could also be exchanged into legal currencies such as the USD and other alternative coins in crypto.

Bitcoin and Blockchain have changed the world and bro. Currently I think Bitcoin is a place to store property, investment, rather than a payment method as originally intended.

^^^ Have you checked out the present transaction fees, it is really low. The charges raised considerably for a while when there was a issue with the mining farms in China but now everything sorted and i was able to send the coins at 3 sat/vB which means a few thousand Satoshi and even now the fees are really low as you can get a confirmation within an hour with 13 sat/vB.
I would like to see Bitcoin as a payment method and then as a store of value would be a cherry on top.

Storage of value is an application, currency is an application. I think Bitcoin is one level of abstraction higher than an application. It is a protocol that can be used to run applications. How effective it is in any given application is based on properties of the protocol and its current state (i.e. price, volatility, mempool size, block reward rate, fees, transaction throughput etc.)

Then there is 2nd layer protocols to consider which would extend Bitcoins ability to be applied in an application invariant of some of these properties. For example the Lightning Node Network would allow bitcoin to be applied in the application field of common currency invariant of the protocols transaction throughput. Besides, currency and storage are just two possible applications and there are others that Bitcoin can be applied to like asset management (e.g. Placing land titles on the bitcoin blockchain).

If your question is what application is Bitcoin currently suited to, that is a bit more of a complicated question as we need to look at the environment which Bitcoin is operating in. External factors like fiat currency hyperinflation causes people to use Bitcoin for purposes that it may not technically be suited to at this time (like storage of value). Whilst its technically not suited for storage of value purposes yet, people see fit to hold a portion of their value in Bitcoin and not in fiat or in any other asset for that matter.

I think bitcoin primarily purpose in creating it is to become a means of payment and transaction and other similar things which way beyond bank control and also a store of value to some people who wants to invest and earn more but because others still do not believe on it and not yet accessible to some countries that is why it took sometime to fully benefit itfrom it the way it was made.

Bitcoin is like a liquid much better investment than fiat though risky. But Bitcoin can give every investors a possibility to earn extra big income once big pump take place. Things may be opposite once the price decline to the bottom. Bitcoin is changing the investment style from traditional to digital blockchain. Very possible the future of the world is with Bitcoin as investment and method of payment.

bitcoin is mainly used in transactions on the internet, without using intermediaries, aka not using bank services, bitcoin uses a distributed database and spreads to nodes, from the p2p network to transaction journals. ''
Bitcoin can also be used in various types of transactions ...

For me the main purpose of Bitcoin was to be an alternative payment method but all of us are free to do what we want with it.
Sadly only few are willing to use it as payment option most of us look at it right now as store of value or investment tool.
I don't really think that people would see or use it as a payment method unless the value of Bitcoin became stable,
I think only then most of us would agree or use it as a payment method since they wouldn't gain anything from holding it.

Bitcoin can be both a stored value and a payment method as well depending on the availability of resources wherein you can see Bitcoin to be used as both. If the availability of merchants allowing or accepting payment transactions to use Bitcoin as a mode of payment, we can gradually state that it is being used as a mode of payment with regards to the nature and purpose the user wanted it to be consumed. But for those who have no availability of resources to use it as a mode of payment they treat it as a stored value wherein they keep on acquiring Bitcoin for the sake of trading and investment and just keep on doing it until such time they have decided to sell for some reasons and transfer it to a currency where they can encash it for spending.

I do agree that it is both. And it depends on the user himself, how he gonna manage his bitcoin.
Some here are earning btc for their everyday expenses so they are likely the ones who are converting their crypto to fiat.
So even if they can't see merchants that are directly accepting btc, they can always convert it to their local fiat.
But for some, who can afford not to touch their btc, they have the option to hold it for long term and so it can be their investments.