Bitcoin Forum

I have see in my research in many place that fundamental goal of bitcoin is to replace traditional currencies.

I am asking what is the fundamental goal of bitcoin. Is it

• to replace traditional currencies
• to provide alternative to traditional currencies
• to provide freedom to everyone on how to use money

If number one is truth. There means bitcoin is deserving the fight is getting from government. Because nobody will fold hand for another person to replace him.
But if number two and three is truth. There means Bitcoin not deserve the fight is getting from government.

The fundamental goal of bitcoin is to prevent the need for a financial institution to transact money via the internet as the whitepaper says;

Now, if you think this brings freedom, it replaces (or will replace) traditional currencies, is and must remain an alternative payment method etc., is down to you to decide it. In my opinion, it's liberty rather than freedom. (The difference (http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/politics/difference-between-liberty-and-freedom/))

Whether you lean towards authoritarianism or libertarianism, whether you lean towards left or right, you can't seriously disagree with this statement.

Bitcoin allows a decentralized peer-to-peer transfer of value without any reliance of 3rd party entities. The sort of "end goal" is going to totally depend on a person's opinion, and definitely not something set in stone that everything should agree to. I'd even go as far as to say that we don't necessarily need to agree on whatever Satoshi said in the past.

bitcoin is certainly a long-term investment so that miners feel at home in bitcoin for a long time especially considering the bitcoin price which tends to fluctuate and fluctuate so that miners are so basic in bitcoin especially when we are at the lowest point where bitcoin with a price that is not so stable it will be very, very detrimental if we are not in the crypto world for a while

I do not think there is any fundamental goal of bitcoin. It is simply a peer to peer network that functions without the need for a third party, You can choose to use it as an alternative to fiat or as a replacement if you have enough outlets that accepts it as a currency to survive on.

If I'm forced to choose, I will say it offers freedom as you decide how you want to store it and also use it.

But why are we asking a question and providing an answer none of which is in the Bitcoin whitepaper?

I always thought the fundamental goal of Bitcoin was to have a peer to peer digital currency that would solve the double spend problem ;)

Well of course that is simplistic to say but is not a fundamental goal supposed to be simplistic?

bitcoin is peer to peer decentralized currency.bitcoin fundamentally is very good for long term, it,s not under control for government that is why it,s very unique concept everyone have owner which they holding without any panic of bitcoin. long term bitcoin will new ATH. bitcoin gives only freedom between the peoples whos will hold for long it will make rich. bitcoin has depends on supply and demand which have made very unique to everyone.

The goal is to provide a fair currency that doesn't need you trust neither the central bank, neither your bank, neither the payment processor, nor VISA/Mastercard (quite a list, isn't it?) and still be able to nicely and safely purchase goods and services.

But really, you can easily read the whitepaper (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf). It's only 8 pages, very concise and not too technical.


Bitcoin is not necessarily meant to replace or fight anything. It just offers an alternative. Some will prefer it. Some won't.

Suppose we answer this question, what will change or make a difference? It does not matter what the definition of bitcoin is, but the extent of the impact it may have.
As for the definition, the white paper has defined it as a currency that supports peer-to-peer cheap & decentralized transactions between countries, and thus major changes may occur, such as being a currency for international trade, safe haven, or it may replace cash or other variables.

Don't forget that Bitcoin is still new as it hasn't been done for more than 12 years and a lot of things may happen in the next 100 years.

The goal of Bitcoin is dependent on the goal of the holders, I do think the real goal of Bitcoin is giving people the freedom of their own wealth, for them to be able to make better financial decisions without third parties, without the oppression by the government as well. We have money, we have banks and the society generally is not so independent on it's own and therefore at the end of the day bitcoins will give the particular person the right to choose, if you want to use it as an investment, good to go, if you want to use it as a currency, well and good, no one is literally going to call you out on that and therefore at the end of the day cryptocurrencies like bitcoins, their role is dependent on us, how we choose to use them, they can be taken as an experimental entities for real.

In my thoughts there is no where that the fundamentals of bitcoin is to replace/replace the traditional ways, its mostly labeled like this for people who thinks there is a contest between Bitcoin and other traditional ways, I think the fundamentals of bitcoin are to easy-out the complications that we experience using traditional ways and decentralization, to me it's very important to understand that decentralization is a core part of Crypto-currency and especially Bitcoin.[/list]

Nope! Bitcoin whitepaper doesn't day so. Bitcoin wasn't created with the goal to replace traditional fiat currencies.

Partially true! Bitcoin is created as an internet currency which doesn't need a central authority to operate.

Again partially true! This is not the goal of bitcoin. Rather this is a benefit of bitcoin.

Bitcoin wasn't created to fight governments or to uproot the traditional fiat system. Rather bitcoin can perfectly co-exist with the mainstream economy. [/list]

Yep, not necessarily, but this was ever so slightly hinted with the genesis block message: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"; whereas it's a reference to the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

But yea, we can also create the assumption that Satoshi created Bitcoin to just have an alternative, but not necessarily take down tradfi.

I have read this carefully again. Thank you

From Satoshi Nakamoto statement "without going through a financial institution " show that bitcoin fundamental goal is best describe as alternative to traditional financial institutions.
I am wrong?

"To provide alternative to traditional currencies"

Satoshi did really make out a coin that is centralized or doesnt involved 3rd party on any transactions or simply p2p.IT was never intended on being created on replacing the current currencies that we do have today.

It just turn out that it did really make out some significant recognition because of that main aspect on which the community do see it good
and give out importance about decentralization.

Lets just be thankful that this thing had been created because we are existing today or this community if it was never been invented or created.

Most of us believe Bitcoin's goal is to enable anyone to transfer digital wealth to
another without the need of a 3^rd party, this also means Bitcoin is borderless.

This was the initial goal of Bitcoin as it was created right after the financial crash in
2007 through 2009. The crash which the many paid for and the few got away with.

Bitcoin can transcend its initial goal and become a number of other financial
tools and replace currencies but its main goal remains.

Being free from third parties that are charging that much fees is likely on my mind. Because it is what I see right now and is still happening for the wire transfers and remittances, they're charging that much fees.

So it's a lot of meaning for being free and it's up to you to decide what are the other meaning that you think from it.

This opinion is the result of the most votes from the voting above, but in fact bitcoin until now has been mostly running in the market as an asset to be traded and held [holders], only a few have made traditional money alternatives because considering the price is fundamental, even though bitcoin offers transaction fees which is lower than traditional money

Originally it was to provide an alternative to traditional currencies, and to make cross border transactions free from third party and huge fees. But over time, it has developed into something else, and those other options that you have added are surely included in the list. Right now, all you have written in there are part of bitcoin's role in today's time, and it's great that we are still enjoying bitcoin until today.

Indeed, "To provide alternative to traditional currencies" that is for me and that actually the reason why it exists to become a form of currency (digital currencies). It just happens that people are not seeing it as a currency but instead of being an investment, a profitable investment that serves as the best attraction towards crypto.

Even the use of FIAT money gives you the freedom of where to spend it, where to use it,  only we got taxes but sooner or later, even in crypto might be taxed as well.

Satoshi never stated to replace traditional currencies by creating Bitcoin. He only stated to provide a solution to the centralized financial system. He brings an idea to have a financial system without the need for a third party. It is actually what he wrote on the Bitcoin whitepaper. So, Bitcoin to replace traditional currencies is your own opinion only. Read again the whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

After 12 years of development, Bitcoin has a solid mass base. I think its ultimate goal is to achieve breakthroughs in centralized management and government restrictions by establishing a new financial order and trust system, without borders.

The fundamental goal of bitcoin is to provide a business to all communities of the world that can be accessed by all classes of life. The business is easy to learn and it has the ability to change the life of the people. Especially in third world countries where unemployment and poverty are great issues. So the bitcoin has the ability to solve the issue of unemployment. Its main objective is to serve humanity.

Imho you're not wrong. But, like baguettes are an alternative to bread, not a replacement for it, I see bitcoin in a similar way: they are an alternative, but not necessarily a replacement for fiat. So no "war" is involved.

To "replace" is such a strong word in my opinion. It suggests that bitcoin is going to kill the traditional currencies and that will never happen. Fiat may change its form, as it has already multiple times (metal coins to paper and now digital) but it won't go away because humanity loves centralization of power even if they say otherwise. But we need that alternative to still be able to take some of that power back whenever we want. This is when bitcoin comes in, it provides an alternative means of payment that is decentralized, censorship resistant, global and secure.

You will find this misconception that people are saying that Bitcoin was supposed to be developed to replace Fiat currencies, but that is simply wrong. Satoshi Nakamoto did not like what the Banking system did with the Fractional reserve crisis back in 2007/2008 and how governments bailed out those Banks during that crisis, so Satoshi decided to develop Bitcoin to provide people with an alternative currency, if they did not want to support a corrupt relationship like that.

Satoshi never said Bitcoin was created to replace Fiat currencies, because he knew it would not happen, because the governments would never allow it. (Why should we be forced to use only one option that are backed by corrupt practices?)

Both of these are valid reason as Bitcoin really turning into being used as Alternate to existing paper money but???
this is what i think is appropriate because we are given freedom by using crypto and that is what we are having now.

[/list]

This is great reasoning from you. I like this. This is how human beings are.

Very good reasoning. Forcing everyone to use only one bitcoin is a high level of centralization by itself.

Who knows for how long Satoshi has been working on the protocol when the crisis hit? Maybe he was working on it for years and years even before the crisis hit. It is possible that he understood back then that the timing was just perfect for the protocol to be finished and launched back at the time. Initially, his motivation could have been to just develop a value transfer mechanism for the Internet, but once the crisis came into play the events perfectly played out in his favor.

Well, the question should be the opposite, what are our objectives with bitcoin and not from the individual point of view, which until now has perhaps been the main problem that bitcoin is not where it should be because it has everything or almost everything depending from the point of view of Given that you look at it, the point is that bitcoin is technology, it is a tool that depends on us as a group to take it to the level that we intend to be used.

For now, for example, there is an individual with a vision in El Salvador, it is his vision and he intends to transmit it to an entire nation, on the other hand there are individuals who seek their own objectives based on bitcoin.

So then its objectives depend on ourselves, when as a collective we agree on each of our social and cultural edges, bitcoin may have a common goal and that unites us all. But that does not happen in the greatness that it should and it is not the fault of b_Bitcoin.

Mind you that Bitcoin is not created to basically just replace Fiat currencies, I know Bitcoin is a different kind of currency, but it's meant to coexist with fiat and not to outrightly replace it, it's much better to refer to it as an alternative currency, imo it's designed so people can be their own banks and control their funds, majority of users in the Bitcoin network are there cause they have freedom and control of their funds, taking such funds away from the control of the government.

Having said that, I know one major goal is to make absent third party services when using your funds, but mind you that due to the freedom the network offers there are many other goals of the network and it's somewhat up to the user to decide which he chooses to harness.

Bitcoin was created originally to launch a currency on which no government could take control. It would be a decentralized currency and people would be able to get benefits through it in a number of ways.
 But now as people are more attracted towards it so it is replacing the traditional currencies.
But as some people are still unaware of it's use so they are not able to get access to this currency and they are still using fiat or the traditional ones.

For me, bitcoin is the freedom of your money, your financial activity. Your money should be your choice, and I think that's a goal of bitcoin. But according to some resources, bitcoin was created for anonymous money transactions and their goal was to make it for people's financial freedom so that their money spending should be in their own hands. So people don't have to think about any transaction amount and their goal isn't to replace the country's native currency. It can be an alternative currency.
 
I think their other motive might be, "The digital world needed digital money, so we created it."

Since we are talking about a rather abstract topic, let me deviate a little. I see that the total number of transactions in the BTC blockchain is less than in BSV, so I have a question. First, how did it come about that BSV overtook BTC in terms of the total number of transactions in such a short time? (If we take a fork as a starting point). Second, could bots be involved in this? Since the daily volume of transactions in SV also exceeds the volume of transactions of BTC by 3.5 times.

If number one is truth. There means bitcoin is deserving the fight is getting from government. Because nobody will fold hand for another person to replace him.
But if number two and three is truth. There means Bitcoin not deserve the fight is getting from government.
[/quote]
Two and three somewhat stands true, and this is why the government is trying to regulate it. They don't want people to have full control over their own finances.[/list]

There are no bots. BSV with a higher transaction throughput is out to show that bitcoin is scalable. And is doing it in a short time

I don't see the relevant answer in the poll to vote for which is to eliminate the third party while transacting the money.

Since Bitcoin is decentralized it gives freedom to spend anywhere we want there is no limitations for sending the bitcoins to anyplace in the world and don't even Satoshi thought bitcoin will become this much huge when he started this project.

that's what others saying wherein to replace fiat currency. Even though it's very obvious that governments don't want that thing to happen because they're still against what some factors bitcoin have. Infact if it's not a big deal perhaps it already happened wherein bitcoin is now flipping those legal tender bit unfortunately its a big deal.. Maybe i will agree with the last part but taken the place of the traditional currency it is very impossible to be honest.. Even we make surveys about that in public it will be negative for sure. [/list]

All of the above except replacement of traditional currency. I'm not sure Satoshi had the intention of replacing traditional currencies but had in mind for an alternate form of currency where people will have sole responsibility for how the manage, spend , transact and execute their transactions without the interference of a third party. Instead of Bitcoin to replace traditional currencies the government will define fight tooth and nail to enforce the CBDC instead.

Outside this the volatility of Bitcoin will be it's limiting factor because as the price is never stable using it solely for transaction will pose some issues amongst businesses

The block count is higher simply because when bcash forked off (BSV created out of bcash) since nobody gave a shit about this altcoin they needed a way to survive and at the same time create incentive for miners to switch to their altcoin even if temporary. What they did was manipulating the difficulty adjustment called EDA (E stands for emergency). This meant instead of the normal average 144 blocks per day you could mine 1000+ bcash blocks per day. This not only kept the shitcoin alive in early days but also created incentive for some miners to switch and increase bcash hashrate.
Then EDA was removed and over time hashrate went away and a lot of other issues occurred causing lower number of blocks be mined in both bcash and its fork bsv hence the 4k block difference.
You may like to know that bcash blockchain size is roughly half the bitcoin block size! 175 GB versus 350 GB!

As for bsv and its ridiculous number of transactions, it is obviously spam. It is easy to perform because it is a completely centralized shitcoin and the controllers of this network are free to fill their network with any number of transactions. If you check out BSV transactions you can see that they are transferring 0 value (https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-sv/transactions?q=block_id(718325)&limit=20&s=id(asc)#f=hash,block_id,input_count,output_count,output_total_usd,id) whether through bsv itself or through the colored coin they are spamming the blocks with.

This doesn't cause any problem because it is centralized and nobody gives a shit that a block could be 500 MB and it takes a lot of time for a regular user to download and verify the garbage in that block. Which is why bitcoin has tens of thousands of reachable nodes while BSV only has 49 nodes!

I think the main purpose of bitcoin is to replace existing and everyday transactions through the banking system and of course anonymity and complete decentralization, thanks to these priority tasks that bitcoin solves, it is actually so popular among the crypto community.

I don't think that replacing traditional currencies is a realistic prediction. For one, fiat doesn't seem to be doing bad enough. Moreover, it's an enormous transaction load that Bitcoin simply won't be able to handle. Not to mention that there's no way strong economies would abandon their national currencies which they can control fairly well in favor of something very volatile and decentralized like Bitcoin. As for providing an alternative, it's a very reasonable formulation. Indeed, it's a different type of money that has its own features, compared to fiat. So it does function as an alternative and can continue to do so even more in the future. As for freedom, it's hypothetically an important point, but I don't think it's going well. After all, most of us still need bank accounts and depend heavily on fiat.

the basic purpose of bitcoin in my personal opinion is to give freedom to manage our finances, without having to follow a third party, actually the presence of bitcoin is not against the government let alone replacing fiat currency, why the government banned bitcoin, maybe the reason they can't take control of bitcoin, that's why bitcoin is always a challenge for the government..

Don't tell me you're a BSV fan.  :-\

pooya87, thank you, this is exactly what I wanted to hear ... I confess I didn’t believe that the situation in BSV is so sad, at least I thought that among the names of the developers there would be at least one respectable one who would dissuade everyone from the policy of artificially stimulating miners.

And one more thing ... as far as I understand, the Bitcoin Association is behind this transactional spam?

BTC won’t replace traditional currency. The goal is to cut of the 3rd party like banks and government from play when sending transactions anywhere in the world without borders or restrictions. When we send millions in banks, we are required to provide additional supporting documents before getting approved to transfer, especially overseas. BTC is the opposite of it, by just simply loading up our wallet and do a few clicks to send money to another person without requiring approval from the 3rd party.

This is what I really like, unfortunately, without real adoption this wouldn't happen as even though we can use bitcoin for transactions we still need to convert it to fiat to use for our daily or regular expenses. As of now, bitcoin is only viewed as a great investment,not a paymnet system, so it does fall only to alternative currency.

Unfortunately you can only pick one point out of your list. I wanted to choose "To provide alternative to traditional currencies" and "To provide freedom". In my opinion bitcoins were not created to replace traditional currencies, but rather to provide an alternative and reduce the pressure on fiat money.
With bitcoins and other crypto currencies we have a lot of freedom compared to highly regulated fiat currencies. When bitcoins first came out most of us wouldn't have believed how far bitcoins will come in such a short period of time. The only problem that I see is that governments are still trying to figure out ways on to deal with bitcoins. The freedom we have now could be limited in the future through thougher oversight and regulations.

But with the recent events that happened on this world, started from covid where all people starts to doing anything from home and recently facebook which the name is meta rightnow announced something called metaverse will be happen in the future, i'm more confident that cryptocurrency will replace traditional currencies in the future.
Cryptocurreny is more common right now compared to previous years, numbers of people known with crypto is 2 times or 3 times comapred to last year so i think it's a starting point to make that things happen

Never mind all those people who said that Bitcoin was created to replace the currency that we are using, which is Fiat. Bitcoin was never created for such purpose, and if you read the white paper or anything about Bitcoin from the true source, there was no way that it was said at all that Bitcoin was created for such. Bitcoin was only created to be an alternative means for us when making transactions. It was created to make transactions easier and also more affordable.

Because, with Bitcoin every transaction you make will be fast and also defines your pain will be cheap, especially for transactions that are going abroad. All those people who you see saying that Bitcoin was created to replace Fiat are just some crazy fanatics who don’t even know what they are saying.

In my opinion, changing traditional currencies can also be like that,but the difference is that not everyone can, because people have different knowledge because they have to do it carefully in today's technology.
.basically bitcoin can be used to increase income but not for official payments

Bitcoin was never created to be a currency, it was never meant to be something you'd spend on your Sugar, Coffee and Pizza. Bitcoin is for larger transactions, buying properties, and of course, store of value, digital gold, the ultimate weapon against inflation and keeping your money from becoming worthless over the years.

I think the only purpose of bitcoin is to deposit money and withdraw it from anywhere even all over the world without involving third parties so it is safer for individuals who use it to deposit and withdraw their money in it.

and no one can block it because it is in the public domain and every transaction has a different transaction and moreover every transaction will be recorded and transparent and I think that's the freedom felt and completely controlled by its users, although most say bitcoin to replace fiat seems difficult because they will complement each other.

Wait, what?

Afaik you can buy almost everything using Bitcoin as long as there is a merchant who accept it. And it can be use as a payment where no third-parties needed and it's free from the hassle of waiting in line. Bitcoin is already giving us a freedom of carrying our money to almost everywhere without worrying if you can use it if you go to a different country because someone might tagged you if you are carrying huge cash while traveling. That's the freedom of owning a cryptocurrency although the idea of switching currency like using Bitcoin might be under in a big debate since not everyone would like to use Bitcoin.

It is true that Bitcoin has proven to be more effective at sending money overseas, because it does not need to go through third party approval.
So I find it very helpful to use Bitcoin, besides the process is much faster, it is also cheaper to send money using Bitcoin overseas. So Bitcoin is
a very good alternative to traditional currencies, hopefully all countries can accept Bitcoin as payment. Because after all Bitcoin will not replace
traditional currencies, Bitcoin only as an alternative to traditional currencies, because Bitcoin still has shortcomings and cannot reach all areas
in a country. So the government does not need to fear that traditional currencies will be replaced by Bitcoin, if Bitcoin and traditional currencies
co-exist it will be much better, because the two will complement each other.

Bitcoin's fundamental goal is to provide facility of send money online with digital way. It is advanced currency  and many of companies accept it as a payment asset. In future it will be accepted in anywhere.

This pretty much sums up the goal on why BTC was created in the first place- to provide for financial freedom where 3rd party institutions are not involved in any of our transactions. While it may sound dangerous, it has been proven that without the reliance of these 3rd parties, there has been success as to financial freedom on how users transact their money.

This is also one of the reasons on why the government is hesitant to view/consider it as a form of alternative currency due to the dangers of anonymity.

From the given options I would choose freedom to be the most appropriate one as per my perspective. Bitcoin provides us freedom on how to use "our" money.
One thing I would say is that it's goal is definitely not to replace traditional currencies but just to provide an alternative payment method.
It is a way of P2P payment method which does eliminate the need of a central bank. It gives us the power to own our money without needing someone else to hold it for us.

I do not in anyway think that bitcoin's fundamental goal is to replace our traditional currencies. Bitcoin is in no competition with any currency cause the initial purpose wasn't to settle minor needs.
I could agree to the fact that it serves as an alternative to our traditional currency even though I can't say that was it's fundamental goal but yes, so many persons this days prefer the use of Bitcoin to Fiat currency because of the decentralized nature of Bitcoin and the fact that it does not allow for third party has also added to it reasons of been preferred.

According to the goals that are mentioned on the whitepaper of Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto, they are:
1. To avoid the involvement of a third party while transacting the money.
2. Bitcoin comes with the condition of publishing real time transactions while keeping your identity safe and still verify the trade.
3. To avoid heavy taxes or fees charged for transactions that are done within the people of different countries.

Being an inanimate object, Bitcoin can't have any goals which it would need to pursue to achieve something of high importance. However, people who are using bitcoin in their everyday affairs do have such goals. These goals may vary significantly, but sometimes there is a particular and most important one which successful attainment may satisfy the vast majority of people. In my opinion, bitcoin may serve as a convenient, uncontrollable by authorities, medium of exchange with which to more effectively calculate all prices that exist and will exist, profits and losses, and also economic activities that take place in our world. People will make more rational decisions, they will evaluate risks more accurately, they will save more frequently, they will be happier overall if they are given an economic frame of reference that is more stable, harder to manipulate, and easier to predict an outcome because it is based on algorithmically sound monetary policy.

More and more use for Bitcoin keeps coming by as Bitcoin becomes even more popular more investors are discovering new usefulness for Bitcoin that is even beyond finance and replacing the traditional fiat currency. Bitcoin been the digital gold of the time is gradually making it's way even into politics where the government tries to salvage the countries economy through holding