Bitcoin Forum

Does Bitcoin really have challenged the monopoly of your country's traditional banking systems?

What do you guys think?

Well in my country, Bitcoin is helping the banking sector make more gains in terms of bank charges from regular transactions. Binance p2p business and other p2p platforms are booming seriously with the volume of these transactions running into millions of dollars monthly. Meanwhile, banks enjoy fair share of this in terms of transfer fees and other charges including value added tax to goes to the government. 

The only threat Bitcoin pose to the banks in my country is that many people now save their funds in Bitcoin and not in the banks because inflation have killed the local currency as well as other previously profitable investment methods such as fixed deposits, treasury bills and bond markets.

Furthermore, restriction on FX by our government further gave Bitcoin edge because people resorted to Bitcoin for their international transactions and as well know,  Bitcoin never fails. Consequently,  even our Bureau De Change cried out  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5462608.msg62668440#msg62668440) that Bitcoin via Binance p2p is killing the country's local currency.

Not at all. Bitcoin was created as an alternative to banks but in its development we have seen that this is not the case, because what most people do is transfer from their bank to CEX to buy Bitcoin and/or shitcoins, sell and bring the money back to their bank.


Yes, but it is just another alternative, although use is growing. Before there was Bitcoin, people invested in gold, or in the stock market, as well as in many other financial assets to beat inflation.

Not now, but maybe in future.

Bitcoin initiates the blockchain industry as cryptography has a long history even before Bitcoin. There are some cryptocurrencies before Bitcoin too. ^[1]

Bitcoin is a first successful cryptocurrency based on blockchain and it motivates many developers to launch their projects, products on blockchain as alternate cryptocurrencies (altcoins, some people call them as shitcoins).

Bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency exchanges popularly use 2FA that has been started to use in banks and some other industries. It is a start for banks but applying blockchain in bank system is still in early phase. They will start it with CBDCs, but those blockchains will be centralized by governments, central banks and commercial banks. ^[2]


[1] Bitcoin: Prehistory (https://learn.saylor.org/mod/page/view.php?id=30734)
[2] https://cbdctracker.org/

Bitcoin hasn't challenged the traditional banking system in the place where I live. It is not widely popular in country where I live and most of the people aren't aware of it yet. The banking sector isn't taking any actions against it because they don't consider it alarming for their system. Although, once or twice the governmental sector tried to have some regulations and strict actions against it but that has noting to do with the banking sector. And, fortunately not even the governmental sector got any success in suppressing it.

Like Odohu said, in my country the same scenario is taking place. The banks are receiving enough money thanks to the p2p transactions that are taking place in centralized exchanges. The banks are also profiting from the Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies p2p transactions and that's why they aren't taking any actions against Bitcoin or other crypto-currencies.

The banks have increased their fees for those merchants who are increasing their monthly sending and receiving limits. Although, most of the p2p transactions go through bank accounts directly and they don't have much fees but when we count the volume of the transactions that are taking place per month then we can see that the banks are earning in millions of dollars from those transactions.

Obviously people still use fiat and the banks far more than they use BTC, and i don't think it is going to change, BTC was not created to become the first choice payment system, but to be an alternative that is different from what already exists. BTC offers something different for people who want to use it, and that is permissionlessness, self control and censorship resistance, so it is the people who are looking for these features in a currency that will use BTC, and also those who want to make money from its volatile nature.

If it is from the bitcoin working system, of course we know that banks will not like the idea of freedom in it. However, this does not mean that the state must emphasize its rejection when there is such a large inflow and outflow. The solution is that banks relax their policies towards Bitcoin with open arms so that they can provide mutual benefits to each other. Bitcoin investors and traders have always been subject to monitoring of asset holdings and the Bank does not want this to fall outside its radar. The traditional banking system in my country is now starting to show interest in what digital assets have to offer, including Bitcoin and other crypto assets. So that banks synergize with local exchanges to build cooperation and encourage them to continue to educate the public about the importance of investing in today's digital era.

I don't think the presence of Bitcoin will challenge the traditional banking monopoly system in any country, because Bitcoin is here to make it easier for everyone in several ways that traditional banking has not had. However, if traditional banks feel challenged by the presence of Bitcoin among the public, this may be due to the lack of new conveniences that their customers require from banks in terms of serving their own customers.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is not like that because Bitcoin only needs to be understood well enough by everyone who wants to use it for several things such as investment, trading and also just to store it for the long term. So I don't see Bitcoin challenging the banking sector through any system, because the only ones who feel challenged are the traditional banks themselves when Bitcoin is already so well known among people throughout the world.

Most people are use Bitcoin as an investment, so Bitcoin will not challenge or become a threat for banks and fiat.

Bitcoin is actually become a threat for gold, stock, real estate or any assets that can be used as an investment. That's why more and more government want to tax Bitcoin because people are making good amount of capital gain during the bull run.

I'm not sure about the banking system in my country but I assume that with a lot of online banking system popping up, I think that in a way bitcoin shaked the monopoly of the banking system although I could be wrong as there's a few big named families that own a lot of companies in my country so the monopoly that I'm talking about might not be shaken even a little. To be fair though, bitcoin isn't a popular means of payment in my country so if my claim earlier is false or misleading then the banking isn't fazed that much in my country.

People started avoiding banks to store their funds. They found that Bitcoins allow them to manage their funds independently without any third party person interfering. This has started happening frequently from 2018. This has definitely challenged the banking monopoly. For this many government have also banned using the currency in their respective countries. But thanks to the decentralised nature of coin, no one can know how many Bitcoins we have.

No. Bitcoin is not against my country's bank financial system because I know the bitcoin system as an alternative to banks. The majority of people in my country still use banks and quite a few don't know about bitcoin and crypto. Personally, I really like the bitcoin system and the majority of people who know how the bitcoin system works would say the same thing as me but in my country bitcoin is not a legal tender that can be used as a tool for transactions like an official currency.

It's not surprising that many people in my country use bitcoin as an investment asset and I think the use of bitcoin as a long-term investment is also carried out in other countries that do not legalize bitcoin as a means of payment.

Imho it was the one that triggered lower fees for various banking products (then the free market competition took over).
Imho it was also the one that triggered faster transaction times, especially for international transactions. It's still far from what it should be, still steps forwards were made.

But actually challenging the monopoly? No. Not by far. Even more, it helps them (possibility to use blockchain for certain things, the chance for new investment products, the chance for diversifying the means of backing their fiat - even if not used yet, the chance for new business partnerships - eg with exchanges, ...).

In my country they are still somewhat sleeping under their rocks and failing to seize opportunities. But not challenged, not even a bit.

Banks aren't challenged by bitcoin in Greece. People use bitcoin as currency very rarely. The vast majority of people don't even know what it really is. If you ask some random person, you'll likely get that it's gambling as response.

In the peer-to-peer, decentralized sense, there weren't. There was e-gold, but that was centrally operated by Gold & Silver Reserve Inc. Wei Dai and Nick Szabo had proposed B-money and Bit gold respectively, but none of them went to actually implementing it. Until Satoshi took up their work, and went into coding.

My country already banned any crypto transactions even before it spread all over the country. Even before I started understanding what Bitcoin is, the Central bank in my country banned it. Banks are always afraid of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency as well. I guess we all know the purpose of the invention of Bitcoin. To eliminate the requirement of 3rd parties.

Even though we cannot say, Bitcoin is a success if we see it from that side. We are the reason behind it because we using it in the wrong way. Stay away from banks if you can. If Bitcoin is a legal tender in your country, that's good.

The word bitcoin is an unfamiliar word in our country context because in my country it has been officially declared as a banned currency so bitcoin has nothing to do with banks in our country.
I admit one thing that if Bitcoin was legalized in our country then the people of our country would not deposit money in the bank because the people of my country have no trust in the bank authorities. At present, people of our country instead of keeping money in banks, they are keeping money with themselves or building land or houses in exchange for money. The banking authorities of our country are constantly killing people's money and the banks are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Since no importance is being imposed on banks by the government, if Bitcoin is legalized in our country then everyone would invest in Bitcoin instead of keeping money in banks and live a safe life.

But is bitcoin really suitable as a place for us to save money? I mean, savings are those that will be used for the near future and emergencies. Meanwhile, the volatility of bitcoin will cause the value of our currency to fluctuate very strongly in a short time, sometimes it will cause our money to lose 20%, 30%, or even 50% of its value, is it suitable to become a savings? In case people fear the local currency will lose value, they still have a more suitable choice than gold as a means of storing value because gold is more stable. Bitcoin is more suitable for investing for the future than saving, IMO.

Bitcoin is not for opposing central banks. Bitcoin was created to be an alternative to banks for people who complained about the banking system.


The Bitcoin system with the central bank should be able to work together, but the presence of Bitcoin is considered to be a new problem for banks.
Now, the use of Bitcoin is more for investments like gold investments that were made before Bitcoin, Bitcoin even became digital gold.

Bitcoin hardly challenges my own country's traditional banking system. Over here, Bitcoin is deemed as a commodity and unable to be used as a payment system, so we can't directly use it as a currency. Everyday life also still mainly uses the banking/government digital payment system.

Anyway, the thing I'd like to point out is that your question assumes the creation of Bitcoin is merely to challenge the monopoly of the traditional banking system, which I think is quite not true. The initial idea of Bitcoin, as far as I am concerned, is that it acts as an alternative to a trust-based system. With Bitcoin, trust is obliterated. Based on my understanding of Satoshi's writing, the root problem of the system is that it is dependent on trust, without it, it wouldn't work.

No, Bitcoin hasnt successfully undermined established banking institutions; this is true. Usually, people are sucked by Bitcoin and mistake it for digital gold instead than a means of currency. This viewpoint confirms Bitcoin's position as an asset rather than a rival to existing banking institutions. The difficult transaction process and the unpredictable price swings make it impractical for daily use.

This does not mean that no cryptocurrency can challenge traditional banking systems. Other altcoins with more flexibility, better scalability, and lower fees are now competing for that place. Their goal is to increase the speed, lower cost, and decentralization of financial transactions, thus seriously challenging traditional banking systems.

My country has a large population of Bitcoin users but it is not used as a currency but mainly for investment purposes. Traditional banks still dominate the financial system due to government policies. However, some crypto-informed citizens prefer to save money in Bitcoin since the country is suffering from inflation. Bitcoin is less volatile than our country's so it will be better to keep it than to save the local legal tender. I assume that it will take some years for Bitcoin to compete with the banking system.

Many people in my country don't care about privacy so they are not concerned about the freedom and power that Bitcoin brings. Many of them focus on the financial profitability of using the currency. But as bitcoin awareness spreads more people will begin to see the advantage of becoming thier own bank.

No, even though Bitcoin is popular in my country, it's no serious competition to the banking system. The thing is, our banks are pretty likeable and easy to use, and, of course, fiat money is accepted everywhere, whereas to pay in Bitcoin one has to specifically seek out places that offer that option.
But Bitcoin is there for the people, IMO, not for institutions. A person can choose to use Bitcoin for some things, to be more independent of the traditional system. And it's not an either-or situation.

Theoretically, it could work if the bankers used it as reserve, but I don't understand why the people in power would ever want to do that. They have convinced the populace that printing money backed of thin air is totally normal. Seems like a massive success to me.

That is true. But, he did point out that the bank oligarchy is more or less the root of the problem. Politicians bailing out banks using public funds is a fact. And they do, because bank failures can destabilize the entire economy. In other words, the entire economy is vulnerable under the monopoly of these banks, and they pretty much exploit that power once in a while.

BTC is only used for investment purpose. No one use this BTC like Fiat money. People are not aware of value of Bitcoin. When Bitcoin will work like Fiat money, this will be very good. BTC is very good for investment. I saw many people who became millionaires because of investment in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is safe investment for a person who invest in Bitcoin for years. Lot of peoy invested in Bitcoin for many times and always go profit. People wait for this moment when Bitcoin price was low, so they invested in Bitcoin then take huge profit. Bitcoin should be our part of exchanges. Bitcoin exchange rate should be high, in this way more millionaires will be created.

If Bitcoin is accepted in your country then it does not challenge your banking system and they accept it but in the country where Bitcoin is ban so in that case it challenges the traditional banking system, however, Bitcoin has certainly challenged the monopoly of the traditional banking system in some countries. but it's too early to say whether it is successful in it or not. Bitcoin provides a bundle of advantages that may not be provided by the traditional system which includes its decentralized nature which makes everyone free from the banking system, Through bitcoin you can easily send or receive your funds within seconds which can not be provided by a bank in fact if you use the bank as a global, you may wait 2 or 3 days to received funds, and also it is fast as I say a cheap then bank. This could change the thoughts of people on why they use banks if they have Bitcoin which is far better than this traditional banking system yes obviously people will refer to Bitcoin and in recent years we know that Bitcoin is now becoming widely accepted which has made a positive move.

Due to these certain points, I could say that yeah bitcoin challenged the traditional banking system not in every country but in certain. It does not mean that there are no disadvantages to Bitcoin but as compared to its advantages it is small.

https://i.postimg.cc/65RyP8ry/photo-2023-09-23-23-29-12.jpg
Before saying anything,  I am giving a screenshot of my phone.  Here and notification is from our one of the biggest  mobile bank, and they notifying us that " avoid  illegal online transactions, especially they mention that  "Avoid trading and exchanging foreign currencies and cryptocurrencies"
So I think it's enough to understand that what is going  on to cryptocurrency or Bitcoin in our country.  In my country  I will not say that Bitcoin really have challenges the Monopoly to our banking system,  because  if we exchange our money  to fiat  they are   benefiting  by this.  But the Bitcoin user are exempted from the tax will imposed by the government if the bitcoin users are not caught. So I think  that they are benefiting on this point of view.

Not really. It seems that they don't care at all but it's good to see that they're acknowledging on how Bitcoin is revolutionizing the usual banking system that we've got.
They don't treat it as a threat but they don't also treat it as something good for them. Most that I have seen are neutral or don't really care at all and that's just fine.

In my country the youth are seriously engaging themselves on Bitcoin trading and investment because unemployment,  the engagement of the youth embracing Bitcoin is like nightmare to the government.  People don't believe in the banking system anymore because their are no opportunity in the banking system,  instead of the banking system to help citizens to grow financially but the traditional currency keeps depreciating . The government is not really cool with bitcoin because it is taking the interest of people to save their money in the bank. Bitcoin is the new bank people want to save their money for the future expecially the youth.

Bitcoin is allowed legally in my country but it has not gain so much weight as to be a challenging factor to the banking system monopoly. The banking system is still dominating totally, although there is inflation. People are gradually going into bitcoin. To me, l think it will take sometime before it can be a challenging factor to the banking system, if at all it will be.

Bitcoin is a complete opposite of what is banking does, the general difference of them is bitcoin as decentralized while banking is centralized. In terms of security I must say that banking is way more secured than bitcoin's storage security like wallets and cold storage, and banking does assured its clients to take care of their money including bankruptcy security, while in bitcoin once you lost it you lost it all forever. So all in all, banks does have to prove anything against bitcoin, but the naturality of bitcoin is what makes it on a level of banking system where fees are generally low and people has its power over their assets. Banks and Bitcoin has its own importance in the society, you just need to leverage these two and get the most out of it.

I think a lot of threads were created about the Bitcoin vs. banking system. Both always conflict with each other because Bitcoin is a decentralised cryptocurrency where the banking system is controlled by central authorities. If the banks start adapting to Bitcoin, then how will they make revenue? Our central bank stands against cryptocurrency. Officially, they ban any cryptocurrency trading in our country. Also, the government is too strict about cryptocurrency. I don't think very soon it's going to unban cryptocurrency. Because the central bank convinced the government to stand against Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

Adaptation is possible in some countries that don't ban Bitcoin completely and banks or governments make a profit from the taxes.
We will find out how much of a cut the transactions made in Fiat exchange are.

In my country trading is not a problem as long as it is not used as a substitute for traditional currency as legal tender because it is banned.

Regulation is a big wall for crypto and this will limit the banking system and Bitcoin, so it will not be fully integrated unless the government gives it full adoption.

While reading the news, you will discover that Nigeria is one of the top countries adopting Bitcoin. In my country, the centralised banking system is still the most widely used banking system. As much as we advocate for the introduction of Bitcoin, it may take several years before the general public becomes acquainted with it.

The Government is one major factor. One important influence is the government. Yes, the previous government of Nigeria prohibited the usage of cryptocurrencies in deposit money banks (DMBs), non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs), and other financial institutions (OFIs). Now, as Bitcoin advocates, we need to spread some of the benefits and relevance of why the world needs to switch to these digital currencies.
So these and other discussions, I believe, would pave the way for this new administration to accept and even collaborate with Bitcoin.

In this part of the world, government plays a critical role in the acceptance and propagation of any new technology that is available, and because many people rely on government policies and walnut, government has the ability to embrace or reject current technological advancements and other ground realities.

It is thus our responsibility to bring government officials and personnel to the table, discuss with them, and figure out how some of these technologies will be deployed in various locations throughout the country. If this is accomplished, I feel it will benefit my country much.

This is a great question and my answer is that bitcoin cannot challenge the monopoly of any country's traditional banking systems. The reality on ground is that there are still more people using the traditional banking system than there are those who have adopted bitcoin. A second reality is that for the category of people who have adopted bitcoin, there are still use the traditional banking system. That is they have not closed down their bank accounts. And thirdly, those who use bitcoin do not use if for the purchase of their daily needs because it is not yet generally accepted and as such, they are only holding. This is not the case with the traditional banking when customers carry out various banking activities.

Bitcoin and the banking system are on two totally different categories and there cannot be any competition among them. I see them as complimentary "objects rather than as a substitute for the other.

Yes, and this is clearly stated in my country's law, if the only legal means of payment in this country is Rupiah. So for now, Bitcoin is only valid or legal as a commodity asset, not as a currency here. This is actually illegal if used as a currency. So from the existing regulations, of course for now and for the next few years, it will not be possible for Bitcoin to monopolize the banking system in my country. People here are also not all interested in Bitcoin because of various different issues. So, let's just optimize what is legal here for now. In the future, no one will know how, so yes, it will be accepted, thank God. But if it still doesn't work, this will become a normal thing like this again. At least we can still enjoy the other benefits of Bitcoin.

The biggest question to answer before making this kind of statement is, is Bitcoin really seeking monopoly of the world financial system?


Many have hard misconceptions in this and have taken Bitcoin being an alternative to fit as Bitcoin seeking to break the already existing financial structures.

The fact that our authorities did not impose anything harsh towards bitcoin or any cryptocurrency, means it has not challenged anything including the traditional banking system. In fact, some banks are starting to adopt what bitcoin can offer for their account holders to use. So, the question for me should be, does the traditional banking system includes bitcoin to the monopoly?
IMO, bitcoin doesn't really impose any challenges towards the banking system because they have not seen any significant decrease from their clients. They still took a huge percentages with bank loans, something bitcoin can never offer to anyone.

Bitcoin usage have increased around the country, and the same haven't considered a threat to the traditional system used. Quite often we can hear statements revealing that the increased usage of cryptocurrencies have eaten the profit of banks. I'm not sure of the reality and in some banks they've started to use the Blockchain technology. This is really good and maybe over years this could turn the framework better than before. However in all means banks stay with governments and try to have control over people's money through some means. The latest being the launch of CBDC from different countries around the world.

The presence of Bitcoin should be able to boost the enthusiasm of bankers to assess where the shortcomings of the bank's financial system need to be corrected so that public confidence in them does not decline after the economic crisis that hit the world at that time.
That's why I quoted what Satoshi once wrote about the bank trust system.

I also don't understand the way they think about the Bitcoin system, even though the banking system limits people to having several accounts, whereas with Bitcoin, everyone can have multiple addresses.

There are many countries where we have large number of Bitcoin users but since there is not much adoption of Bitcoin specially among merchants, bitcoin remains as as asset of investment. Till date the banking system backed by central governments dominate the financial system and there are not many governments that are willing to accept decentralised Bitcoin. Bitcoin has its own reasons of existence and is no way created to replace the existing fiat system. 

Bitcoin is a digital currency and it will take a long time for bitcoin to become more popular in the banking system because many countries around the world do not use bitcoin and the banking systems are difficult to manage. The use of bitcoin is increasing due to the fact that this currency has no regulatory body and is decentralized and this is why the price of bitcoin can rise or fall very quickly. If it were controlled by the government it would have the same effect of inflation as a fiat currency. Bitcoin will generally run at its own pace with no influence on government finances investors will act independently.