Bitcoin Forum

If a newbie learns about crypto and bitcoin today and buys and gets involved in projects, is he/she a laggard or late majority or early Majority  according to theory of diffusion of innovation?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Diffusion_of_ideas.svg/500px-Diffusion_of_ideas.svg.png

Diffusion of innovations explains how, why, and  what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. Everett Rogers, a professor of communication studies, popularized the theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations

I think we are still at the beginning of the early adopter phase but this is debatable of course.

Definitely not in the early adopter phase for bitcoin, perhaps for some of the new cryptos. I'd say we're at the early majority stage.

I 100% disagree, out of all the people I know most won't touch crypto,  IMO late adoption.

That is completely depressing for a guy like me

Simply depends how far Bitcoin goes. How far do *you* think it will go?

IMO, if it reaches its full potential, then we are just passing from the innovator to the early adopter phase.

When kids in schools are trading BTC on their phones I'll say we are entering the early majority stage. When it's an option at every retail outlet, late majority will be entered.

We are so so much early days here. You better believe this.

The only concern is whether a "better" crypto could take over, but I don't think that's likely.

I'd also say Late Adoption.


Why? That graph doesn't mean that much in the grand scheme of things. You could still potentially be an early adopter and/or make a lot of money from Bitcoin.

I think people are mixing up 'oh yeah I've heard of the Bitcoin.com' and actually owning any. The gulf is enormous.

I'd say the average person who follows that path -

Hears of it.

Looks a bit further into it.

Understands it.

Sets up a wallet.

Sets up an account at an exchange.

Actually buys some.

There's often a gap of several months between each step judging by people I've talked to about it.

Bitcoin may end up a global asset class. If that is the case then we are still in the innovators stage.

Folks on here have a giant blind spot about where it stands in the real world. It's still a dot on the landscape.

Id say late adoption as well, and it will probably be more late adoption thats to the bad press and Mtgox for damaging bitcoin more, I say it it wasnt for gox prices would have been way higher at this time, Im sure a few adopters pulled out since many of them had lost lots of money in gox

Just read the theory and I'm sorry to have to tell you, but it is frankly shit. Reading that makes me think "communication studies" has got to be one of the softest fucking sciences ever devised. Maybe it's an art?

I suppose real, respectable "communication studies" professors call themselves professors of linguistics. Your science-fu is weak.

The thing you need to understand about modern academia is that, much like the world of high-art, it's a total fucking circle-jerk. Many (not all!) of these inept fuckwits that pass themselves off as professors contribute little or nothing of real value to society, while simultaneously holding themselves in high regard. It's counter-intuitive, I know. How can such an esteemed profession in reality be full of such massive suckitude, so much self-indulgent, pseduo-intellectual horseshit? The answer, in one word, is profit.

Sorry, I'm going off on a tangent.

To answer your question, today less than one half of one percent of the population of Earth uses Bitcoin, therefore...

https://i.imgur.com/oL3GlIC.png

Late laggards, Bitcoin will die tomorrow.  NOT!

I should of added the word yet, don't be depressed IMO the next run will happen in 2 days and be so fast you'll have to panic buy if you weren't already in.

Bitcoin wont die tommorrow due to the fact, Gov has some,  To many companies now involved and other supportive factors. 

you will see soon the train systems are going to use bitcoin, buses, taxis.

I know Bitcoin won't die tomorrow, that's why I inserted the NOT!

I'm HODLIN' man.  This tech is still in the early stages.

we are in the innovator/early adoption phase.

put it this way as an example.

Iphone

1) there is alot of press about the next iphone coming out. everyone is hearing about it and forming opinions about it. yet because its still in prototype phase, no one actually has one. so although everyone knows about iphone does not make them adopters

2) next when iphone is first released theres normally high demand... but not because everyone will have it tomorrow, but because apple can only ship 10-100 units per retail store in their first batch. meaning a city of 100k-20million people, the supply is only a couple percent the first week. so the guys that have iphones the first week are early adopters.

3) early majority takes upto 6 months before there is a shift from minority to majority, in some cases over a year. due to supply being low and costs being high.

4) you can always spot the late adopters as they are the ones that wait for the price to drop, and the reason the price drops is because apple see's the uptake of majority slowdown.

5) the laggers are those that buy second hand iphones or stick with the last gen version far after the next gen is popular.

now to bitcoin
1)alot of press, everyone is hearing about it and forming opinions about it, yet the majority of bitcoins are not in average joes hands. they are still hoarded in businesses and services hands (innovators)

2) bitcoin is still not straight forward for averag joe to obtain at a retail store, through a bank, or from a friend. usually they have to search online for a stranger they have never met(localbitcoins.com) or register with a service they have never used before. this means average joe does not have access to bitcoins freely. (less then 0.017% of the worlds population own atleast 1+ satoshi)

i wont go through the rest as its obvious that we are between innovation and early adoptors. alot more needs to be done to spread the supply of bitcoins to the general public and making it easy for everyone to get them at ATM's, 7-11's or from someone within their circle of friends

again 0.017% of the world is not anywhere near becoming the 'majority' or laggers curve

We are definitely the 13.5%, the early adopters. And those who are relying on Shitcoins, BAD news for them. The closest LiteCoin does not even have >15% of market share. It is like Google and others in search market.

It entirely depends on the adoption level at saturation.  Excluding the possibility that bitcoin "dies" any time soon, here's my assessment:

"Bitcoin as a store of value" will eventually appeal to some of the precious metals crowd, to some of the crowd that has tens of trillions of dollars squirrelled away in off-shore tax havens, to savers in countries with unstable local currencies, and to individuals subject to sanctions and confiscations.  INNOVATOR STAGE.

"Bitcoin as a medium of exchange" could potentially appeal to a much broader population group--secure/pseudonymous online transactions, frictionless international transfers, digital payments outside the eye of big gov, person-to-person transfers in meat-space without the need to "make change," and all sorts of crazy new possibilities like self-driving taxicabs that can pay for their own servicing, etc.  PRE-INNOVATOR STAGE

"Bitcoin as a unit of account" recognized across the world as a dominant global currency could potentially have a user-base close to the population of Earth.  VERY PRE-INNOVATOR STAGE as demonstrated by Beliathon:

Hope we are the early adopters and price go a lot higher.

agreed. lets say in 100 years time, historians look back and see that only 500million(not 7bill) people held atleast a satoshi in their life

well in 2014 that equates to an at most 0.24% saturation level, not even close to the 2% of innovation on that scale sed in previous posts

Definitively early adopters, there is long way before average Joe will use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is now mostly for tech people willing going through the hassle of buying Bitcoin.

How about if average Joe will never use Bitcoin and it stays just for tech people?

It'll eventually be fed back to Average Joe in a more palatable form. Right now he would choke to death on it.

There are more concerns, 50+1% attack for example.

That would probably simply mean a "better" crypto would take over though. But even this "better" crypto might still be pegged or whatever to existing Bitcoin.

Bitcoin will hit the ditch of history pretty soon.
Why:

Because it is infested with scam. I am not talking about theoretical scam, but real-life.
Examples:
1. more than 50% of miners manufacturers scam their customers-a fact.
2. mining pools are constantly off line due to multiple sustained attacks, putting mining revenue in jeopardy
3. hashing speed undergoes gigantic fluctuations, suggesting a possibility that large unused hashing potential exist that could be used for the 51% attcak that would render bitcoins useless
4. someone (early adopters) is constantly selling, resulting in a 6 mo downtrend.
7. governments are actively undermining bitcoin-china

5. USD reserve currency soon to die.
6. hashing speed is still doubling every 2 months.

And this is different from issues facing the Internet how?

-Scams and phishing emails, Trojans, and backdoor threats constantly
-Target credit card hack
-Open SSL Heartbleed, Internet Explorer exploit, smartphone malware threats across both Android and iOS devices
-Even though many of us have high speed internet, the majority of Americans have less than broadband connection.
-The big one "Net Neutrality".  This one could dwarf any of the issues facing Bitcoin, and potentially cripple the way the Internet works for us currently:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/net-neutrality-fcc-facebook-google_n_5283931.html


So, when you look at the big picture, the "growing pains" you see with Bitcoin aren't so big afterall.

Hey, you invented a new kind of 51% attack!  Why don't you start your own company manufacturing mining equipment if you can do a better job?


Join P2P pool to regain control over your hash power.


Earlier this morning I flipped a coin six times and got five "heads," suggesting that the coin was not fair.


There are two ways new users can acquire bitcoins: mine them or buy them from someone who already has them.  Early adopters divesting helps to diffuse coins to a wider user base, increasing the efficiency of bitcoin's distribution of wealth.


That is why we need bitcoin.

FIAT
1. more then 50% of moneymakers scam account holders... a fact
2. many bank ATM limit customer access to funds daily, their call centres are always bsy and they only have their doors open for 9hours a day 5 days a week. (alot of downtime compared to other 24/7 services)
3. banks move money from country to country, suggesting a possibility of large unused financial potential could be used to F**k over the forex and debase the already indebted FIAT market
4. wall street is constantly selling fiat causing the national debt of all countries to grow while wall street makes their profits

now onto scams
i can recall the nigerian prince, the foreign lottery, the nknown relative leaving an inheritance, the foreign friend's hospital bills. the mail order bride.. all of which are FIAT scams
then look at on the stret scams.. pickpocketing, card cloning, identity theft.
then look at banking scams.. HSBC getting away with laundering.
then look at bank history. armed robberies, bank heists.

and the biggest scam of all.. the national minimum wage scam. forcing people to work as slaves due to it being legalised that it is acceptable to pay people very little.

need me to continue?

no? well ill just summerise.. where ever there is something of value that people want. there is always a dishonest person that wants it without earning it. to me that just shows that it has actal value as no one would risk jailtime for something that has no real world value

id be more concerned when the day cames that scammers and theives DON'T want bitcoin.. because when these scammers DON'T want a bitcoin that is given to them through an easy con, then why would anyone honest choose to pay for it

I would say we are around the early adopters stage.

These are weak arguments. I was quite keen on bitcoin in the last 6 mo. Not anymore.
It will all end up in tears judging by the quality of corporate players involved.

I was thinking about this yesterday because Bitcoin is showing up in popular culture/tv shows, especially science fiction based programs.

The truth is that Bitcoin can't become a serious player in economics until it stabilize and people receive their salaries in Bitcoin. People are generally very lazy to convert fiat to Bitcoin, and it can be said there are many obstacles for doing so. You can't even buy Bitcoins with credit card, nowhere! And most people are so ingnorant they just don't get it what kind of financial revolution is ongoing - most are sheeple, and this is sad but true.

I am a newbie  :'(
Too much to learn.

the mind set of people in the early 2000's:
The truth is that Apple wont become a serious player in phone industry until it is user friendly. People are generally very lazy to convert MP3's using itunes, and it can be said there are many obstacles for doing so. You can't even buy CD's on the Itunes store, nowhere! And most people are so ingnorant they just don't get what the benefits of iphone has over other phones that also make voice calls - most are sheeple, and this is sad but true.

early innovators for sure .. things haven't even began to take shape yet... patience

Agreed.

Its stupid how everyone on here turns a blind eye to the huge influx of programmers and investors that are getting into bitcoin

I think Bitcoin is where Apple was in the 80s. Think about it.

With cheap secure hardware wallets Bitcoin might start to be alternative for average Joe I believe. Long way to go given how the Trezor hardware wallet develops (is overexpensive and hard to say if really secure, looking ugly as well  :D)

But it will come one day, Bitcoin ASIC after 1 year starting to be power effecient and reasonably priced as well (hardware wise, not mining profitability :D)

Hardware wallets? Try Mycellium on your android! Free, and just as good if not better! And it saves having to carry around an additional device for your coin.

Thats a really interesting point you shared.

well i can say i am a little above newbie....PM me whatever info you need and i will help you...

Indeed.

"The truth is Oil won't become a serious player in the energy industry until it is user friendly. People are generally very lazy to convert crude oil into workable refined oil, and it can be said there are many obstacles for doing so. You can't even use oil in the majority of the world which is still using horses mainly for transport, the internal combustion engine was only invented just a few years ago, most folks in the world don't even know how to use one, let alone put one in front of their buggy for transportation purposes. Oil is heavy, dirty, dangerous, difficult to extract, and expensive to transport. Oil creates foul pollution when you burn it, AND it smells foul. Really more of a burden than anything. Horses by comparison are cheap, plentiful, and everyone already knows how to ride one! This is silliness, at this rate oil will never catch on (http://tinyurl.com/btcinfo1). You can have your dirty, disgusting, difficult oil. I'll stick with trusty old coal and horses, thank you very much."

-----------------

1530:
"The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain."
-Martin Luther

1800:
"What, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense."
-Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton’s steamboat, which had just been invented.

1825:
"What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?"
-The Quarterly Review

1830:
"Rail travel at high speeds is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia."
-Dionysius Lardner, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London, and author of The Steam Engine Explained and Illustrated

1864:
"No one will pay good money to get from Berlin to Potsdam in one hour when he can ride his horse there in one day for free."
-King William I of Prussia, on hearing of the invention of trains

1865:
"Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as "railroads" ... As you may well know, Mr. President, "railroad" carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by "engines" which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed."
-Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York

1865:
"Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value."
-The Boston Post

1872:
"It’s a great invention but who would want to use it anyway?"
-Rutherford B. Hayes, U.S. President, after a demonstration of Alexander Bell’s telephone

1872:
"Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
-Pierre Pachet, professor of physiology at Toulouse

Get the picture (http://www.av8n.com/physics/ex-cathedra.htm)? Throughout history, fearful nay-sayers have almost always been proved to be clueless fuckwits.

Whaaaaat? So many people even in this forum think we're in late majority stage? That surprises me. We're only now starting to get a glimpse of the full potential of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin is going anywhere near mainstream adoption we're in innovators/early adoption phase. And Bitcoin is simply too useful and too hard to stop to not be mainstream. It will probably take some time though.

Anyway, why not just dig up a graph of how many new wallets are created every day and compare it to the history. Is the number growing exponentially we're innovators/early adopters/early early majority, is it kind of constant we're going from early to late, if declining, late/laggards. Of course there's a lot of temporary variations day to day/month to month etc but might be possible to get an idea.

Was talking about the situation right now, and I just hope it will change in few years, like it changed for many other techs...

I'm pretty sure we're at least early adopters and possibly innovators. It all depends on how many people will end up using bitcoin.

Right now only about a million or less people use bitcoin (hard to know exactly), while there's over 7 billion people alive.

So about 0.014% of the world's population has bitcoin or 140 per million.

There's PLENTY of room to grow.

Either bitcoin fails within a couple of months/years or bitcoin will become MUCH larger (and thus more valuable).

I would say the concept of crypto-currencies can't fail, it's only a matter of time when we can say it's widely adopted. That said, I think we can talk about wide adoption when it stabilizes and people are getting their salaries in BTC (but not converted fiat->BTC amounts, just BTC amounts).

Right now, a lot of people have HEARD of Bitcoin
but relatively few own or use it.

Sort of like the Internet in the very early 90s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet).

"The Internet's takeover of the global communication landscape was almost instant in historical terms: it only communicated 1% of the information flowing through two-way telecommunications networks in the year 1993, already 51% by 2000, and more than 97% of the telecommunicated information by 2007.[1] Today the Internet continues to grow, driven by ever greater amounts of online information, commerce, entertainment, and social networking."

That was really nice to read from start..how we have come across negative opinions throughout history.

LOL. I think I love you  ;D

To add

Average Joe also refused to go near the internet. Refused to ever use email, didn't know what that was and found it ridiculous - why do all that when he can just write out the damn letter, stick it in an envelope, slap a stamp on it and walk it to the mailbox? Having to get a computer and internet and an email account is just waaaay too much trouble. Remember 3 or 4 years later he refused to cut off his landline because he used it for sending faxes? And then remember when he refused to bother getting a smart phone because the dumb one he had with Verizon for the next 15 years at 289 a month was just fine? Remember when he refused to upgrade to Windows98 because he liked 95? Remember when he bitched about Windowsxp? And then Windows Vista? And Windows7 and if you listen real close you can hear him refusing, hands down, to mess with Windows 8.1.

And no, he's not going to get a tablet because he's still got a perfectly good desktop. Nor is he going to buy Google Glass because he already has the internet on his stupid smart phone.

It's like that for Average Joe. The world moves on without him and he realizes that if he wants to be functional in it, he upgrades too, bitching every step of the way.

I am newbie. It seems really confusing to me. Looking for right direction from any experienced one.

Why are you participating in this forum if you think "Bitcoin will hit the ditch of history pretty soon.". Seems a bit strange...

It is surprising seeing how people view the stage of mass adoption we are in at this time for me also.  I can't see this stage we are in currently as anything but the early adopter stage.  Not the earliest stage for sure, that time has passed but this is the time to buy IMHO.

In my single month of newbieness, the way I view where we are with bitcoin is about the same place we were with the internet around 1995-1999. Lots of people were online by then, email had just "taken off", cordless slash cell phones were available for the wealthy and were carried in the equivalent of an ammo can...there was much hype about the potential of the internet - and a huge push for early adopter businesses to get online to do transactions. A few did...and the porn industry online paved the way for the Joe Blows of the world.

Meanwhile, Geraldo, Good Morning America, Sally Jessie, and Jerry Springer were all warning us of the inbred child screwing mafia illuminati sorts who were flocking to the internet to hatch plots to steal and eat your children...the Y2K thing had a field day...and how the internet was a fad, a passing craze, and oh, what's that? Televise a court hearing? A congressional session for legislators to figure out the definition of sex? Wait! You mean we can download music with this internet (and three days later listen to a song?) Wow...there might be something to this!

Remember Amazon just starting out and this entire push for "e books" and software to make them - and there was the same, exact protesting: I LOVE HARD COVER REAL BOOKS! YOU'RE NOT A REAL AUTHOR UNLESS A REAL PUBLISHING HOUSE PUBLISHES YOUR BOOK! NOBODY'S GONNA READ AT THE COMPUTER! And now, the majority of people shop Amazon and publish their own books and publishing houses are nervously watching old school industry fall apart - those who incorporate digital books survive...those who resist go away.

By about 2001, cell phones were way smaller, most flip tops, uncomfortably expensive payment contracts, and businesses were now securely online.

I don't think bitcoin has reached the 2001 level yet. We're still in the 90s era internet where there is a push for businesses to get bitcoin, set up accepting it, and the die hard computer geeks, and those with no geek blood but a lotta heart and vision (like me) can see the long term potential shift the internet would be bringing and are getting on board.

I didn't know squat about it at the time, so I wasn't the one who had the presence of mind to buy sex.com. But I did have the presence of mind to see what was coming, so I learned HTML, js and CSS and learned how to design websites so I could sell shovels to the miners! Since the infrastructure wasn't really in place for me to sell stuff online and accept payments, I worked out the freebies option instead and gave away ebooks on how to establish a web presence for free...and provided my list of resources. Now I can do business online and have probably 15 domains and sites of varying topics...just waiting on bitcoin to catch up!

we are leaving innovators-stage and just entering into early bird stage from what i see.

we are still in innovator stage as new things like hardware wallet need to be made (by this i mean user friendly true retail-ready for average joe).. we arent quite there yet
we need proper forex quality exchanges with top end security, proper financial audits, transparency in regards to cold stored coins matching the database balance sheets. and fully licenced to accept fiat properly.. we arnt quite there yet
we need big businesses that want to accept bitcoin and hoard it. much the same way FIAT businesses only cash out their 10%-50% costs and keep the profits.

although we dont need government regulation, we need to build atleast some form of contractual moral code (list of promises/term and conditions) that have a basic standards that businesses need to work towards/achieve, else be sanction by a court (breach of contract)

we also need more gateways for people to push signed tx's to. allowing for transactions sent via API and not only tcp

we need a second alternative to a full node. i dont mean these lightweight wallets already made, but a new full node program that is an alternative to bitcoin-core. to ensure the protocol cant be changed by bitcoin-core with a simple update.

we are relying too much on bitcoin-core, blockchain.info and prototype quality products and services.. so i think innovation still has alot to achieve.

that is a sign of innovation/ early adopter phase.

Think about mobile phones in their very early phase. Or the internet.

Many people are skeptical about new ideas and technologies until at some point everyone uses it and no one even remembers what it was like without it.

The fact that people say they won't touch it just means they don't see the benefits yet, but in time they will.

Just like back in the 90's people said "who needs a cellphone anyway, if people want to call me they can call to my home phone, and when i'm not at home they can just wait"

look where we are now.

I agree with the others that we are still in the innovator stage. 

Bitcoin has not broken out into the mainstream and in many ways I see it more like the internet in the early 1990s before Netscape even came out.  It was know to a few people but had not widely disseminated and that is exactly what the innovation stage is about.  Buy the mid 1990s people could use the internet without knowing anything about it (thanks to graphic browsers like Netscape) and we are not there yet with bitcoin.

We have room for a lot more innovation with Bitcoin and a lot more people to welcome to it.

this thread was sleeping, thank you for actually appreciating this thread..i will read your blog