Bitcoin Forum

I was just thinking in my head about bitcoin and it's chances of succeeding of a major worldwide currency. I thought back to here about how many posts there are with bitcoin's success, what are some ways you can think of that will make bitcoin Not succeed. The most obvious in my opinion being a hack of some sort to the blockchain.

It's 2023 and coinbase has tradmarked "to the moon". 90%+ of all transactions are handled by coinbase since they make it easy for non-tech people. They are the facebook of the digital currency world. They will only process payments on whitelisted addresses. If you are traced to anything outside their terms of service the will close your account. By 2025 everyone has been banned by coinbase for small infractions and bitcoin is marked a failure.

I guess some of the problems will eventually be solved, like usability and security for the average joe, insured exchanges and custodians also already happening.

I can only think of regulation and fraud, that can really stifle bitcoin's adoption.

I think the only thing that would really stymie it long term would be intractable problems with security and accidental loss due to bitcoin being decentralized, with no central authority to appeal to when you lose your passwords/wallets, or to secure your funds for you if you don't do a good job yourself. We've seen a heavy toll from hackers and scammers targeting bitcoins the past few years. I don't think that will continue unabated due to improvements in security in wallets and exchanges and increased security competency in leading bitcoin businesses. But if I'm wrong, the continued losses to theft could discourage enough core bitcoiners that it begins to dwindle.

That's really the one thing I realistically see stopping bitcoin from carving out at least a substantial niche in world finance. Other factors limiting its growth would be ease-of-use limitations with the software being developed for it, but those are being overcome little by little every day, and I don't see them as intractable. Even if you never could buy coffee at Starbucks with bitcoin as conveniently as with a credit card, it's already simple and easy to use for major financial uses from online purchases to buying real estate.

Huh? So coinbase bans everyone and goes bankrupt. Makes no sense. Nor does it make sense to imply that being banned by coinbase somehow locks you out of the blockchain or from using bitcoin directly. You have imported the fiat/central bank mindset into bitcoin in a way that is completely anachronistic.

Yeah, I think usability is not too bad at the moment for average people it is just about them getting their head around how it works. THIngs like the address book to store friends addresses and how easy it is to see how many BTC you have.
I think the big problem is about them learning how bitcoin works and wanting to use it after they hear about it.

It is not going to fail people will want it to people will try to make it some will be scared of it failing but the tech is here to stay it is not going anywhere thankfully. Instead of thinking of ways how it can fail think of ways you can help make it succeed.

With your last comment about bitcoin and credit cards I think we are getting closer to realities like that everyday. There are already a few bitcoin based debit cards out there in which you can essentially pay with a credit card which comes out of your bitcoin balance.  

Bitcoin doesn't have to become a world currency to succeed and I think it will never become one.
It can succeed as a store of value or a payment processor that allows for cheap international transfers. It can also work as a local currency if any country decides to use it.

Have you ever seen the world to agree on something? Some countries will always oppose each other and if even one of them started using BTC the others would fight it.

The only thing I can think of is the imbalance of distribution of bitcoin , which gave a few people a lot of bitcoins , even through the scams and hacks, and that giving them a chance to manipulate the prices.

But that is comparable to the distribution of fiat money in which the top %10 have something like %90 of the worlds money. Scams and hacks can be problems but most of what we have seen with bitcoin have all been third party problems and generally not a fault of bitcoin itself.

The obvious threat that I see happening right now are some ponzi schemes created out of nowhere and trying to link themselves to bitcoin and then ended up destroying bitcoin's reputation. And I expect it to have a long term effect as the negative perception will turn people's attention away from bitcoin.

1 - the world government arises
2 - the world government decides to hunt bitcoin and bitcoiners, by closing all nodes and jailing everyone that has some involvement with BTC


POOOF, Bitcoin is gone

How is that different from real money?
Discussing real economy, do we separate fiat money from from its associated institutions (like Banksters who print too much of it out of thin air & eat our children)?  We don't, we talk about gestalt, the whole kit & caboodle.

Just like fiat attracts Lizard People, Bitcoin attracts its own motley crew of hax0rs, budding scammers & simpleminded incompetents.  Just like fiat lends itself to its associated set of evols, Bitcoin lends itself particularly well to scamming, amateurism & petty theft :-\

Lots of uninformed people out there already think that Bitcoin is some illegal currency that is used to buy drugs on underground sites. As long as the general masses believe this, I don't think Bitcoin will progress much.  You can have the best product in the world and it's useless if no one wants it.  The media certainly isn't helping with it's constant portrayal of Bitcoin funding terrorism and buying drugs in crime rings.  Aside from that, just look at all the bickering and fighting regarding Bitcoin that goes on right here in this forum. What does that tell you? What does it tell curious outsiders that may be looking in? That speaks volumes alone.

+1

That's one of the most disappointing fact about Bitcoin... :(

Haha so he answered the question...  it's a valid argument - with government control and regulation (much like Net Neutrality), it can kill Bitcoin.  No need to get upset at his argument... because as we currently stand, we are poised and in position to move in this direction.

I believe over time people will look into it and the such which will help them learn and open up to the truth. Although I agree the portrayal of bitcoin does not help with the masses.

Let's not forget...

http://s18.postimg.org/5nnrfydmx/Capture.jpg

greatest obstacle for bitcoin right now is how to obtain it. Unless obtaining bitcoins become A LOT easier, it will be very difficult for it to succeed.


And for those who think that it's "not that difficult to obtain bitcoin", that's because you're a huge believer and/or a real techie. For the other 99.9999% of the world, even if they get some interest in bitcoin, they'll give up once they see they have to give so much real info and wait days for confirmation from an exchange, and obviously they won't be able to mine since it's really hard for a non techie to understand how to mine, and even if they did, they don't have the equip to mine any significant amount.

People first learn about how bitcoin is "anonymous", and then all the exchanges want to know every single thing about them... it really just doesn't work. I think this is the biggest obstacle bitcoin has, and no matter how many stores accept it, if this doesn't change, bitcoin can't be mainstream.

The only way it will truly fail is if people stop accepting bitcoins as a form of payment. But seeing as how all these people still want bitcoins and people are buying bitcoins, that probably won't happen. With more merchants accepting bitcoins the odds of failure decrease.

He didn't mention government regulation. As for control, government cannot (realistically) "control" bitcoin. It can just pass laws regarding how people use it. That has limited effect, as the history of legal compliance in all areas demonstrates.

His argument was that a company could gain a monopoly status with bitcoin and then use that to exclude people from bitcoin who didn't comply with their terms of service. That is nonsense if you understand bitcoin and the direct access everyone has to the blockchain.

Well said my newbie friend that is spot on!

Bitcoin is not going to fail now unless something serious happens to the blockchain like you said op also govt could get excited and hit it with regulations but a lot of people would still use it just like they still use fiat now with all the regs.

I think bitcoin is already a success but the only thing that could kill it would be if something far superior came along. If by sucess you're talking about more widespread adoption I can see a couple of things hampering that. Firstly laws and regulations that strangle its use and apathy from the general public and merchants. If merchants aren't accepting it and people aren't using it then it will likely remain stagnant or achieve growth.

You can explain to them how bitcoin works in a simple manner, without those jargon and whatnot. If you want other people to believe in you, you must try not to scare them by mentioning several technical details and jargon that may lead to their confusion. Same with bitcoin. You needn't explain to them the algorithm or the other technicalities that bitcoin has. They only need to understand the basics, like what is bitcoin, what is the block chain ledger, what is an address and how to store their bitcoin safely. In that way they might adopt the currency and help the bitcoin economy. But if you try and explain them with a nerdy approach, you'll probably scare them away,

You use fiat and never asked how it was made, right?

What you're describing is a world where fiat currency lives on despite peopled frustration, because no one is willing to innovate something better. It's not the way the world works!

If Coinbase became such an awful company to work with competitors would arise that fix the problems and we would flock to those competitors and then the system would flourish with the companies that innovate beyond our problems.

Why do you think Coinbase is so bad anyway?

The topic was to come up with a way that BTC fails. I don't think bitcoin will fail so I came up with the lunacy above in an attempt to humor OP. I didn't mean to upset so many people!

off the top of my head:

1. Its possible for the mining technology to reach a point where someone makes a major break through and monopolizes that break through to capture 51% of the mining market.

2. Major catastrophic failure of large mining facilities could damage the ability of the network to solve payments since the difficulty will be too high for the rest of the network to pick up the slack until the next difficulty update.

3. So much processing power comes online through bitcoin that the singularity is reached so a bitcoin artificial consciousness is born, causing all kinds of havoc with payments.

Bitcoin has already succeeded from my point of view.

No doubt there will be more demonization by governments and the media in the future but it's nothing we can't handle.

Wont be adopted by banks anytime soon  :)

Probably won't have merchants looking at is as a store of value.  This can perhaps be okay - IF verticals can be established and a closed loop economy exists.  Ie: merchants pay their vendors pay their suppliers pay their employees use services and in turn these different verticals feel confident in holding onto the BTC as opposed to simply cashing it back into fiat.  However you can't demand that of a businessowner - (s)he needs the money/rates to be locked in! - thats possible when you're discussing home currency together across the verticals, but not necessarily so when they refuse to take BTC.  If employees demand it though, remember that drives them to also hold onto some as well.

1. governments consider/realize it represents a threat to fiat monetary stability and links it to -drug crime -illegal pornography -human trafficking -gun trafficking -terrorism -money laundering -banking regulations -national security/currency stability -whatever they feel like , and declares the possession of non-state currencies a treasonous act punishable with hefty fines and/or jail time (people and merchants cannot jump ship fast enough and nobody will ever adopt it on a wide scale - price collapse / ecosystem collapse immediate due to severe regulation/illegal status)

2. people realize that 99% of the "merchant adoption" are actually online stores that don't deal with everyday customers face to face and that 99% of the bitcoins accepted are actually converted directly into fiat national currencies anyway and never held whatsoever for any length of time by merchants - in other words people snap to the realization that merchants don't accept bitcoin - they accept that you can sell your bitcoin at market price and pay them in fiat currency for their goods - people abandon bitcoin due to the unnecessary difficulty of use , hidden costs of converting fiat currency into bitcoin and back again for purchases due to exchange fees / wire fees / in person markup , impracticality of wild volatility within a currency , but ultimately a realization that merchants actually don't accept it (and/or merchants begin simply removing the bitcoin purchase option as a payment method due to lack of use , tax implications , regulation , reputation , or a host of other reasons from a business perspective , since they never really took it as payment in the first place - price collapse / ecosystem collapse results)

3. people realize that the "killer app" of bitcoin is the ability to purchase/hold/speculate/trade on the price of bitcoin on exchanges in fiat currency amounts , realize that this represents 99% of the actual use and functionality of bitcoin and that in general the vast majority of the current "bitcoin users" are actually just "using bitcoin" to make fiat money , not using bitcoin to buy anything (since it's actually more difficult and costly , not easier and cheaper than existing payment systems , all use as a currency ceases from users and merchants and speculation on price becomes 100% of the use case leading to eventual collapse - tulip bulb phenomenon essentially - people realize it's not useful and only being used to trade speculatively and isn't easier or cheaper than other forms of money - price collapse / ecosystem collapse results)

4. quantum computers are a reality within 5-10 years of today and break the sha256 algorithm and/or all secure wallets are no longer secure and/or the entire blockchain brought to a zero state with a "time travel" hack that cannot be prevented , essentially the technology fails to remain secure due to advances in computing capability , quantum or something otherwise not predicted (likely government has/will have the first functional quantum computing capability and uses it to end bitcoin due to perceived threat to national fiat currency stability)

5. satoshi nakamoto comes out of the woodwork and decides for whatever eccentric reason to end this experiment that is bitcoin - he singlehandedly crashes the price to 0 on all exchanges 10x over , since it's not possible for him to cash out all of the 1 million bitcoins he mined in the first year without doing exactly that (he as well as a handful of other individuals mark karpeles included have enough bitcoins to zero the books on all exchanges and 1 chooses to do so - bad actor whale kills it basically - all "faith" in bitcoin is lost since this would functionally mean the dev has cashed out and abandoned it / the whole thing is revealed to be an intentional scam from the get-go)

6. ongoing non-stop hacks thefts exchange closures continues to cause ongoing price decline and lack of public faith in the system / involved parties (mass adoption never occurs due to ongoing lack of meaningful public trust perception , merchants remove bitcoin payment option due to reputation reasons , existing users are one by one robbed repeatedly - price collapse / ecosystem collapse results)

7. bitcoin gains widespread everyday use in the west but china consolidates mining capacity and successfully 51% attacks the bitcoin system continuously as part of an economic war blitzkrieg against the west , in addition to calling in the trillions in debt the u.s. currently owes china , as well as other measures (basically economic war is waged by china against the rest of the world starting with the u.s. in an effort to become the sole global superpower and bitcoin is an unfortunate casualty of the economic war)

8. wide scale disaster brought on by solar flare end of oil intentional EMP global climate catastrophe or other external phenomenon renders a major part of the global power grid inoperable / cities unlivable (no power = no bitcoin , economic systems / society itself in general collapse bitcoin included)

9. bitcoin is surpassed by a simpler , easier , cheaper , better , more evenly distributed digital currency - people flock to a better alternative and bitcoin is abandoned (price collapse and merchant/user abandonment due to switching to a preferred alternative)

10. it simply continues to downward trend in price from the illegally manipulated price caused by the fake billion dollars fraud ponzi exchange that was mtgox , which singlehandedly used their position as the sole exchange for the first several years and dominant position up until it's collapse to falsely manipulate the price using non-existent dollars , customer deposits , and insider trading to move the price from pennies to $1200 - people wake up to the fact that the entire rise in price was due to this con-job pulled off by mtgox , ongoing abandonment of user base and merchants continues (basically , nothing major has to happen at all , bitcoin dies naturally just like it's been doing for the last year and a half after this truth became evident and user base began to shrink - user base continues to shrink , as does merchant acceptance , leading to eventual collapse of the price / ecosystem)

11. the pockets of willing whale buyers / new money coming into the system functionally dries up vs. the ongoing daily supply of 3600 btc being produced and summarily sold to cover real world expenses of power / warehousing of mining equipment / other overhead (basically we reach the point of no-greater-fool and price cannot go anywhere but down since supply will greatly exceed demand - price collapse / ecosystem collapse results)

12. the network potentially grinding to a halt and transactions piling up as all of the industrial farms shut off in quick succession due to ongoing inability to remain profitable / insurmountable sudden drop in price - this massive backlog brings all usability as a currency or payment method to a sudden halt (transactions are no longer able to be processed in 1 hour , but more like 1 day or 1 week and getting worse over time , merchant acceptance is rendered impossible , and abandonment of user base is likely due to impossibility of real world use - price collapse / ecosystem collapse results)

... i'm sure i could think up many more ... but ... my head hurts ... but in general ... either world governments will stop it , the price/ecosystem will collapse (continue to collapse) due to many numerous possible reasons , it'll be surpassed or ruined by other technology , or some disastrous external factor will bring down bitcoin / information society as we know it ...

Aranging a multiple horror stories how people lost their money investing in bitcoin, and maybe some news about people being blackmailed for bitcoins
would make some headlines, then just keep public consistantly assured that bitcoin is root of all evil and u got yourselfs a panic.
Then a case or two about hacking peoples wallets, financing terrorism, and some major flaw that could make bitcoin worthless, that would be enough to cripple it down to almost dead.
But whatever u do, bitcoin will be there and still be worth something, so i think theres no actual way to kill it totally.

cheers

^
>bitcoin will be there and still be worth something, so i think theres no actual way to kill it totally.
9 out of 10 pedophiles agree :)

Why is this idiot posting pictures of a kid :( What is wrong with you can you answer a question in a normal way without bringing a innocent child into the conversation you sicko. Just like you them sicko's was here before btc and will be here after btc unless we find away to change their brain chemistry and stop their illness and maybe at the same time help you guys who live under a bridge on your own living your sad and lonely life. These guys giving btc a bad name will be a set back but it will succeed there is not much that is going to stop this now.

So that everyone is anonymous, and the government can't trace down the transactions(Not easily, anyways)

when it's sole purpose is as a method to transmit money and not for price speculation.  ;D

The most likely way that Bitcoin could fail to succeed is that people lose interest in it and eventually nobody cares about it. I think the chances of that happening are quite high.

Remember the Segway? It was going to revolutionize personal transportation. There was a lot of interest in it for a while, but now ...

I was just thinking in my head about email and it's chances of succeeding worldwide. This internet thingy doesn't look like it's going to succeed because who's goin' spend all that money for a computer to just receive mail when the post office has been doin' it pretty damn good and cheaply for over a century.

See what I did there? If not, think blockchain.

Looks like we have a long way to go in informing the masses about blockchain technology when our own keeps forgetting to differentiate Bitcoin from the blockchain. Bitcoin could end in the very next second, but the blockchain technology will change the world in ways that haven't even been imagined yet while Bitcoin advocates are watching the exchange rate go up and down and up and down and ...

the only thing that come to my mind, besides the value, which can go to zero(actually i don't this is enough to kill bitcoin) it's another currency taking its place

You are the ones who bring innocent children into this, you creepy Bitcoin sexual deviants!  Victimless crime my ass, you're destroying young lives to satisfy your sick sexual needs, you don't care who you hurt, sicko!

And now just jerking it to child porno & worshiping Satan Satoshi at your so-called "Meetups" isn't enough for you Bitcoin degenerates?
Now you want to "alter your brain chemistry" you say, get hopped up on shit meth & bath salts to fuel your deranged child rape fantasies?  Under a bridge, you say?  Filth!

There is no excuse for what you do, Bitcoiner!  You don't belong in this world >:(

Too many to list but let me start...

-Bitcoin is too slow, it does not re-create the "cash" effect that CC's do have since you have to wait for confirmation.
-Most normal people don't want to wait for confirmations, let alone the 5-25 minutes Bitcoin can take.
-Also, many want to have the feel of having a full coin or a bunch of them, really tough with Bitcoin.
-If you spend $100 in Bitcoin it looks like you only have a dime in your wallet.
-Wallet don't tell you your $ value nor do they let you trade easily.
-The 10 Minute block is too lengthy to make it fast enough to be currency.
-There is not enough coins to become either national or global currency.
-Most of the bag holders in Bitcoin are either elitists or crooks, this leaves little for honest and regular people.
-Too many miners living off of Bitcoin; constant selling pressure.
-Too many big retailers too fast; constant selling pressure.
-Lack of big serious buyers.
-Too many crooks
-Miner Greed
-The list goes on and on...

I keep reading posts about people bitching about the Tx costs so let's not forget that either even though I think it's a ridiculous claim.

In my opinion, 5 years from now, Bitcoin will no longer be the Crypto of choice; due to the fact that there's a lot better coins out there.

Bitcoin was essentially a model for cryptos, aimed to replace Western Union and Money Orders; this was accomplished.

Now a few years later and other cryptos aspire to replace Bitcoin with more features, services and perks built in.

I'm not trying to bash Bitcoin, I still mine and use it, just stating the not-so-obvious.

Bitcoin isn't slow. Transactions are instantaneous. You don't have to wait for the full confirmations much like you don't with your credit card. You send the money and they payment processor does the rest and promises to pay the merchant for you. You can also use bitcoin payment processors that will do the exact same thing.

Let me get this straight. Are you seriously accusing all/most users of bitcoin of pedophilia? I hope not. That's a serious charge, and wildly without basis. Criminals use all forms of currency, and it makes no more sense to blame the currency than to blame hammers because someone once used one to commit murder. It's just money (or a store of value, or whatever you want to call it); there's no justification in making wild, sweeping charges.

Maybe you've been hurt directly or indirectly by someone; if so I am sorry for you, and hope you can find forgiveness and healing. But posts like this are really out there and will not help you (unless you are trying to get on a record number of Ignore lists.)

Biggest threat to bitcoin is rules and regulations that the gov will put into place. They probably wont do it on purpose but they will stifle adoption. I think merchants not accepting it is another problem and we could see some shady lobbying from credit card companies.


He's a troll. Ignore him like pretty much everyone else does around here. Surprised he hasn't been banned et.

I'm not accusing all Bitcoin users of pædophelia.  Some of you may be purchasing child pornography for other, wholesome & totally not perverted, reasons.  You also may be buying it for someone totally not you, perhaps your bath salts dealer?

inb4 "buy legit goods and services":  You seriously expect me to believe that you wire money to shady Albanian "exchanges" (pay fees & risk being xah0rd/exchange OKTHXBAI!), or hook up with other creepy pædopheles Bitcoiners via pædophelia bulletin boards LocalBitcoin (to be kidnapped, stabbed & robbed at gunpoint), just to buy stuff available directly via CC?  
http://s12.postimg.org/7g1rkr8p9/Capture.jpg
Or does the adrenalin rush of putting yourself into needlessly dangerous/hilarious situations heighten your CP experience?  Another kink?

OK, Ignore it is. I've used BTC to pay for things ~20 times so far, just boring stuff like a 4K monitor and wifi extender and some Christian books and so forth. Nothing even remotely questionable.

^You went through the whole goldbergian process,* just for the thrill of buying stuff with BTC?  The same stuff you could have bought with a credit card for less?

---

*
1. buy BTC with USD
  1a. drats, price went down, go to 1 & buy more.
2. pay BTC to a payment processor, who
3. converts it back into USD &
4. sends the USD to merchant

Would you rather have child pornographers and paedos buying cp with bitcoin or fiat? It's not like they won't be buying it so the medium is irrelevant though the authorities should be doing what they can to catch those breaking the law in whatever way.

Confirmation time could be too slow for some uses.

Are you so strung on CP that you won't stop, no matter how dangerous/inconvenient the procurement process becomes?  Didn't realize it has come to this :(
According to your logic, we should start selling CP in news stands & on Netflix.  Because you're gonna get it one way or another anyhow, might as well make it convenient for you, right?

http://s12.postimg.org/g2osaft1p/Capture.jpg

Bitcoin will succeed no matter what. All the obstacles for Bitcoin are ways to prove Bitcoin's resilience. Bitcoin's ultimate fate is succeed since there are no other alternatives to the fraud we live in.

i think the worst thing in the bitcoin scene is the waves after waves of negative news that sprouts every now and then. i am not saying it is going to cause bitcoin to fail but still it is hurtful IMO.
things like bitcoin dying, wallet hacked, people getting robbed,... of course most of them are related to price but still they are gonna hurt.

Could Litecoin take it down because its faster transfer rate?

Forget slow confirms.
"Bitcoin network is restricted to a sustained rate of 7 tps [...] VISA handles on average around 2,000 transactions per second (tps), so call it a daily peak rate of 4,000 tps."--Bitcoin wiki, https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability

World currency ::)

I used to think this sort of thing gave altcoins a big advantage. But I think the improvement from a 10 minute block time to 2.5 or 1 minutes/block is fairly minor in terms of the proportion of financial transactions where that matters.

For example, for online purchases that will be shipped to your door, saving 9 minutes is probably not going to result in a package arriving any sooner. Likewise it doesn't matter much for investing or real estate or other major purchases.

And on the other hand, 1 minute blocks are still painfully slow if you are standing at the counter of a fast food restaurant that only accepts crypto after "X" confirmations. For in-person purchases we are simply going to have to forget about the X-confirmation approach and go with the kind of network-propagation techniques that Bitstamp and I think others are using for near-instant transaction confirmations. In which case the altcoins also have no advantage.

So, in theory there may be a small benefit, but in practice I doubt it will (by itself) be a game-changer. At least not for a long while.

To fix this issue we would need to mine a fork of the bitcoin chain that has a larger block size (i think this has been proposed by someone). I'm guessing the issue with that is the storage requirements to have the chain on a harddrive would skyrocket.