Bitcoin Forum

There's another topic comparing the 2: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1260666.0

The subject here is that between 2014 and 2015, Paypal gained 16 millions new users (https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/about). There's no way to be sure as it's impossible to count how many users BTC has, but I believe it's more than BTC. Much more. So I'm asking why? And ultimately, what can be done to reverse this trend?

Since BTC is cheaper to use, I guess Paypal is more successful because it's better at making its users feel safe, without any dark cloud/block size issue above their heads.

I sincerely believe BTC's one hundred times better than Paypal because it's a currency, and unregulated, but something clearly has to change. I've been here long enough to remember guys writing that BTC would kill Paypal, it hasn't, and it doesn't look that it will.

Of course PayPal ia growing faster and enjoys more popularity from the people. It's just normal. I also believe Bitcoin is much better than PayPal, but we need to convince the average Joe's of this world to give Bitcoin a fair chance. But how........

There already has been such discussions and everytime I choose Bitcoins over paypal for the "N" number of reasons.Low fees,easiness,anonymity and fast transactions are few to be mentioned.The simplest reason I could point out is the service fees for my country's Bank Transfer.I'm not from the US or the Uk ,when I try to send the paypal amount in my bank accounts I get ripped off by the service fees its like almost 30% .Also,who wants to submit documents publicly on the internet ? BTCBitcoins forever!

Paypal grows faster than bitcoin because there are hundred thousands sites that accept PayPal while the number of sites which accept bitcoin as a payment method is quite few
But once bitcoin get more users, nothing can compete it

Paypal has always been growing, as others said above, because it is the largest most trusted online payment processor now.  This is mostly because of lack of innovation from competitors.  When Bitcoin is used more it will quickly surpass paypal.  patience.  :)

PayPal is good making their users feel safe just like banks are good making their users feel safe. They use a honesty mask and make themselves look like an impenetrable vault and regular people believe in them because we were all educated to do so.

Bitcoin's acceptance isn't being hindered by block size issues. When people first get to know and start using Bitcoin, they might not even know what a block is. People will only get to know these issues with Bitcoin if they start using it and investigate the currency, at which point they're probably already actively using Bitcoin in their lives.

The biggest issue is, as said, low merchant acceptance.

Virtual currencies will kill PayPal and fiat. However, Bitcoin might not be that currency, and we might not be here to witness that.

Why not Bitcoin? Bitcoin + Lightning Network is the real Paypal killer. Until then we will possibly remain rather small, but that is actually good news since it only means we have more time to benefit from being there before the average joe jumps in. We are still early adopters. There will be no excuse to not accept BTC once LN is working. It will faster and cheapter than anything else.

PayPal is more popular because like 90% of the worldwide online shops accept it as a payment option along with credit & debit cards.

It can be Bitcoin, I only stated that it might not be Bitcoin :) I don't see Bitcoin being ready for prime time straight away with whatever change it may have this year.

We're delusional if we all think we're early adopters. Not even all Legendary users from this forum are early adopters. At least that's what I think.

Bitcoin is already faster and cheaper. We don't exactly need LN or block size increase for that, especially the cheaper part (pretty hard to be even more expensive than PayPal!!)

Who dont know or had used paypal before?Paypal has regulamentacion and is accepted everywhere and is a company with a long history record,bitcoin made 7 years and is knowed as bad or black market or for some scam attempt sofisticated.Those new costumers will make the match and they will come to bitcoin atleast a part of them,but lets say to them welcome to the online market,as to make paypal account they wanna earn money or buy something.

Haven't never understand the reason why can be compared bitcoin with Paypal. Have nothing in common. Bitcoin is currency (or whatever is classified in several countries when it is regulated and is regulated according to the various conjunctures existing in every country) while PayPal is a service which use currencies. So PayPal tomorrow, if decide, can accept bitcoin as one of the currencies which can use this service to reinforce the anonymity which have bitcoin itself. What is taken as a common characteristic when are compared these two subjects? The anonymity which offer both? Have any meaning. It was the same to compare one person who don't want to be identified with a house when is new and yet don't have its address. The second subject can be used from the first and both are anonym. But anyone it is not so crazy to compare the first with the second. Exact the same is even the case of Paypal with bitcoin.

You really can't compare bitcoin and paypal.
Paypal is mainstream for a very long time, bitcoin not yet.
Paypal is regulated by the law, bitcoin isn't.
Paypal users can't ask for anonymity from the government, bitcoin users are anonymous.
I can easily find many other things why you can't compare Paypal and Bitcoin but this should be enough, I think.

 

...and do not forget: Paypal is much easier to handle for non-techie persons. Let Bitcoin become more user-friendly (and it will be in the future) then Paypal will get a serious competitor. But not only Paypal, Western Union, American Express, Visa, Mastercard and all the others, too.

because it cover the user order, so people feel more secure in using paypal despite the huge fee, especially when they buy from unknown or shady website

with bitcoin is the same if there is an escrow with multi sig addresses, but not many shop online...

with paypal you are also safe, when you do tranzaction online easy can chargeback

The only reason for this is mainly due to the fact that PayPal has been around 10 years more than BTCitcoin has been so far and it's well known among merchants and almost every one accept it but BTCitcoin is still relatively new to the whole world even though has been around for some years. The moment others realize BTCitcoins payment, they will most likely switch to it and stop this trend as it is.

Accepted in much more places and its had a huge head-start from being the main method for eBay.

you should not be comparing bitcoins with paypal these are two kind of a different things, bitcoins is itself a currency ( money ) when paypal is payment processor and there are to much age difference between these 2 so time will tell, i hate paypal when it come to sellers protraction.

It is easier to grow when you have a bigger user base already. Just look at two facebook pages, one with 10k followers and other with just 1k. Which one will have a harder time growing? But when user base is really big, then it becomes harder to grow.

It does not make sense, and the value of Bitcoins is different, if we compare Bitcoins with PayPal then we can mention that only the way they both transfer the money is same. But Bitcoins is itself a digital money and transfer fees is very less compared with other services.

Banks also have regulamentation and they're companies with long track records.


Is chargeback safe?

First they join PP to familizarize with online payments, and then join BTC.


I can imagine african people who never used online finance they need time adjusting before they feel comfortable. And then they join BTC too after certain time.

It's normal since paypal is just so old skool.

It's like you are an old person and don't know something new is around.

My guess is bitcoin will soon compete with the big payment processors.

Government hates BTC
Media shows that BTC is being used for illegal activity - i've watched in an ending of CSI series where he killed his brother over a BTC because i think his brother hacked his wallet and stole his BTC  :'(
some average joes/people who don't know much about the internet world and pretty much they would stay away from what they can't understand.
 In my country most of the population don't even know what is a Paypal.

There is more than just one reason why it's so.

-Almost, ( if not every ) online merchant is accepting paypal, whereas most of them don't even know what bitcoin is.
-As technology advances and spreads into every home, it's only natural that number of online purchases increases as well, and with it of course, the most common way of paying
-With bitcoin, you can only spend money that you have as there's no line of credit, and people bind bank cards with paypal and spend on line of credit

Several people said that BTC and Paypal cannot be compared and they're entirely right. BTC's vastly superior, it's a currency besides being a fantastic way to exchange money electronically between 2 distant people. I also add that Paypal is old technology, so how come its user base keeps on growing fast and big?

If we look at Twitter, it's leveling while the newer Snapchat app is gaining millions of new users each month. The same thing not happening to BTC, people giving up old tech to adopt the newer and better one, just shows there's something wrong with BTC. Better fix it soon. What can we do to help?

PayPal is a money processor while bitcoin is a money itself.You cant compare the two.It is like saying more people use USD than PayPal would it be a fair comparison?

cant see how you can compare btc to paypal. 2 diffrent services one handle online payments with fiat money, one handles a digital currency. one has been around for like ever it feels like and one is "new".
why dont we compare why more people watched star wars episode 7 than star wars episode 4....

I have been using PayPal for years and can remember when some people were dubious of it. Ramblings of I wouldn't trust any company with my details, how the times have changed there can't be many people that don't use PayPal now. Bitcoin is relatively still in its infancy as more and more people learn of the benefits of bitcoin it's user Base will grow aswell.

Good start would be to educate journalists and media to stop writing that bitcoin is dead, bitcoin failed, bitcoin is used only for drags and money laundering, etc.

Average joe before putting any hard earn fiat money into bitcoin, will google it. And if only links he seas recently are that bitcoin failed or is dead, or used by terrorist, then its easy to guess that he will just avoid it.

nope, I think paypal was the one who walks in place, users paypal slower growth, in contrast with bitcoin, very fast

Paypal is universal and you do not have to convert to get money that you can use right away.
It can be linked to your bank account so there is no need for any middle man to do any sort of transaction. This is were bitcoin lacks in it's usability unfortunately.  :-\

You know why PayPal is growing faster than bitcoin? Because it is a company with goals, contracts, budget for promotion and advertisement.
While bitcoin is like ship without a captain, drifting around in random direction, no plan, no will to evolve. Of course PayPal will win.

There is an ongoing review on the rev share program community on mypayingads and if it is not resolve many share sites will stay away to paypal and accept bitcoin as alternative in fact many are now integrating bitcoin as one their payment processor,once that happen the market for bitcoin will grow..

They also have hired on developing staff from bitcoin companies to strengthen their company brand.
The former Xapo employee a few weeks ago was the last one to join the paypal ranks. So yes, paypal is on a mission and one they don't intend to lose to bitcoin that is going everywhere without a set path, as you just mentioned.

Bitcoin doesn't have a captain, but it has so many crews that more loyal than PayPal's crews.

Yes I think paypal is indeed growing faster than the bitcoin because paypal is always updated. Although many conveniences bitcoin bitcoin good and still not balanced in the selling price, and it should be corrected. I think bitcoin could exceed paypal if handled more seriously.

Ofcourse you grow faster if you are more widely known.

Just look at how facebook was growing in its early days and how happy the team was when they hit 1 million users.. They were growing hundreds to thousands a day and now thye get tons of daily sign ups.

The bigger you are, the more potential growth speed you have.

Bitcoin will see it's exponential growth, im sure of that.

Of course it's  growing faster: 99.9% of the online merchants accept it.

In the Fiat world everything expands exponentially especially the bs

it would be more interesting to see how much paypal needed to reach this stage of awareness and how much was small at the beginning

but in the end paypal is not comparable with bitcoin directly, one is a payment system the other an escrow between two party

We really can't compare paypal with bitcoin, bitcoin act as currency and paypal just act as a place to store currency.
Bitcoin has a fluctuating value and paypal hasn't. That's make people choose paypal rather than bitcoin, mostly  they afraid about bitcoin value moving up and down faster that strange for them.

PP offers buyer protection and it works, I experienced it firsthand.

I think paypal will remain on top of bitcoin as long as people don't provide all services with bitcoin everywhere in world. Because of this people have to trade/exchange bitcoins with paypal or some other money.

You have to wonder if all those "new" users are really new. One of Paypal's tricks in the past was to invent fictional breaches of therir terms to lock accounts. They were then moving their balances straight into their p&l account. I don't know if they are still doing this now that they are no longer owned by Ebay. What I do know is that I have been offered a free $10 for a domain name related action, and I won't use PayPal after they tried to scam me for $650. I have tried to give away that $10 to four people, and all have declined. One is another person that won't use PayPal, and the other declined because they don't trust Paypal (but still use it ? ).

Paypal is already mainstream and I don't think we can compare Bitcoin to Paypal. Bitcoin can't compare head to head with it as well since Bitcoin have less merchants using it. If both are at same level that would be a nice comparison.

Yes, paypal has many ridiculous policies, has many limitation once found out, u
your account will be limited straightaway. Especially for merchants, many chargebacks take place. They have to accept it because it is popular by buyers. It is business risk that they have to take if they want to run it.

for at the moment perhaps indeed paypal above on bitcoin, but bitcoin spread very quickly on the Internet, since 2009
You will see 5 years, bitcoin above from paypal

Yeah and it is not a better option to compare paypal to bitcoin as paypal's market cap and customer base is more and bitcoin is new and at the other end, paypal is payment system and bitcoin is a currency, so I don't think this is a valid comparision, we will compare paypal to bitcoin after 5 years.

We can see on few examples from past that not best technology win always. It`s a marketing and wide acceptance of people which push popularity up.
I would wish that Bitcoin has similar power to show his best.

It's hard to believe this is true.
A while ago I saw a screenshot where bitcoin already bypassed paypal. LIke it should, since bitcoin has more features for the average user.

The number of users PayPal has isn't that much honest, For example I myself own more than 30 accounts in PayPal, Some were closed or limited, some I just forgot about and had no balance, BTC doesn't have that huge number but the few millions it has are active users and that can be demonstrated by the number of transactions (and total value).

Exactly, bitcoin is very transparent as compared to Paypal, Paypal involves a list of rules and regulations and it is also noticed that Paypal has lots of hidden charges which it imposed on their customers, So in short customers are being cheated by Paypal, on the other hand Bitcoin has no hidden charges and transactions are very cheap and instant, So people who are into bitcoins would surely never use Paypal.

Yes bitcoin is very transparent and there are no hidden fees that are honest and fun. And really like what you said that in general bitcoin users do not use paypal but also there are some who are using both.

Yea it is normal lol, since BTC price is unpredictable, and people feel save buying things via paypal

of course, today is better than bitcoin paypal so growth is also better paypal. Paypal also higher security system that makes a lot of people wear it so it grows faster

Exactly, paypal has been around for years and years. Paypal is a third party payment method, you are able to use paypal without giving out your info to a mechant. Bitcoin is a currency, you can't compare these too. Plus paypal has had more advertisement than bitcoin.

I don't think you can really compare these two together.
There's a big difference between bitcoin and paypal.

Paypal is secure but sometimes just too secure and hence people hesitate to deal in paypal, I think still bitcoins are far superior than Paypal.

Is it important ? I think as soon as any paypal growing, getting better even paypal is best remains bitcoin, because we are the bitcoin, so do not ignore the growth of paypal and stay focused with bitcoin because someday I am sure that the growth of bitcoin will be faster than the paypal and into the best  ;D

paypal is easier to understand for a regular person who just want to buy and check out on amazon or any other huge ecommerce site, they should be better. so just wait till someone sends them paypal funds and file a dispute to to them and these people will eventually look for a better option such as cryptocurrencies.

Exactly. Paypal's fees are a lot bigger that those of bitcoin. Paypal steals more and that way it grows faster.

yes right, paypal security is very bad, even as easily stolen, I see a lot of groups on facebook Ca * ding paypal, so easy person to get another person's account balance is enormous.

Paypal has a lot of restrictions with withdrawals and deposits atleast where I live. I also have to link credit card details to be even able to shop anywhere outside my country. I think the concept of growing faster here is just making it look more primitive considering the restrictions it has due to regulatory pressures. Bitcoin without regulation is out of those pressures and is easy to spend and receive with.

And yet people are willingly giving their money to PyaPal and don't care about the fees. Isn't it a contradiction? I think bitcoin inertness is caused by its decentralized nature.
We collectively don't care about future and consumer adoption, we all care about here and now and how bitcoin price can be higher without actually doing anything to upgrade BTC!

This is similar to say: The number of people travel by train is growing faster than number of people travel by car  ::)

BTC is much more unique compared to PayPal, it is a complete payment system rather than just a website. PayPal is bigger because it's way older and got attention over the years, as soon as BTC reaches it's amount of popularity it can easily surpass it.

For me paypal is growing faster than bitcoin because paypal is safe than bitcoin and paypal are using usd or main currency and i think many company are using service of paypal like PTC site CPA network or PPD and also company that you can buy online like ebay amazon etc.
However bitcoin is easy to use but in bitcoin world they are anonymous and you will be scam anytime because you cant reverse the transaction than paypal that you can dispute if you are not satisfied or the product is not good as he promise.
So people will choose paypal than bitcoin thats why they are growing fast.

http://fortune.com/2016/01/13/paypal-adds-wences-casares-to-board/

Yeah, i have seen more and more stores that only accept paypal. Not even CC, only CC through Paypal. I dont like it however, because it banned me.

Not when paypal has enough capital to buy out those loyal crews for themselves.  :-[
There are a lot of sell outs as of late from the bitcoin founders association. Latest acquisition was the ceo of xapo  ::) Fernando was sending apps to play for xapo customers last week now he is directing at paypal.

I don't see the relation.


That's my idea. There seems to more bitcoiners concerned about short term profit, that is a rise of BTC's price, than long term, which means upgrading bitcoin core, the network, everything so that the number of transactions can be increased exponentially without hiccups. The network handles 200,000 transactions each day, this is small. Very small considering there are over 7 billions people on the planet.

Paypal is just more user friendly and has a long history behind it, you see their logo on so many sites and this has been so for many years.
It will take time, for one, to attract more users.

Maybe some revolutionary service will pop up with a big marketing budget and spread the word that way.

You don't see the difference between train and car?  ;)

Besides, Paypal does not move money at all, all they do is moving numbers of the client's account, like an exchange do, all these account are just some database without any money in it

This.

Bitcoin may be 'safer' and 'cheaper' than PayPal but PP is basically USD whereas bitcoins are just numbers to people and easily gambled or scammed away - not so safe. I know I learned this the hard way.

PayPal is basically a coinbase and could easily implement BTC into their system if the market became favorable. As for now, too volatile.

This one happen probably because so much merchant accepting paypal

agree with you.. btc not as famous as paypal, all merchant still dont know about btc i think.if all merchant accepted btc im sure paypal will be useless
bcause btc got a low transaction fee and easy to use
hope bitcoin will be grow faster

As I've said before on other posts, PayPal and fiat money will always exists because of its convenience.

Bitcoin benefits merchants because they have to pay fewer taxes or fees on their income, because they can manage their own funds. It also allows for similar benefits for consumers.

Bitcoin will grow if it continues to gain value and get good things said about it, coupled with education about the current financial system.

Well you'd have to take all the things into consideration, Paypal is accepted at more online stores than Bitcoin FOR NOW, and most of those 16 million users you mentioned must have probably joined Paypal because they wanted to purchase something from Ebay or other online stores where Paypal is available.

And as Bitcoin gets accepted at more stores worldwide the number is going to increase further more.

Also, for now it is easy to exchange fiat money to/from paypal but it is still a bit difficult doing that with BTC, so we need to focus more on making it easier and SAFER for people to buy/sell BTC.

which is the train ? paypal ?
I think the notion of Paypal is growing faster than Bitcoin is wrong.
I used is a blogger, and payapl it obligatory, but now many bloggers are turning seek bitcoin, it is the proof

its no wonder,paypal today is more strange than bitcoin,and grow faster,but paypal have some weak,its a verify account problem,so many people confuse about this feature,and bitcoin can resolve this,i wish bitcoin can introduce it self to paypal user,and i hope they are interest. as payment,bitcoin maybe better than paypal,because it more simple,but the price is matter for itself.

Paypal can grow in different ways but the Bitcoins is totally different because of its benefits and value. The Bitcoins users are getting profits in exchange of Bitcoins. Paypal can do transfers of money only.

both have their respective advantages, there is not owned by paypal or from bitcoin, such as security guarantees for buyers of paypal and anonymity of bitcoin
both are growing well

In a way many people haven't even heard of BTC or they think it's a game. In time BTC will show it's true value, not just monetary.

Quite simple. Bitcoin just can not be understood and handled by the average person. I understand it. I'd say 99% of the people I know could not understand it, setup a wallet, fund that wallet, spend from that wallet and not lose that wallet.
It is as simple as that.

That is only because PayPal has a lot of more view and attracts a lot more users because of its legal status. Bitcoin growth it is still being delayed by its Darside assossiations

Paypal is much more popular than bitcoin and paypal is almost accepted everywhere, protects the buyer rights etc, bitcoin is new and not always is good for the buyers.

Metaphorically it's a game, and we are winning.

PP is too restrictive and its after all a middleman. There is no way that you can store cash online by yourself, however you can store money online via bitcoin, middleman for bitcoin is optional, not necessary.

This is bitcoin's real advantage, it makes the middleman optional.

Summary for those of you who haven't worked it out yet.

PayPal.
Great for buying on line, offers protection against non-delivery of goods and fraud.

Fiat.
Great for using in the pub, local shop, paying for your mortgage, getting your salary paid in. Etc, etc, etc, etc.

Bitcoin
Good for buying drugs.

Measure the growth in %.

You know thats BS right, you completely dismiss the amount of gambling industry, video games, remittance, online services, investments, etc..

Basically there are much more things for what bitcoin can be used, so dont be too negative on bitcoin.

Just because you can push a brick along the floor with your nose does not make it the quickest way to move it from place to place.

So how many people are paid in paypals and how much is one paypal worth? 

Srsly, this is like saying that AT&T is growing faster than Telephones. 

Paypal is just an old way of sending money. It's not ok for 2016 where users care about anonimity.
I would rather hope that bitcoin will take the lead in global payments.

You can make a quick google search and see that there are a lot of companies that are accepting BTC and their list is growing slowly but steadily every day.So it's not just for drugs. Also AK-47's. I'm joking of course!

This comparison is quite valid. This is saying that AT&T is getting a bigger share of the market, and this is what's happening with Paypal. it's getting a bigger slice of the pie, meaning that compared to it, BTC is shrinking. No good news, really, but I understand it so well. With the block size issue unsolved, nobody wants to bet on BTC.

i am also believe that bitcoin is better than paypal,but i'm not agree if you said paypal growing faster than bitcoin,because paypal founded early,and bitcoin just need 7 years to make people interesting.

Well about safety of costumers paypal is one of the safiest and trusted than bitcoin because in bitcoin they are many scammers and you cant reverse the transaction its not just like paypal that you can dispute your sent transaction.. and you can made a case..
So safety is always first...

Paypal cant be compared to BTC , because BTC gives you easiness while PP sometimes give you headache :(

agree more with your observation. As a seller i would accept bitcoin quietly, but as a customer i would prefer pay with paypal because I fell 'more' safe paypal as it would refund in case of problems with the transaction

Paypal is growing as it has provided secure return back policies, which has not been yet experienced in bitcoins. Paypal also giving ads along with its engaged business firms. This provides better growth to paypal than bitcoins

Paypal is growing faster than bitcoin but that is because there are many sites that accept PayPal While Bitcoin has only a few websites that accept the payment method.
But maybe in the future Bitcoin will take over the world, It gets bigger everyday.

didnt feel headache when using paypal, but some of my friend say that paypal easily can be stolen its credit by hacker when you wrongly fill in your data on random sites,but PP will make your transaction harder to do when they smell abnormal activity from your pc

theres a massive differance between the two, 1 is a massive centralized business who deals in Iou's and can at any time stop you getting your money.

The other is a decentralized, peer 2 peer network that allows its users to have control over their wealth and spend it at will. 

every time I go shopping. I several times found with bitcoin as payment method, in contrast to a few years ago, which is still very little

That is because Paypal requires fiat, if Bitcoin did as well, it would grow just as fast. You can't compare the two.

I think you can compare them, they are both payment methods.
both getting bigger nowadays, Paypal is more used and easier than Bitcoin in my opinion.
Because its a better system for websites and used on many websites.

AT&T is getting a bigger share than telephones?  Is General Electric in competition with electricity?   How about: is Microsoft in competition with C?   

What some people seem to fail to realize is that PayPal and BitPay and Visa - (all payment service companies) - can work with bitcoin just exactly as easily as they can work with funbux and yuros.

What's next, paypal growing faster than the ren ming bi? 

Paypal has a lot of restrictions with withdrawals and deposits atleast where I live. I also have to link credit card details to be even able to shop anywhere outside my country. I think the concept of growing faster here is just making it look more primitive considering the restrictions it has due to regulatory pressures. Bitcoin without regulation is out of those pressures and is easy to spend and receive with.

Hopefully with the signing of Wences Casares from Xapo to Paypal's board we could see a perfect integration of both Paypal and Bitcoin in the near future. This will open the door for an amazing grow, imagine how easy would be to obtain Bitcoin, and even sell it. All eBay products would be at hand and many more stores will follow since that will give a lot of legitimacy to BTC.

Even with BTC been more cool, etc (thousands of arguments) it is all about acceptance...

I can recharge my cellphone credits with paypal, and I'm in a country of shit.
Here you can link your paypal acc with almost every ecommerce webpage, and you can link your paypal to your CC. This makes the usage very "strong".
But I think BTC is just a step back, again, it's a matter of acceptance -- this is what makes a coin strong, like the us.dollar is much more valuable than argentine peso or any shit coin from some communist/socialist country.

BTC is very close to this point of acceptance. Paypal is a little older than BTC.

BTC is becoming much more interesting and wider than anything else.

 8)

WTF?

Paypal is easier to use and faster than Bitcoin. The anonymity nonsense about Bitcoin is another myth. Of course Paypal is not anonym as well, but terms of privacy offers lot more than Bitcoin which by definition registers all transactions in a public ledger, and therefore never offered anonymous payments.

No wonder after 6 year media hype, endless media coverage and hundreds of millions venture capital investment in BTC startups Bitcoin total active user base is well less than a million - the volume of a second grade social media web site. Until the vocal BTC supporters will be uninformed and naive users like this one then Bitcoin has no chance to be more popular.

Even growing in numbers of costumers doesnt mean they are trading or buying and selling more,for me means more people willing to use internet to shop,and the most shops use paypal at the moment and credit cards,bitcoin hasnt became yet an option on there.