Bitcoin Forum

I've been expecting a new all time high for a while and it hasn't happened, but I believe it will happen soon. From everything I have seen it looks like liquidity is weak and demand is high. OTC liquidity is harder and harder to come by. Big money still wants in as the store of value use case continues to prove itself, especially in India, China and Italy.

Mining investment continues, we saw a 10% jump in difficulty at the last adjustment. My pet theory is that it is miners who are providing the liquidity despite most of them being long term bullish, not just to pay expenses but also in an attempt to keep the price artificially low to protect their market share by keeping mining less profitable for new entrants due to upfront costs. But with each dump attempt, the liquidity gets soaked up and held. I believe that this market share protectionism is also primary in the blocking of SegWit as well.

The boom is coming though, first from smart money and then mainstream money short behind. The next three months will see the launch of the major projects that will make owning at least a small amount of BTC a must for many. These are t0, MegaUpload2/BitCache and Yours.

First will be t0, which will be the home of an offering from Overstock. This chain anchors into Bitcoin and will prove out the digital land use case of Bitcoin. On chain anchoring will become the standard for all blockchain projects in the financial sector, and as other chains are forced to anchor investors will get it and come in just in time to make money before adoption becomes mainstream.

With MegaUpload2 succeeding in its crowdfunding campaign, it vs set an end of January launch date. This is going to be the first undeniable use case for mainstream users. Anyone who wants to download from MU2 will need to have at least a buck or two of Bitcoin.

Finally Yours will bring it home. Content creators will monetize on this platform and content consumers will be forced to buy Bitcoin to continue consuming their content. Yours will kill Q&A services like Quora, digital marketplaces like Shutterstock and likely many other business types we can't quite determine yet.

You make some very good points about the different reasons for increased adoption.

I'm still of the mind that the number one motivation for people buying their first bitcoins is as a medium for international transfer and as a safe haven from government capital controls and bank bail-ins etc.

Sure, the majority of bitcoins are held and traded for speculation but these are often the same coins being traded back and forth.

Obviously beyond mere speculation, the reasons for Bitcoin use have changed over the years. At first it was as much a proof of concept as much as anything. Buying a couple of pizzas in Florida with bitcoins from someone in Britain was a landmark moment as it established Bitcoin not only as a system of commerce but also underscored its international nature.

Then came Silk Road and Satoshi Dice which established it as an international pseudonymous unit of trade in black/grey markets.

With the Cypriot banking crisis in early 2013 a new market was opened up. As we've seen, this extended to China, India, Italy, etc.

In my own experience, when I visit one of the local BTC ATMs, I see people of visible minorities with limited English language skills lined up to buy modest amounts of Bitcoin, presumably to send home to families in their native countries.

These are not speculation coins. These are bitcoins performing real-life financial tasks. These are the coins that (in my opinion) have caused the price to rise upward despite the ups and downs of the speculative market, and will continue to do so.

Eh, I'll believe it when I see it.  I do think something along these lines is coming, but none of us knows when or to what extent adoption is going to rise.  Having hope and really bullish thoughts doesn't really help anyone, and that sort of thing can be detrimental to your wallet.

People need a real reason to use bitcoin over fiat, and so far I haven't seen really compelling reasons.  That's heresy, I know, but to me bitcoin works much better as an investment tool and store of value than as a currency to be adopted for spending.  But we'll see.

Indeed, spending is not an important use for Bitcoin at this time.

Its value as a medium of international transfer is however very real. When people sell their hard-earned dollars for Bitcoin to send overseas, it's to save time and transfer fees. Even the tx fees people bitch about are minuscule compared to bank or Western Union fees.

Likewise, even if it takes longer than expected for the transaction to be verified a sufficient number of times by the network, it's still just hours and not a week of banking days.

These are very real, very compelling reasons.

But without real utility, why is it a good investment and store of value? without a reason to use it, why does it have any value at all?

There's no need to let you see in order for you to believe it because adopting bitcoin nowadays is very rampant over internet transactions specially in tradings of cryptocurrencies. Its not impossible that adaption boom is coming because people slowly grow with their knowledge of using btc specially when they found source of earning it and they gain skills of altcoins trading. Gambling online was just a one way of adaption proof to let  people knew that adoption boom litteraly now.

I liked your theory.


The megaupload 2.0 was mostly hype and talk at first but i think with someone so experienced in this field like KimDotkom it can be a good publicity for bitcoin and bring lots of new people to bitcoin which will bring lots of money in.


the reasons are all there for those who look for it, but the use cases aren't for example bitcoin is the best for paying for everything online but you can't find places that are popular (eg Amazon, Ebay) to use bitcoin.

Exactly that is missing. Especially in well developed countries with a top notch fiat based payment infrastructure. It completely wipes away the need for Bitcoin being used as currency tool. If you purely look at online spending purposes, then Bitcoin is still the top leader for me. I use Bitcoin in 90% of the times when I transact with people around the world, or do an occasional purchase at a web store accepting Bitcoin.


The investment aspect, as well as the store of value aspect, will be the main points of Bitcoin that people will be interested in. Gold is no longer the sole ruler in the market that people can use as a hedge, store of value, investment, etc. Bitcoin is here and ready to be used by people appreciating what it can offer them. I hope even the hard headed average joes will also realize that. It will be an insanely though job to get them on board.

Indeed 2017 will introduce well thought out new use cases. I also believe this will influence the growth and the price of bitcoin.
MegaUpload 2.0 for example will help many people familiarize with bitcoin and is just the beginning.

We certainly need a new wave of adoption. We seem to have hit a wall, a bit of a plateau. I hope something can draw lots of people in & we see the price rise significantly.

depends where you live. in europe bank transfers are free and instant.

and let's be honest here, if you're doing transfers beyond your local banking system with western union by the time you throw in the expense of buying and converting back btc, western union is often still gonna be cheaper and faster for the smaller stuff.

if i had to pay for something big in america then i'd definitely try to turn them on to bitpay or coinbase. if my friend in kathmandu is starving to death then it'll have to be western union still.

the only real unique actual use case right now is dark markets but with the advent of better and better analysis it's possible that door will close.

and public adoption doesn't matter. what really matters is more use by the foundations of the finance industry. the public will follow them.

But, I just believe into the reciprocal of your statement. The price rise significantly attracts many new people into bitcoin adoptions. The adoption boom is already happening, it may go intensive when bitcoin prices approaches $1000 again.

I am exciting with megaupload 2.0 launching next year, with their bitcoin bitcache feature. Also there are many news about bitcoin adoption even the government services.Indeed 2017 is an exciting growth for bitcoin.

For that adoption boom, we really need these companies and giants to get into bitcoins for other people to know about this who are not aware of it.
I am also expecting a new all time high soon seeing the current user adoption level only, and thanks to all those who contributed so hard for this to happen.

There are many challenges with monetizing content creation as we have seen with Steemit. I don't see Yours killing services like Quora anytime soon if ever. I agree with most of your other assessment though, but if miners are long term bullish it seems counter-intuitive to get rid of BTC just to keep other miners out

Im thinking the same thing too on which  bitcoin would surely have a good year on 2017, big adoption events will surely happen like  you said about  megaupload. Im waiting for that too on which we could say that adoption really booms out as the days and months goes by and we cant really stop it. Adoption is really the main thing that really affects the bitcoins price movement, the more people will use it the higher the price.

Maybe you're looking on the wrong direction. The remittance market is huge, and it's already being disrupted by BTCBTCBTC.

I don't think mainstream adoption is coming at all. How many people use bitcoins to purchase stuff from Overstock?

Bitcoin is behaving more like an asset class (gold, property etc). People who want to store wealth away from the prying eyes of govt. People in places like Venezuela and Argentina who are dealing with delinquent currencies and want something to hold it's value.

But in the west normal fiat will continue to be used to purchase the necessities of life.

Maybe, but OECD countries-1bil people, the ROW-6 bil.

that's because there is still no real way to earn bitcoin easily for the average people aside from buying which is not convenient for many, and also it feel like investment, many don't want to invest, they want to acquire, you don't invest to have fiat, you acquire it, so until bitcoin will not be easy to acquire it will no be on par with fiat

Bitcoin is one of those things that becomes more useful and more beneficial to all parties as more adopt it and use it. Right now it's not convenient for someone to use bitcoin if you don't already have it. For those who do already have it, most would rather hold/save them like myself. But bitcoin does bring benefits to all parties doing a transaction, these benefits are realized when more and more people use and accept bitcoin, as the in-fracture develops and as apps become more simple and convenient to use...  mass adoption is definitely coming.

This, exactly.

That's how i use bitcoin anyway. And i know that i am not alone. I purchased some digital services with bitcoin (like domains/hosting etc) and i think it is the perfect tool for anonymous online gambling but that's mostly it.

Knowing that it will rise and rise in time makes me wanna hold my coins rather than spending them. Dunno if its a bad thing or good.

I am also exited about the possibility that Megaupload 2.0 will take off and it will push Bitcoin into the mainstream... The monetization of this is

big, and we can definitely move forward if this does take off. I just hope that SegWit and LN is implemented by then and we would not have any

scalability problems when it happens.  ???

It's good - it's acting like digital gold. And it has an advantage over normal gold in that it is easy to get hold of and mobile.

Mainstream adoption is coming, get coins now while you still can
Once the whales move in, whole  coins will be too expensive for the average user  ( $10k+)  and people will deal in Mbits or maybe even satoshis...

Right now bitcoin doesn't scale for shit, so this is a pipe dream unless something comes along to change that.

There will be ways for people to buy Bitcoin using their fiat money soon enough; all they have to do is wait for more countries to start doing things like what's happening in Switzerland along with having more trustworthy phone apps acting as wallets for users. If they can get something like that on their phone, they will be a lot more inclined to use it instead of what they'd get if it was restricted like it is right now.

Scaleability is a war at the moment but no matter who wins, bitcoin will be extremely valuable....
It doesn't really matter whether the block size is raised or small  txs go on sidechains.... Btc will  get much more valuable than it ever was before....

All the graphs and figures point toward adoption that is preceding exponentially ... not as fast as exponential as in the early days but exponential growth never-the-less.

It will scale whatever you and the bear FUD trolls think/say/do, it's inevitable.

That ringing in your ears is the sound of inevitability.

It's coming and everyone can feel it, but it HAS to be user-friendly for the average Joe to reach those $10k+ levels. Until an easy to use payment system or app comes along that is cross-compatible with smart phones and everything else, it's going to be hard climbing.

Even now a little knowledgeable people were good to use with the help of various bitcoin wallets that were compatible with smart phones. At present people doesn't have a good understanding about the technology running behind the success of the advancing digital currency network. Soon more compatible apps might emerge over the years, so that even people who doesn't have much knowledge too can use which supports adoption.

Mega upload 2 is just one of hundreds of new projects being developed for next year so I have no doubts that the bitcoin price will be on the moon and maybe even on the mars...  :D

I'm not really convinced if Mega Upload 2 will be a success.
Sure Kim Dotcom made a big hit with the first version.But that's years ago and meanwhile several one click hosters have popped up.
There needs to be a very smart and useful business and payment model running in the background, otherwise it will be a failure.
But let's wait and see what happens.Maybe the german giant can surprise me again.

In terms of OP's believe of a coming adoption boom, I also think not too expect too much.Sure in the price can rise and reach new all time highs, but I doubt we will see that much new startups and inlux of new people joining the Bitocoin space.We are still in early stages and lots of things are way too technical for the average joe out there.Lot's of things have to progress.This takes time and needs patience if it should be done properly.

As long as people are ready to wait for their confirmations and getting their deals settle down in minimum 10 minutes then we need to concern about the ability of its scaling just due to block size. Even with 1 MB block size, I too believe bitcoin may test $10k price levels with this current wave of booming.

In my part just what i did recently, i  have an account in a PTC site, i have not verified my paypal account since they need another reference documents in order to be verified. The problem is that i don;t have any documents of billing under my name instead  they are under my parents name, I am having a difficulty in sending a credit to my ptc account with paypal because there is no other way to send or transfer money to but to follow its rule. Lucky there is this netteler that accept bitcoin, i have send fund to  my ptc account with netteler thru bitcoin transaction.  The process went smooth without any problem.  It would be great if bitcoin will be use directly instead of these third party processor, but with enough adoption, things will change in the future.

There is a whole inertia thing going on. Why on earth would an ordinary person go to the trouble of getting a bitcoin wallet or app and paying with that, if they can easily carry on as they are with cash and plastic?

The only way people will switch is if something goes badly wrong with paying with cash. And even in India right now, with the turmoil created due to the swapping of the notes in circulation, bitcoin adoption is very slow, because only a small amount of Indians have smartphones, and their internet coverage is patchy and intermittent.

Venezuela and Argentina should have been prime places for the switch to bitcoin, but only the wealthy did it, the masses didn't.

It's of course easy to say something about a project that has not been launched yet, but the market has changed considerably in the last years, where the need for such a service is only decreasing. Competition is heavy as you also mentioned. Services in that part of the market are fighting for every dollar that they can earn. Especially when you consider that you have so many free alternatives, or alternatives that cost you way less.

OP;

The adoption boom has been an ongoing process already. It's something we can't deny at this point as the usage and the number of transactions are increasing in an incredible pace. With all the hard economical situations in numerous countries, it will give people far more incentive to dive into Bitcoin as some sort of an escape/hedge. Smart people have taken positions into Bitcoin years ago, but it's surely not too late right now. People must pull the trigger and give Bitcoin a fair chance in their own benefit. You can choose to have freedom of owning everything that you have, or continue to be a slave of the system where you don't actually own anything.

Im looking forward Megaupload 2 a lot. There's a lot of people that often shit on Kim Dotcom saying he is a fraud, but I think that this is because he is a very controversial figure, but at the end of the day, he has been successful in his businesses. His fame is a good asset to get free marketing and if he can deliver at a technological, the service will be a success. Im glad the crowdfunding has been a success. Now it's his time to deliver a good package.

I don't think megaupload2 will have much impact on bitcoin price, as there is lot more competition in the field of cloud storage and situation have changed a lot than few years back when megaupload used to dominate the whole cloud storage market.

Yours still is a concept, there is brave browser already for content creators to monetize their platform but they are still lacking to get any momentum.

However it is true that adoption of bitcoin will increase over next few years and we shouldn't speculate that adoption will be instant, it will require lot more time.

Does gold scale? I don't think so. Nevertheless, gold is at above 7 trillion in value.
My point is even with relatively low number of tx, bitcoin could rise in price as a store of value which is relatively mobile.

Hmm. It kind of does in comparison. You can take possession of it via jewellery, physical lumps, you can buy some fictional paper gold if that turns you on, transfer vault ownership or even mine it yourself.

With Bitcoin its absolute certainty of transfer puts it miles ahead of gold. You know what you have instantly, it arrives fully verified and no one can take it away from you. At the same time that act of transfer is both the most vital part of the whole thing and the bottleneck. It can't be handed over in any other 100% trustable way.

Let me rephrase...Gold scales poorly, unless you are a government size or bank size entity that can have large vaults.
I don't want to store bricks of gold, maybe it's just me.
7 tx/sec gives plenty of typical gold size tx. I don't think that scaling is a problem at all considering LN presumably coming soon for small size txns. All recent network jamming happened because some malicious entity(ies) spammed it.

Yup I could wish business whales like Microsoft, HP,Walmart and more companies should accept bitcoins. These kind of will definitely make good change around the world for bitcoin market.

I really doubt whether these companies will be willing to accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment, as many of them are having tie-ups with the big banks and VISA/MASTER. There is going to be a lot of resistance in recognizing Bitcoins.

It'll never be easy to acquire for everyone.
Let's say a boss will pay all of his employees in BTC. The boss is the person that has to get through the hassle of getting that BTC.
Mining is the only way to get Bitcoins these days and that's not accessible for the simple man anymore sadly.

The store of value and a viable alternative to gold are the major factors that drive more people to Bitcoin. But let's not play down it's importance as a digital payment system, it is there and it works. I guess we all would want it to grow faster though.

microsoft had accepted bitcoin long ago (In December 2014) as their one of many payment options even though they ever erasing it from the list but they just get it back into their sites. (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/14/microsoft-stops-accepting-bitcoin-on-windows-10.html)
the news above are publishing about microsoft's apologizes

and i do agree that adoption by some mainstream website will really give an affect or impact to bitcoin. may even skyrocketing the adoption

the adoption boom were supposed to come for a very long time ago and it has not yet happened. instead we have been seeing a slow adoption which to be honest seems more realistic to me.

i have not been familiar with some of the projects mentioned here but the ones that i know of seem to be very interesting but i doubt that they can live up to the hype for example like MU2 which said price will be $2000 after its release!

Yes, exactly as the price increases people think investing in bitcoin may actually be profitable. And when btc reaches $1000 I am sure many new people will adopt it, maybe even mainstream media show some news flash about it so even more people are likely to research about btc more.

ITT: OP leaves the discussion  :D

boss can get them via exchange or via gateway like bitpay in a more easy way, if he is a merchants for example, instead of being a private, also he would get all his revenue in bitcoin, and pay his employee with bitcoin, still far better than every individual buying by himself his coin

I agree, that's why I said it. But there will always be a handful of people that can't be pleased because it takes more work for them to get the Bitcoin. Be it bosses, miners, homeless people or whatever, someone will have trouble getting BTC.

Most likely this will happen but we still have to see this so lets see what is gonna happen with it, I think that it will be a success honestly.

I'm following closely the news regarding this, and other projects.
If developers deliver these applications, if at least some of these applications hit the market, we will see mainstream media coverage of Bitcoin, and probably a high increase in demand. From my point of view, these are good times to invest and hold Bitcoin.

As more people try to get bitcoins, it is spreading thinner and demand is increasing. So it's not just that there are fewer being mined, it's also that more people are becoming interested in holding some bitcoins that is another factor.

The adoption boom is due to the much spreading happening across the whole world. This is just happening because people who were just part of the fiat had started realizing the true potential of bitcoin. The ongoing variation in price too is a factor for the adoption rise.

I think as price increasing evetyday. We could see more adoption from the people who added in their businesses. Due to thid demand bitcoin price rising steadily.

The adoption and price increase are depending on each other. But, we never could conclude which is pushing the other one. Because, more the adoption will trigger more demand and will eventually lead to higher price levels. Higher price levels usually will attract more people to get into bitcoin adoptions.

One reason bitcoin has gained favor with people is the fact that fiat keeps getting devalued and people rather want something that increases in value with time.

I think it does. Given that the basic unit of gold is the 12.4 kg bar, a mere ounce translates to satoshis compared to a whole bitcoin.

What are grams worth? Do we hear milligrams?

Fiat currencies are much less scalable than either Bitcoin or gold. Any one still use mils?

Still here, nothing to add so far.

It's clear socialism (tribalism by another name) doesn't scale. Fiat money is essentially socialism via the money supply, and it doesn't scale, being vulnerable to corruption, coercion, politics, counterfeiting (printing) on massive scales and the usual central-planning attacks. Evidence is quite clear and long running for these results.

The news is great, but the number still seems very less if we would compare it with any other assets in the markets.
Still a long way to go before we can actually say that the boom has taken place.

geofflosophy I really liked your prediction. I want to share your optimism and I would love your scenario of mass adoption to happen.
One aspect is bothering me, it is still relatively hard for normal people to buy bitcoin, you said that we need to have couple bucks of BTC to use these new services etc.
But do you think that ordinary John will bother to register and verify his identity on bitcoin exchange just to buy $5 worth of BTC for MegaUpload2?

Nope the kind of "adoption" you are thinking of will not happen. Bitcoin is good for the dark markets, over-regulated systems, countries ruled by a dictator who controls everything or a country close to that situation and places where they make it hard for you to get and send money to your families. That is where Bitcoin's value come from. It comes from a place where the "mainstream" does not even to look into or to know.

In short, if it is "illegal" it is good for Bitcoin.

IRS vs Coinbase

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/27/coinbase-bitcoin-irs-government-summons-data-cryptocurrency (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/27/coinbase-bitcoin-irs-government-summons-data-cryptocurrency)

Not sure..if the IRS say gets its way that anyone trading BTC is considered a Tax Cheat risk (the coinbase we want your database of all folk to check by IRS because
just buying BTC on coinbase is enough for us to get all your million users files..ie our assumption anyone buying crypto and btc on coinbase is likely a tax cheat..or why
the blanket summons?

Then adoption at least in USA could be 'stymied' ie ..if IRS thinks BTC business on coinbase is likely tax cheats enough to get all these files..then banks could claim the
same etc ..ripple effect.

The catch is the IRS has gotten such types of blanket files before.

They have WON in a case like this with FedEx and DHL etc that was also a large grab bag everybody summons

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/12/20/irs-issues-john-doe-summons-to-fedex-dhl-ups-hsbc-in-massive-offshore-account-hunt/#70b2534a2d71 (http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/12/20/irs-issues-john-doe-summons-to-fedex-dhl-ups-hsbc-in-massive-offshore-account-hunt/#70b2534a2d71)

Thus IF the IRS is successful in the short term at least will act like a boat anchor and slow price/growth/adoption of BTC imho

Because then ALL banks (if not already) all exchanges worldwide will adopt these methods...thus shooting off another round of FUD and the 'evil' BTC..even if likely
only a small amount of tax cheats would/could even be caught..it will be enough press FUD to keep it all in a nice cluster.....for the foreseeable future...

thus slowing adoption....giving banks time for R9 ...and generally keeping the whole BTC and cyrpto adoption down and away from the masses

hope I'm wrong...but the IRS action on coinbase does not strike me as a 'reasonable' first step..IF you give a damn about cryptocurrency...does seem to be a logical
first step if it scares the crap out of you as a government, however :(

This is exactly the question to put forward when prediction of increased adoption is suggested.

The simple "here and now" benefits of crypto that would spur adoption are the low fees and anonymity. The fees are climbing and exchangers nullify anonymity.

And there is no real utility. All utilisation now is created and not meeting existing needs.

Change that and adoption will spiral out of control=)

WTF are you talking about? It has value the same way gold has value, yet it is a much better version of gold. It's a hedge against market dynamics, a borderless store of value and protection against inflation and capital controls, these are all real utility that is happening now.

Lol at people trying to rate bitcoin with day-to-day shopping use when it's not ready for that yet.  Let bitcoin grow in the phase it strives in now until it's ready for the next phase... it will be less volatile then and there are a lot of good developments in the works (sidechains, LN)

good point but about the fees i have to say that thing was only temporary and just like before (specially last month this happened once again) we are back to normal again and if/when block size issue is resolved the issue with fees is resolved also.

Bitcoin's use will never be for that. The current system used for day to day shopping works perfectly. The banks and the payment processors that are established are all giving efficiency and convenience to their users so Bitcoin has no place in it. Where Bitcoin thrives and will thrive more is in the black market and online dark markets simply because the banks do not serve that space.

So basically you think that bitcoin is only good if you are a gambler, tax evader or black market user?
And if you actually want to do something constructive and increase utility value for customers you shouldn't support it?
You know that this version of protocol is not the final version and in the future we can have huge changes to how bitcoin network will work, right?

It's been coming for the last 7 years. It will continue coming for the next 70 years. It won't affect the price much. The only thing that can move the price is not the adoption, it's China.

 ::)


Another one of these guys....

of course the price will be affect as the people wants their investment in bitcoin give them a profit. but yes, maybe china give the back up for bitcoin and we can see that for now the adoption is really coming and its happen in many country beside some of country will not give any statement.

China is just a country which has got the majority of miners as well users. On account of this we cannot say that China is moving the price. Due to the increased user profiles the variation in bitcoin circulation depending upon their own country market varies. On those instance price gets affected, but most used to understand it in a wrong manner, that China is controlling Bitcoin.

The more bitcoin is adopted, the more people will use it as a payment method. So the demand climbs, while the supply stays more or less constant.
So I think that adaption will increase bitcoin price.
China is still the country with the biggest population. If a lot of them would decide to become a member of the bitcoin community this would have a big impacte on the price.
If you look at it that way, China has a big influence on bitcoin price.

Are you sure Bitcoin has enough capacity for boom? First we need to amputate Blockstream shitheads from the system to make it ready.

China has influence, indeed, but it does not only come from the miners, it also comes from people adopting the currency in that country, since the local currency has a number of restrictions.

...and speaking of local currencies full of restrictions, I think the growing demand in India, which is another very populous country, will continue to have an impact on the price.

I'm going to pick up a bit of extra Bitcoin just in case Mega really does something big here.
All we need is one big service to start using BTC for a huge jump in user base, which (should) naturally lead to a big increase in price.
I would love for it to be iTunes or Amazon or someone, but Mega seems like the most likely candidate, right now at least.

You should have bought your coins far below the current levels if you really thought that Mega might have a significant impact on the price. I personally think the hype in the runup to the actual launch, is the only thing people are looking forward to. After it has launched, the usage will disappoint as the demand for such a service is really low.


Everything helps, but adoption/user base growth is something that takes years to pick up. It's not that when for example Amazon starts accepting Bitcoin, that we'll see an explosion in new people coming into Bitcoin. It will be a gradual process.

"All we need is one big service to start using BTC for a huge jump in user base, which (should) naturally lead to a big increase in price."

Even if big service like amazon start using BTC, not everyone will use BTC on Amazon, they are still able to buy stuffs using their credit cards which is they find it easier and they dont need to buy bitcoins and then pay, which take a few more steps to buy things on Amazon

I do not consider it only good. It is a really excellent tool for doing illegal stuff online. Have you seen the interest from ransomware using hackers? It is increasing. I will not be astonished if we find out that different terrorist groups are using Bitcoin as a tool for value transfer.
 

That is not what I said. As a fellow Bitcoiner of course I want it to be used by the mainstream. But the question is, is there a need for it when the current system that was put in place by the banks and the government is already efficient and very convenient for everyone in society. Meaning if the banks serve a market space, there will be little to no need for Bitcoin. So what space does the banks refuse to serve? Those are the gaps Bitcoin will fill.

Ransomware is natural evolution of cyber crime, it is not because bitcoin was invented we have this problem - it is the the other way around.
Blaming BTC for ransomware is like blaming RSA encryption schemes or any other encryption method - because thanks to them our files can be targeted...
Cryptocurrency is a just a catalyst for every cyber crime but it is too late to back off, if not BTC they would be using LTC, ETH, XMR or Dash - it doesn't matter.

This doesn't make much sense overall

If we assumed that you were somehow right (that miners are keeping the price artificially low), then it would make sense to keep the price low at any time, not so much to make mining less profitable for new entrants as to crowd out other miners. But the latter seems to be even more unreal since they are there for profits after all, not for losses, and as you yourself say, most of them are long term bullish, anyway

this theory can not be true only because miners can not hold price down forever and it has been a long time since bitcoin was created and even if you consider it after the shaping of mining farms there is still a good couple of years and no one can really hold price down for that long.

Scare tactics and economic propaganda seem to be working as these misconceptions are still pervasive - even within the crypto community it seems.

If you think about it, BTC is actually NOT an excellent tool for doing stuff online - not when you have to go through the trouble of washing your bits a billion times (and believe me, the most dogged Tom, Dick or Harry can still trace back your bitcoins).

Doing fiat with corrupt bank officials is still the choiciest and easiest way for criminal activity. You can't "fix" the blockchain.

You are talking about big time criminals, for example, illegal arms merchants or human trafficking operators. And I suspect that the latter are not very interested in doing stuff online altogether, they are more "mundane" in this respect. Smaller fish like scammers, fraudsters and darkmarket users whose illegal activities are conducted mainly through Internet might not have such option readily available to them.  And this is where Bitcoin gets quite handy...

Even if you have to wash your dirty coins a few times

This is becoming less and less of an issue, it was certainly much more of an issue in 2013 than it is now. Really strong mixing in the future will make it even easier.


Well this theory is predicated on the idea that they have mined a ton of bitcoins that they don't have to sell to pay the bills (first because they have investment capital and second because it's so profitable). Another 1/8th of all of the bitcoin ever available will be mined over the next 4 years, some of these miners have 10+% of the network and intend to get those coins into their pocket.

Imagine what will happen to the mining industry when the price of bitcoin is $5k+, when countries invest country amounts of money into building bitcoin mining farms. Will ViaBTC still be funneling 8% of new coins their way?


True they cannot keep it down forever, though if they block SegWit they might be able to keep it down for a lot longer.

That is not the point. My point is there is an increase in some illegal avenues of Bitcoin's use case. Whether or not Bitcoin caused it or not is irrelevant in what I am trying to say. Like you said, it is a natural evolution in cyber crime. Well the use of Bitcoin is already part of that evolution and it will not stop there, it will grow over time and at some point it might be impossible to stop it. It will become a part of society's ills in their life with the internet.

I would say that is an excellent use case for Bitcoin if it becomes widespread and unstoppable.

There is one use case where a big time crime ring could make use of Bitcoins. What about kidnapping for ransom? It would be a lot easier for them to collect money if it was done thru Bitcoin. Let us all wait for the day that a Mexican cartel ransom demand is done in Bitcoin. Or do you see how the big time hit men in the movies only use their computers to send and receive funds? That could happen with the use of Bitcoins. It will be much easier for them and safer.

I don't think it's not more easier to loot bitcoins like regular Fiat. You need a wallet.dat or private key to sweep your wallet. Else it's not at all a possible one until you open and send it

I had already detailed why Yours.network has the wrong model, so they don't concern me:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1567519.msg15753046#msg15753046
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1679021.msg16861040#msg16861040
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1698932.msg17048740#msg17048740

Whereas, MU2/BitCache is a serious threat to my coming altcoin offering in the microtransaction+social networking arena:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/kim-dotcom-megaupload2bitcache-will-take-bitcoin-mainstream
https://bnktothefuture.com/pitches/megaupload-2-0-bitcache
http://insidebitcoins.com/news/thoughts-kim-dotcoms-bitcache/36379

Essentially BitCache will be an effectively centralized, optimization of Lightning Networks, because that is the only way to make LN work (https://gist.github.com/shelby3/c786018a8bb2d8d837abce3a4cf4e799#542-lightning-networks). Don't forget that decentralized is not the same meaning as distributed! I do expect BitCache to be distributed:

https://z.cash/blog/bolt-private-payment-channels.html
http://www.coindesk.com/anonymous-blockchain-micropayments-bolt/
https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/701

I don't think users will really care that the microtransaction network is actually highly centralized. Whereas, I have a design which is decentralized, but will anyone care?

One challenge for KimDotCom's plan is how to onboard users and get BTC into their wallets? My plan mints coins to onboard users. His plan can't mint BTC. So I presume he is going to try to have some easy way to buy a $5 of BTC for $10 using a credit card and eat the fraud. Onboarding is a huge issue, for example why most Indians can't just suddenly adopt Bitcoin.

Over time, I think it will become clear that my design scales better and is more trustless, permissionless. Thus I think ecosystem adoption of mine will eventually win against KimDotCom's. But I admit this is going to be serious threat to my plans.

I think what is likely to happen is we will capture different market subsets. Mine will include (not exclusively) the developing world who don't have credit cards and my coverage will be more widespread in terms of ecosystem diversity because of less potential for centralized chokepoints. The risk of those in the ecosystem embracing KimDotCom's system is association with illegality. Whereas, KimDotCom's plan will likely be successful amongst the pirate community.

Thus I see my plan targeting legal, mainstream, and onboarding the billions. And KimDotCom's once again blazing a path that ultimately flames out again.

We'll see... I will need more help asap...

(ICO and open sourcing will come as soon as I have enough code to reach testnet)



Indeed! Why will people flock to MU2 and go out their way to obtain BTC when they can get the same shit for free without any hassles elsewhere. Onboarding and compelling need are huge obstacles.

My plan addresses this both by providing a more compelling mainstream need which isn't associated with illegality, and which requires absolutely no perceived effort on the part of the users (which is radical improvement on Steemit's awespiring, exciting, but failed experiment).

The comments I read in the first two pages of this thread seemed to agree with my appraisal of it being unlikely that people will go out of their way to obtain BTC for spending on activities they can get for free on other sites.



Indeed. That is why I tentatively plan to name the token 'shares' in my planned altcoin system. The word has a dual meaning, "to share" (social networking) and "a share of the growing pie".



I recently wrote about this:

I argue that is true even if BTC ends up just being the well established/entrenched crypto-currency <--> fiat on/off ramp for superior altcoin(s).

Yes even if Bitcoin has slow transaction times and is not as anonymous as other coins, price is mostly driven by the market.
As long as BTC stays the "gold standard" of crypto- accepted everywhere, there is no telling what the price could end up being.

I think adoption booming will still happen, that's why Op mentioned how.
People will interested with bitcoin, the reason should be on merchants/shops accepted bitcoin as has been done in some places like recently in France. Bitcoin community in every country could make it happen with some innovations, but we'll see.

I really think that this boom has already begun.
You can buy lots of digital goods with bitcoin as a payment. Of course, bitcoin is not going to rule the world of payment systems.
But I think it is going to be a worthy oponent for paypal or bank wire.
Sure, that is not going to happen over night, but I think we will all live to see that happen.

error08 and Carlsen,

It is tough to see Bitcoin being a worthy competitor to paypal or any of the payment networks, unless we have the ability to scale up. The block size restriction is going to be an albatross around Bitcoin's neck. Once that is sorted out, the real potential of Bitcoin will become visible.

What has bitcoin got to do with paypal .it is not even related in any way. Bitcoin and its decentralized mode is far more trustful that any other payment models out there.In paypal your funds are at risk and they can withdraw your assets or froze your account but with bitcoin you control the coins and you have the freedom to save it without paying any charges right in you computer.

While you are right you also miss some points. Bitcoin might be whole new concept but it also share some major similarities with other payment processors - PayPal included.
Both PayPal and Bitcoin are e-currencies while Bitcoin operates on whole new level and PayPal is trying to embrace the old FIAT economy.
With every FIAT based service there is risk of you losing your account - Banks, payment processors, services - all have certain TOS.

You seem to be confusing something here

PayPal is not an electronic currency since it doesn't issue monetary tokens of any kind. It is no more than an online payment processor, and in this respect, it is not much different from any bank out there which offers online-banking. Its advantage and main distinction is that you don't need to visit a bank office to open an account there. In PayPal, you can open an account as well as confirm your identity totally online. Other than that, it is the same online banking with some bells and whistles

agree

I think this is due to the publicity they had made with bitcoin, first of all, most of us bitcoin users, do not own the media, i think be it fake news or real news, what had happened this year just made bitcoin more recognized. I think bitcoin was further recognized when fake news in china caused a panic among bitcoin users, then came out jamie dimon, bad mouthing bitcoin, i think this move, since it was made known to the general public and to the world, more and more people just became curious of what bitcoin is and are trying it out for themselves. There is also the disruption in some european countries, in which some of them turn to bitcoin for financial security rather than their fiat. This may be just the start of a new chapter for bitcoin wherein in bitcoin will be globally accepted.