Bitcoin Forum

Things may not be quite as ostentatious as they were in 2017, but cryptocurrencies are having an outstanding year. Not only has their collective market cap quadrupled since the start of the year, but they are enjoying bullish sentiment on many fronts. ( In macro look)

Whether it’s the unmistakable entrance of institutional investors into the crypto space or the fact that you can buy a latte with Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies are undoubtedly trending higher. Even Facebook, the world’s most popular social media platform, is entering the fray, introducing its cryptocurrency, Libra to its 2.5 billion users.

Consider these growth metrics for the crypto sector:

84% of respondents to a PwC executive survey are dabbling in crypto’s underlying technology, the blockchain
89% of the U.S. population has heard of Bitcoin, a 12% increase since 2017
11% of the U.S. population has invested in a cryptocurrency
34,660,975 people have created a blockchain wallet, a number that has risen every quarter since 2016.

More info and source here (https://www.cryptohopper.com/blog/241-what-s-stopping-crypto-markets-from-entering-the-mainstream)

Taken together, it’s clear that crypto is making significant inroads at many levels of financial and technological space. And yet, obstacles remain to crypto investment markets becoming normative and broadly accepted. Even though cryptos are outperforming every other major investment vehicle in 2019, including stocks, bonds, gold, and oil, they remain a fringe industry.


What do you think is the real reason Crypto is not becoming Mainstream?

It's could be a possible reason is we are still at the early age of crypto, people are still confused about what is crypto. But I am sure that as time goes by crypto is getting a lot of attention from people especially those big financial companies, they are starting to what crypto can do.
And another reason is because of the illegal doings of other people that using cryptocurrency, for example, using it to do some illegal doings, especially for buying illegal drugs. Different hacked/scams involvement of cryptocurrencies, especially in some crypto exchanges.

What I think to be the reasons why crypto will become Mainstream?
-For me, first, it is on Bitcoin, especially the block halving of Bitcoin. If we can be based on the previous, for every upcoming block halving of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrencies market cap are increasing, like a few months or a year before the halving, we can see the crypto starts to become mainstream because the market cap is increasing.

We need to understand that irrespective the exploits and grounds that bitcoin have covered in its life if existence, it's still an emerging and every factors that could be responsible for not allowing it go mainstream are just part of the challenges that needs to be faced its when that level of maturity has been achieved without any significant penetration, we can then be discussing about the factors responsible for holding of it back and not now.

To go mainstream it needs to reach certain level of adoption. Right now compared to the mainstream traditional currency what we get used in terms of cryptocurrency is very small. By this time it is time for growth, we need to establish the existence of cryptocurrency and enrich the usage globally as there more countries that stand against cryptocurrencies. It takes time for Cryptocurrency to enter mainstream, and it is truly good to have it as the alternate till then.

-Decentralized
-Volatile

These main 2 things are the reasons why this one wouldn't become mainstream.Yes, there were some countries that do accept or adopted crypto specially Bitcoin but
still lots of countries are just still on neutral side or just simply observing if they would considerable this decentralized things to be implied into their vicinity but at least
we have seen some progress after all these years and 10 years is still young for this market and there still plenty of rooms to progress on.We cant say that this is a guaranteed thing but we can actually see some light of chances.

The volatility of the crypto market made its reputable not so acceptable to mainstream merchants why they are not considering it unless this is going to be globally recognized. There are reputable companies backing up the use of crypto, its really not enough to make some people even see bitcoin to be used on stores. Once we see bitcoin news and crypto rates being flash on TV like the FX market, thats the time.

What's your own definition for "mainstream"? Bitcoin being used globally with no exceptions, risks, and limitations? Honestly, bitcoin is already a mainstream.

As long as the majority of bitcoin enthusiast will consider bitcoin as a "thing" that will make them rich someday, no way we can see bitcoin will act as a pure currency. Despite the big adoption (yes, I believed that was big?) in bitcoin taking place year by year, still, others take this as "early-stage" which is really not. The development of bitcoin is already can consider as a milestone. However, since people trade for it often and others hodling it, the supposed currency was primarily used as an investment. Big companies don't want the idea of a volatile currency that's why they are hesitant to accept it.

But you know, we can't blame people for that, even I.  Our options to use bitcoin as a currency is limited, at least at some places, that's why others ended up trading or take it as an investment instead.  Big companies or institutions must start accepting bitcoin for that volatile thing to minimize. We really need a whole world's cooperation for this to happen. So yes, because of that status, after all these years, bitcoin is still considered at the early stage of adoption.

There are so many things that people of the crypto are considering, most especially the volatility of the crypto market that is keep on bringing its reputation not so acceptable to mainstream merchants. One thing that stoping them to not consider it unless this is going to be globally recognized.

OK, so the growth metrics are a little more in depth that what we're used to seeing. But really, we can't just cherry pick things like "84% respondents of a PwC survey". Who're these respondents? More likely than not, anything BUT mainstream. And what's dabbling in underlying tech of blockchain mean? If I sign transactions and broadcast them to be entered into the blockchain, is that me dabbling with it? OR do I need to create tokens and code smart contracts? And is that really better for mainstream adoption? I think the former is more important.

Look at gun ownership, how many countries in the world accept that their people have a gun at home? Few countries in the world accept that their people have a weapon at home, and why do not many countries in the world accept that people in their country have a weapon at home? because they say people can use these weapons to commit crimes.

But what shows the reality is different from the argument used by many governments.

Bitcoin is in the same situation, with only a few minor differences, the argument of many governments and central banks is that bitcoin can be used for money laundering. This is because they can't control bitcoin, so they look at bitcoin as dangerous.

For every new innovation, it is expected to react like this. Most people are still on the fence watching the big thing which is blockchain technology. This will surely enter the mainstream in view yeard ahead when it is globally accepted because that is where blockchain technology is driving to

you mean reacting in a negative away ? still depend on the new thing  . if its a new model of gadget for example  , some will love it because it is expected to have a new feature but this can be bash by some because the new model maybe have a bad design  . the same thing can be applied on the cryptos and on the blockchain   . both stuffs are new and have advantage but they do have also disadvantage which can be a concern by conscious consumers .

thesedays i think blockchain and crypt are now mainstream or are close to mainstream because they are way too popular . media and big people are talking about them  .

Those who know how blockchain technology works would rather get involved. If you have been to any crypto meetup you would see the same. Many venture capitalists come there to meet up with project developers and other investors to take part in projects of their liking. Not that all of them are going to to be good but its a bustling market there. But thats more of a niche group even if they are big-cap investors.

Many countries have made blockchain technology to be accepted but bitcoin to be made illegal. These type of stance makes things worse for entrepreneurs.

Compared to every old currency (silver, gold, fiat) crypto is adopting very quickly, does 11 year mean anything for currency? We were implementing previous currencies for decades and if you compare them to bitcoin, there is huge improvement in every aspect.
There may become mainstream or not, it fully depends on what people wish in general and governments also, if we want to print money forever and then pay for government debts, then there is no way it will happen but for economical development, we really need cryptos.

Lack of trust, would be the obvious answer but when you come to think of it, bitcoin has already done quite well for itself over the years. It's steadily becoming a house hold name in just 10 years of existence. The like of bitcoin bonds, future contract trading and soon to be approved "ETF"are already mainstream material. Which means bitcoin is becoming mainstream as the day passing by.

Although bitcoin isn't yet where we thought it'll be by now, it success story has proven there's more room to achieve even more greater success, which achieving the mainstream attention is one of does. The approval of ETF could take the currency to another whole level of success. Let's give it (bitcoin) more time to continue proving its worth, maybe more 10 years.

Right, even though Bitcoin has gone and passed it's infancy stage at 10 years of age, people are still not sold because of the negativity it has accumulated throughout the years, specially coming from media, and one of them is trust.


Give it some time to mature and yeah maybe another 10 years so that people can grasp was Bitcoin can really bring to them before we can take off. The next decade will be critical, maybe we see ETF's or instituional money coming in or just casuals and average Joe or even merchants are going to experiment and play with Bitcoin and maybe adoption can be meet, hopefully.

Simple answer...
THE GOVERNMENT
well, that's the case in some countries. Also, the media has a big part of it since they portray crypto as a negative thing. They don't highlight its' advantages. What I hate the most personally is when they use "Bitcoin: Used to purchase drugs and guns" and at the same time they don't realize USD can also be used to purchase drugs and guns lol  ;)

Global adoption over the cryptocurrencies and making the government into complete e-governance technology only can push the crypto market into main stream. If this not happening means we cannot find the crypto markets in mainstream.
I suggest to Government employees and politicians to pick the cryptos to help their government and boom for their citizen.

The financial system is extremely fragile , i guess the main reason why is the issue of security. Crypto has faced many challenges and bad news but
Education is always one step at a time. As we all know Cryptocurrency and Blockchain is just on the early stage as of now.

Mass adoption is still dream.
We have too much ¨old people¨ in this world, bank system is still best option for a lot of them.
Soon new generations will change it, it takes time.
In Crypto this time could be only a few years, but to have actual economic situation took many many years!

That means we'll have to wait til the elders are dead right?

After 10 years down the line, one should rightly think that crytpo would have been mainstream by now. There are a couple of things still hindering this from happening.
First, the volatility of cryptocurrencies is not everyone can handle. To this, so many still po refer their fiat since they don't have to face such challenges on them.
Secondly, the technical requirements needed to keep cryptos aloft is lacking in so many places especially in developing countries.
Also, lack of awareness has also played a part in delaying crypto markets from achieving mainstream recognition.

The main problem of not accepting cryptocurrency as a fixed asset is the lack of any guarantors to protect your money. Now stock exchangins hacking are common, after which the owners often just shrug. It is necessary to develop a mechanism for the cryptocurrency of the future, where will be mechanisms to prevent such cases.

Obviously lacking of knowledge one and only biggest problem for the crypto industry. This is the major reason and many people does not know what is bitcoin and what its actual uses kind of things.
If you want to pluck out these obstacles, We need to educate about the cryptocurrencies to many people. Once it has been fulfilled we do not need to worry about anything and make use of it.

I agree with you. People always hesitate to adopt something they know very little about. But It's not really about Educating people. If one isn't tech savvy, It'll be difficult to understand the concepts of blockchain and how it works at the first instance.The first step to max adoption would be making cryptos easier to use. Right now, most people want to integrate crypto without their stores, businesses etc but the process isn't easy. Another major isn't is the volatility of crypto market too. Most people just can't afford such risks

One of the most simple reasons is that the market is still too new and innovative and people do not really understand it, it is my opinion that it will take at least a few decades for bitcoin to become mainstream because it takes that long for people to adapt and get used to new technologies, however lets not pretend that bitcoin is ready to be used by billions of people, it is not, as soon as the price begins to recover the fees begin to skyrocket and that is with just a couple million of users.

What do you think it will happen if a billion people were trying to use bitcoin? So before we can see mass adoption we need the problem of scalability to be solved completely.

This is where LN do sits in but for now its still on test/development phase.Scalability is one of the reasons why Bitcoin cant really be adopt completely.
Im not even hoping for it to happen though yet just to think into its entire supply wont really be enough to serve out the entire globe.
So it would be good if it would stay as it is as a digital currency.Its better to be considered as a viable option yet fiat would always still be the main ones.

There's a lot of solid reasons why bitcoin has not used widely yet despite how the growth of cryptocurrency in the last few years skyrocketing.. numbers of crypto business day by day increased.. numbers of crypto user growing fast etc but it's long way to go ..

Banks is the first reason for me , they won't let crypto go mainstream as they are making money through people idiocies . Crypto eliminates the middleman and the middleman itself is banks.

Makes sense? Of course it is! Banks and feds the two greedy bastard loving monopoly!

Correct the banking institution makes the bitcoins hard to get a massive adoption since they are been threaten that there costumer base will lessen if bitcoins will get a legalities, but also I think the big part of it is the government since they cannot control it because of it's anonymity.

Monopoly is real and its been here since ages so theres no doubt that this system would last forever or with our lifetime. Adoption?

Im not too negative but for sure it wont come to the point where it would be fully adopted but at least we are seeing some progress but i highly believe that
it would just remain like that.Hoping isnt really that bad but dont expect too much yet its better to accept the reality and crypto is some sort of options for us and
lucky for those people who are aware into its existence because we can fully utilize its true usage.

Cryptocurrency is now increasingly recognized by the world community, but even so not all parties support the existence of this cryptocurrency. Therefore, it has been around 10 years for cryptocurrency to be used in human life, but why not become mainstream. Though many advantages are offered from cryptocurrency, the cause is the first one most don't understand what cryptocurrency is. So if people do not understand he will avoid it or choose not to use it. The second reason because of extreme volatility which means it has a very high risk because the price is volatile. The third is due to legal issues, people are afraid to use cryptocurrency because of fear considered illegal activities. Because the government has not fully accepted existence cryptocurrency, which is still in the gray zone.

It seems you are worried about the issue of the limited supply like many others, some have the idea there is not enough bitcoin to serve the whole population of the world, but this is not accurate, there is enough bitcoin but its limited supply means that it will be extremely valuable, if bitcoin really becomes adopted worldwide by billions of people I will not be surprised if just a few bitcoins were enough to consider a person to be extremely wealthy.

On average if every person of the world adopted bitcoin, a number that is currently at 7 billion, and we distributed the 18 million coins currently in circulation each person will only get 0.002571BTC, while the numbers are unrealistic this should give you an idea of how valuable bitcoin could become in the future since a person holding one bitcoin will have almost 400 times more money than the average person.

I think there's still a level of distrust towards cryptocurrencies from the general population, or even a feeling of intimidation. Crypto is still very much seen as a "techy" product, and perhaps many people feel like they can't grasp the basic concept enough to ever feel full comfortable with using it, either as an investment or as a mode of exchange. I do think sentiments are changing, and adoption rates are still on the rise. I think as public awareness grows, crypto will eventually hit the mainstream. When I was a crypto noob, I found that marketplaces like Vertex (https://vertex.market) really helped make things a lot less intimidating because of how accessible they are.

Traditional economy and banking system, lack of regulation and education, these are only some of reasons. Also, cryptocurrencies are not designed to support economy as it is functioning now in majority of countries. Also, not all countries have good connectivity and Internet, digital skills and knowledge how to use cryptocurrencies. There are many obstacles for cryptocurrencies to become mainstream and to achieve mass adoption. I don't think if ever this is going to change entirely.

Your methods of shilling your own site need to improve. Stop making yourself look like a joker inserting a link in the middle of the text.

These two phrases are contradictory. It is not supported by all parties and that is why it is less recognised. I dont think any of the 40+y old population think of it as a mode of payment, unless they had been early investors. New investors of this age group is rare.

Some people do but they are not happy with the concept of "decentralisation". They feel even though it is supposed to bring back power to them, it is actually taking it away, making things less secure.

Any speculative market is volatile. Even the fiat currencies are volatile because they are forexed everyday.

Legal problem is a major factor. Governments wont accept bitcoin very easily and they will continue to do against it. Nothing much can be done in this case.

it must be admitted that most people still feel comfortable with fiat money, after all they can get it and spend it. most haven't tried and considered cryptocurrency, bad issues that often circulate become one of the factors that make people worry

But how long it is going to last? There is no denying that people feel very comfortable with their fiat money but at some point this will stop, we know that governments are printing too much money, we also know that governments are heavily indebted and that many banks are insolvent, the economy is still going on just by inertia and when that inertia stops you are going to see all kind of problems emerging.

At that point people will lose confidence in their currency and they will try to find some way to protect themselves, obviously at that point it will be too late and they will have to pay a very heavy price for not adopting cryptocurrencies earlier.

Answer on this question is pretty obvious. Two things are holding crypto markets from entering mainstream, first is government-bank sector! We can`t say just governments, or just banks, they are one sector, they work together, they make laws, print and distribute money, they have regulations, to keep it simple they are centralized institutions and they are responsible for the system we have for years.
Other thing is ignorance. People don`t know nothing about their own economies, to not mention global economy. Basic things like what is supply and demand, who create laws and regulations, how is money printed and distributed, and many many other things. How can this people understand blockchain? We need to work on education, people must learn about current systems about blockchain and to see for themselves what is better and more useful.

Cryptocurrencies go mainstream when there is increase in merchants accepting cryptocurrencies similar to fiat. Right now this is very limited and increased access is available with very few number of cities around the world. This means more preference is given to be an investment asset as well for trading purposes. When this changes this will slowly reach close to the mainstream usage.

There might be some section of the society that are comfortable with Fiat money, you can still consider them as slaves of the system, but people should look for other options. And crypto are giving them that choice, and it will be just a matter of time that they realised that they can't live with fiat system alone. There should be other outside, like crypto that can offer them more freedom from governments and the old banking system.

Government and banking system are really the hindrance here, because they know that they would lose control. Just look at what China did, they wanted to at least curb those crypto enthusiast there. But can they really stop it? I don't think so.

You're somehow right but the merchant integration of cryptocurrency payment system was not the main thing hindering crypto from been use as mainstream of payment cause liquidity, scalability and mostly genuine government support are things affecting crypto mainstream use.

To me the main issue of why cryptocurrencies are not being widely adopted and becoming mainstream is simply that most people are still too comfortable using their fiat currencies and they do not really understand or care why something like bitcoin exists, if they knew that the whole system in which they are participants is for the most part a scam then they will have an incentive to adopt cryptocurrencies but since they are doing well and they can buy all of kind of stuff with their fiat they do not really care about bitcoin.

This question is timely.

Add also its volatility. Like what I've said about it being timely, they find it difficult to adopt it for merchants because they see the price has been fluctuating. It's a possible reason too that many of them doesn't know that there are third-party services that convert the bitcoin that shall be received as payment to them into USD/fiat money.

^ Probably that is one reason just because of fluctuation but for me, Bitcoin adoption now is on mainstream even though some countries they are banning bitcoin but the are small compared to the majority who already adopted. Mainstream means worldwide mass adoption and I think we are now on that current situation. There are many types of payment processors who accept bitcoin by converting fiat and in different trading exchanges. Nevertheless, Bitcoin still needs more people to adopt.

Ignorance about how the system works is a huge challenge but indifference is also a great problem, there are many that know what is wrong with the system but they do not want to change it because they are benefiting from it and in some cases they blame those which are ignorant about it for their fate, but we know governments spend a huge deal of money to keep people ignorant about the truth.

The only solution to all of this is for the government being unable to keep the lie going, this will produce a lot of suffering as those that are ignorant about he realities of the system are the most exposed in the case it fails.

It's not as simple as that dude. Look, we are all slaves to the system in that case.

You think you don't need fiat? Then why are we all looking at bitcoin price in terms of USD? What happens if btc reaches 1 million dollars? You're going to sell right? for US dollars and then into your own currency right? With a bank account right?

So does that make you a slave?

The main hurdle that the crypto-market is facing regarding mass adoption is mindless disruption. The main goal of many cryptocurrencies, or the most important ones at least, it to oust fiat currency. This greatly slows down its adoption rate since this order is for the most of us what grants our positions and enables us to express ourselves within society. We go to work within centralized organizations and get paid in currency that's locally governed and influenced, to be expended in centralized shops that are shaped by the local market. tearing that down will take a long time, if it can even be done. Integration and evolution of the current model is the key where a massive adoption rate lies.

We've been always a slave since fiat exist on that case.There no other system which we can rely on but on that fiat system.Lots of criticisms but we dont have any choice but to
abide with that current system.People are way too contradicting things against fiat without even thinking that they do buy up btc just to accumulate even more on usd price.
As illustrated it would just still end up on converting your coins just to get your own local fiat money. Crypto would be just good to be an optional thing but not would totally
go in talks of mainstream.

The main problem of cryptocurrency entering the "masses" is the low literacy of the population. In the economic, information spheres. 89% of the population have heard! This does not mean anything, unfortunately. Until people know about the virtues of crypto, they won’t go anywhere

I think that's definitely part of it.  Guaranteed when the younger generations come of age, there will be increased adoption because they'll have known about it all of their lives--even if they never end up using it as a currency, they might still own it just to own it.  The same can't be said about older folks today, or even most people in their 40s (with certain exceptions, AHEM).

The biggest factor I think is the lack of necessity for owning crypto.  For nearly everyone, fiat works just fine and people have no problems whatsoever using a bank card or cash or their smartphone to make purchases.  Who in their right mind would spend fiat to buy bitcoin simply to spend bitcoin?  Yeah, if you were buying something on the dark markets that would make sense, but nobody does that for purchases that can easily be made with fiat--and they shouldn't IMO.  It just makes no sense.

If the world ever gets itself into a global hyperinflation scenario--real SHTF stuff of nightmares--then I could see where bitcoin would become extremely useful, and no doubt people would adopt it as a form of money en masse.  But unless or until that happens, bitcoin is going to stay out of the mainstream, at least as a currency.  It's already coming into the mainstream as an investment tool (which is fantastic, btw).

the crypto market is too volatile, it needs stability for it to be supported by many
this is just my own opinion

There are countries right now who are experimenting of being a cashless society. Maybe I should have use the correct word here, it should be dependency. We are still dependent on fiat, however, I think crypto is a good option.

Of course, if we convert our crypto to our local currency then we need banks but I guess if we going cashless or at least crypto as an option, then dependency from the old system will be lessen, but I'm not saying that they will become obsolete as well.

Volatility exists in every market. No market is free of it - there are methods to adjust prices on the basis of upswing or downswing of price and thats what the gold marketplaces do when people buy from them. You dont see people buying jewellery on a certain day or on a certain hour. They are active all day during business hours and they are not running out of options.

Where the problem lies is the governments methods to prevent crypto transactions. Prohibition of using crypto and banning people from accessing sites. Then you have law enforcement tracking down people. These things are a big obstacle to the growth.

Agreed, right now the experimental version of marketplaces accepting bitcoin is found much. Very few succeed with the MVP of the project. This means when one goes cashless there needs to be acceptance. Right now that is very low, it takes more time. Right now more crypto markets weren't legalized which too is a reason for the lack of markets getting mainstream.

Never ever for that situation to happen for that fiat system would be totally obsolete as long governments exist they wont consider out crypto to be the mainstream.

E-currency would be considered instead and crypto would always remain an option.People do know or heavily dependent to fiat so theres no doubt that the end of the
day people will still prefer on things which governments do suggest on.

For cryptocurrency to become mainstream, first of all, you need to get rid of volatility, due to which such a huge range of market manipulations is possible.
People love stability, they are afraid of things that they cannot control. At the same time, cryptocurrency has an extremely uncertain status throughout the world,
the heads of various states very controversially speak about the crypto market, which adds doubt to the heads of ordinary people.

Because it's a conflict of interest since he government know that they can't control the crypto that's why they are blocking it's way to a massive adoption and you can see it on some other countries who block it for using them. But there's still a hope for everything since I'm little bit sure that government will adopt on it when they see a wide spread scattering of crypto in their jurisdiction. We should remember that some adopt the blockchain and what will happen next? guess we need to wait for it  ;D.

The simple answer is regulations making sure only cryptocurrencies will survive which are in favour of governments.
Other cryptocurrencies will die naturally.

You can see that cryptocurrencies are moving more and more away from the so-called ground idea of taking away control of money from governments.

What counts is profit and liquidity.2020 will be a big year for crypto

While cryptocurrency is still new to others since more people  still don't know what cryptocurrency and bitcoin is. And still too many naive people on this industry being scammed by some random fella in social media sites. And the fact that most government are against crypto, bitcoin and/or cryptocurrency will still be the same without the approval and regulations of most government.

Yeah some other parts of the world still doesn't know about bitcoins existence that's why it needs more adoption so that we can see a good spread but actually it's hard to implement since  the market is pretty much not attractive for the new comers since for sure many newbie attempt to enter on year 2018-2019 lose their capital for long streak bear market happen today and for sure this is the huge barricade since many people would not agree that bitcoins and cryptocurrency is a good choice of investment.

Usability.  The internet was around for a long time but "normal" people didnt use it until everything became a picture button.  People are still afraid to lose or get hacked for their money with no way to recoup it.  So once usability becomes a lot more user friendly and security becomes a lot more tight.  That's when the sharp curve up will start.

Bitcoin usability is the main reason for bitcoin to become a mainstream digital currency, in fact, many companies and countries such as France, China and Facebook creating their own digital currency.
The main reason probably because bitcoin volatility, the price can spike up and tumbled within hours, who wants to invest $10K today but tomorrow the value of bitcoin loss $3K?
Another reason is Government regulation, it's a good thing if a country acknowledges bitcoin as an asset like gold or bonds which everyone is free to trade it, without tax is even better. If a country declares bitcoin is free to use by the citizens anytime anywhere, then it's going to be mainstream.

There is lack of crypto currency knowledge among the people. I myself have seen those who have bitcoin with themselves but their friends or near or dear ones do not know about crypto. People usually do not tell if they are holding the crypto or the benefits of it. Maybe crypto status is unclear in most part of the world and people hesitant to declare that they hold any amount of bitcoins.

That's a good point people are still "afraid" to say they dabble in crypto for whatever reason.  It is difficult to describe and understand at first which is a turnoff for some, and others just like to think fiat is the only form of "money" and refuse to think that crypto can have a place as a monetary unit of value.  Multie things holding crypto back, it will take a generational change over where kids grow up with crypto for it to be mainstream.

I also think that the huge contribution for cryptocurrency not to be known is also the MLM scammers since in my country there are so many of them uses crypto as payment option and this schemes add band tint on the image of crypto that's why if they heard about it they will just ignore and think negative, I remember before that their is an article on forex trading about bitcoins and people tag it as scam since they though it's a ponzi scheme and for this we really need a clear picture on the real status of cryptocurrency so that it can help out spread and maybe by proper education we can see the word cryptocurrency on mainstream media.

Same here, which country are you from? I think the first time I remember seeing Bitcoin was in 2015 or maybe even earlier before I moved. I used to live in a big student area with a lot of noticeboards and everyone was promoting get rich schemes every year. Usually it was to do with gold or something networking MLM thing. Then Bitcoin began to appear as the mode of payment. So initially like all Ponzis it ran well, then when the owners ran off, everyone thought Bitcoin was a scammer currency.

In short, trust issue is the main problem. Public sentiment still full of nonsense scared against Bitcoin, most of them think Bitcoin is crime-currency because it's anonymous, but in fact Bitcoin is pseudonym. And the media exaggerates it by bringing up negative things about Bitcoin.
Educating the public about Bitcoin is very important.

Maybe mainly because of the many negative news surrounding crypto in general, every now and then there is the case of scam, exit scam and hacks and what have you, and unfortunately, this are the kind of headlines that make  the news the most, and not to mention the market is so vulnerable, there is very little security to protect investors, and many people don't find it safe enough.

The biggest hurdle is price volatility. Few hours back bitcoin was 6800$ and now it’s 7200$. You think it’s good idea to buy something that was 7000$ when you think about buying it, 7200$ when you bought and 7500$ when you enter home after buying it.
Bring stability if we want to see Bitcoin as main payment method.

I'm from Philippines and there's so many MLM scammers promoting their scam platform using the bitcoins payment option and history of it, and it's so sick to see those one since they are not really helping the bitcoins and cryptocurrency since they are the one who create a chaos for it's growth that's why it's really hard to find here a person who is knowledgeable about the real score of cryptocurrency and it's kinda funny since my friend still didn't believe that bitcoin is worthy and they always tells me that is scam.

I think that a good example of what makes cryptocurrency difficult to enter the mainstream is LIBRA. It would seem that Mark Zuckerberg with his powerful Facebook should not have any problem to launch his coin on the financial market. Unfortunately, but it turns out that it will not be so easy. Countries such as Germany, Switzerland and England have spoken very critically about this project, and the French finance minister simply said that:
It seems that it is not technology, banks or anything else, but governments are the biggest problem for cryptocurrency development.

We have to look closely at what will happen with the Libra project, because it can also happen to Bitcoin.

I think it's uncertainty (and fear of uncertainty) primarily. Then, there must be some popular bias about crypto in general (that you are required to be "geek", "tech expert", you have to be "rich" to enter, that it's "less serious" than traditional methods, that it's predominantly filled with "frauds" and "criminals" and is "not trustworthy"). Speaking of the latter... there are plenty of interested players who'd argument you why such prejudice/fears are completely rational & factual 100% just so you won't enter any competitor sphere.

Besides, you can see governments taking part in contributing to crypto's semi-legal indefinite status as well, by either delegitimizing it or seeking to control it.

And, as someone above correctly put it, crypto projects developed by big corporations (re: Libra) don't exactly add up some "trustworthy" image to crypto, being seen as marketing tool of the richest & further power establishing mean by them (while being simultaneously trashed by centralized govts seeking financial hegemony... how ironic).

In my opinion the biggest obstacle for this market to become mainstream has to do with the ignorance of the people about how the economy really works, they have no idea that under the current system they have no freedom and if things continue in the current direction then governments are going to take complete control over their lives, not only that the system is completely unfair, the government has a huge advantage over every other institution because they can create money at will, if anyone other than the government does that then they go to jail, but somehow this is accepted as something good when it is obviously a really bad thing.

Bitcoin has scalability issue that needs to be dealt on emergency basis if we want to bring bitcoin to mainstream. Settlement time for bitcoin transaction is still not in acceptable range for merchants. If this issue continues to exist then we won’t see bitcoin in mainstream.

In short people need education for this and it will start with the government since if they want their people to become innovative and upgrade their lives in terms of new technology they should support and introduce the blockchain in the mainstream but guess the government is lacking with support maybe they are been fud by the market condition and animosity of bitcoins together with crypto's that's why we cannot get a huge support and spread easily like a wild fire.

There are problems with introducing a new technology. Although blockchain has been in the news but I doubt many of the older population to accept bitcoin to be used. Gradually we have moved from physical to digital cash payments and we might move to cryptocurrency soon as time progresses. Blockchain tech has moved on and is being used by many IT companies to develop new projects or modify older ones.

Institutional banks dont want cryptocurrencies to become widespread. They have tried to keep it under some false concepts to avoid people into going towards it. They are doing their part and its justified from their stand.

I think it's a blight that's all over Southeast Asia, I'm extremely familiar with that scene, and I've been around since the late 1990s, so I remember how it used to look like in student campuses and nearby urban and commercial areas. Notice boards abound. People looking for work.

A lot of converging circumstances. Thousands of students yet to graduate, needing income and money to pay for fees, rent and books. Internet was just emerging then, and for thousands of new students fresh out of the village and into the city for the first time, MLMs and magic internet money and even the promise of $50 a week is a small fortune in their life...

And then the mainstream media, google, facebook all promoting bitcoin millionaires. Bitcoin.com rather than bitcoin.org still the first stop for most people learning about bitcoin (and bitcointalk is even not on page 1 of google)... It's tough to get real mainstream adoption when most people's first impression and knowledge of Bitcoin is fraudulent, false and misleading.

As always, this is one of the main reason why crypto wont go mainstream due to this reason.Government doesnt really like crypto generally.
Yes they can accept or consider blockchain tech but this would be applied on other matter but for Crypto/BTC?Its out of the list for sure but
somehow we can see some progress when it comes to adoption.It might not be coming to a point to become mainstream but at least
we are seeing it as an option when it comes to payment system.

As an investment tool, some people still believe that it's a bubble. Another reason is lack of education, people still don't understand what crypto is, they've just heard from media about people use crypto for doing such a bad thing like hacking and stuff, it's confusing for them, that's why they're not getting into it. Bitcoin also is too volatile, I don't know if it's pros or cons since people can get/loss a lot of money in a short period, well some people like it some people don't.

Thank you. Finally, someone put it out there nicely.

Primarily proper education is the big thing why bitcoins struggles to find a seat on mainstream media because it's so narrative to tell to other people on what benefits they can get if they will stake on it. And many people are been afraid since the shadow of scamming is been hunting down the mindset of the people who doubting to stake with it but maybe this is the scenario for now since for sure if times goes by and good faith will lift up Bitcoin will find place to get on the top if there's huge chances will came for it.

The biggest enemy of bitcoin is non other then bitcoin itself. Nobody is stopping bitcoin rather bitcoin itself don’t wanna enter mainstream adoption. See the price of bitcoin that is changing 24/7/365 in abrupt manner. Do you think if price of bitcoin remain like that anyone will accept it as payment option?

One of the reasons is that prices are not always stable. At times for months it is stable and then suddenly moves abruptly. Another thing is that not all government supports it considering it can create a risk to their existing country’s currency.

Nobody will purposely plan for themselves to fail likewise no technology especially when its greatest wish is to succeed by dominating their respective industry. Bitcoin isn't its biggest enemy instead the greedy Investors and those we might consider them to be stakeholders in the industry like whales, exchanges etc, are the biggest enemy of the technology. A closer look at the market and you can easily observe the level of manipulation ongoing from direct manipulation (bot trading, volume fixing aka exchange manipulation) to indirect manipulation cause by fud spread by news media to cause panic among the community resulting to investors losing hope and sell to avoid losses.

All this are what's contributing to the huge price difference, the so called influencer aren't helping matter as their greed overshadow their passion for the success of the industry. They openly support scams been either by been partners or advisors to shady projects, using their fame and reputation to decieve gullible Investor/noobs which give the industry a negative reviews when this projects turns out to be scam. Until we have found a way to eliminate the need of giving powers to selective few companies to dictate what happens in the industry by manipulating it like the like of exchanges, wallet providers etc. The technology won't success and probably go mainstream.

I think Crypto is hardly entering the mainstream simply because our society is not ready yet for this kind of monetary system. Besides, due to some issues on government like the prohibition of this technology is having really a big impact. Could be one reason is that Crypto is too abstract. Though investors who have already experienced using this in their transaction there are still a large number of people who have to prefer to invest in physical objects such as golds. Therefore. there are lots of factors that could still affect Crypto upon entering the mainstream but if we will give some more time for people to understand I am pretty sure that this will eventually become mainstream.

If we discuss the entering mainstream for cryptocurrencies, thinking like a business plan will make things easier. Putting the business plan in front of the investors, preparing it and adding the advantages are necessary for convincing the investor. If there is no real use case for the majority of the projects, the investor will take the second option with the higher use case by people in normal life. The applied cases are our best argument for competing with physical assets.

Point to note here that for the last 2years bitcoin price swing range has been less than 5%. Those who are citing volatility are making a wrong conclusion. Volatility would be there if you consider the time range to be more than 4-5 years. But that is absurd. Actually this is a cognitive bias used by nocoiners to make bitcoiners look bad. Just check the price charts and you will realize what I tried to say.

Governments wont accept bitcoin so easily. They have fiat and they like it. They dont want their money transfers on a public blockchain and showing all their corruption. So they wont accept bitcoin anytime soon.

In my opinion, this is also the main reason that Bitcoin is still not in the mainstream. However, I think that the reasons are not always that governments do it in bad faith. Through irresponsibility and panic buy, and later bear market many people lost a lot of money. Due to the lack of regulation of the ICO market, many people have been scammed. I think governments will start supporting cryptocurrency when appropriate regulations are in place to protect investors. However, it will definitely take a long time.

Many governments are still struggling with how to deal with the cryptos. Those who banned are treating it as a threat to their monetary system and don't like to lose their control over the same. I don't accept the reason of showing their corruption because it's not completely transparent, everyone knows only the balance of each address but not the person who owns it nor the country it belongs too. In fact, it's even easy for hiding the corrupted money in the cryptos and access it wherever they want in the world if more merchants start to accept cryptos through various spending options that crypto already offers.

Bad faith may not be the correct phrase, its easier to say that they dont wish to take part in this mode of payment and prefer to keep to fiat. Lets not jump conclusions without proof.

But you cannot blame anybody for market movements. They are your own risk of buying a speculative asset.

Again due diligence should be from the investors side. They are old enough to handle their money, except the Americans who need to be babysitted by SEC. ;D

They would probably first regulate it. But its far from happening now.

Well there is a point to ponder, because the countries which have banned crypto are very low economy countries where power and oppression are going above any type of democracy.

Probably the revealing of government transactions will lead to nationwide problems and dissent among public.

What I think the major thing stopping the crypto markets from entering the mainstream is their decentralized nature. Cryptocurrencies have beneficial side for each investment and also can yield higher profits in comparison with stocks, bonds, gold, oil, diamonds, etc but yet they do lack of being the mainstream because of their most volatile nature. Not each of the person trusts the crypto markets as they being most volatile can face any ups and downs in their life cycle.

It would never happen but considering the negative side, crypto markets might even vanish forever leaving no trace behind as there is no authorized party behind the working of the crypto markets. Even we do not really know who is the main owner of bitcoins and who actually developed the blockchain.

This if government will not accept means things are over for their citizens and then nothing can be done as their country may face ban of crypto which means people do not have any options but just to forget it or change the country itself where it is legal .

What you are saying is possible but it might really take a long time. Peoples who used to invest in the ICO projects before the year 2017 were the one's who had profits and considering those peoples a lot of other investors turned towards investing into newly launched ICO projects but a lot of such projects were been classified under scam and each investor investing in those projects were left with no profits but extreme loss. This also made peoples lose their faith in the crypto markets which is making it more difficult for the crypto markets to enter the mainstream.

Moreover, the use of cryptocurrencies which is actively been traded in the illegal markets is making them more away from entering the mainstream.

This is too dangerous for the businesses that wants to keep their capital and those who only circulate their profit in their business as the price changes, tendencies are they will only convert it to fiat once they are paid bamy btc but may deduct some fees from them. Maybe those who are into crypto and have business will only use it but mostly many may not be able to risk their business into it yet.

They wont have to change countries. There are methods to circumvent government censorship and these are not easy to apply. So it only becomes a game of cat and mouse and the governments would not shut down internet just for this.

Those companies which are using bitcoin or crypto as payment or so run their businesses from countries that are compliant with crypto.

There are many people running such services and it is not so tough as you all talk about. The change in price for an article which is not above 1btc price is small enough to be ignored. People buy and sell gold which is way more volatile than bitcoin and they dont think twice.

The bigger problem is the legal crackdown that such companies face.

I think it will not happen in near future, we can't just look from our perspective , first i think more important is digitalisation of money. If we can move the mainstream to e money than we can think of introducing crypto to mainstream and then only i think many government will take initiative to adopt crypto.

Imagine if a platform is developed where the blockchain payments are directly connected to your centralized banks and the payments are directly received and sent from your bank account but with the medium of cryptos by directly converting them into the Fiat systems instantly in a glance of seconds?

This would bring a revolution and also a number of peoples will then turn themselves towards crypto payments and it would also make using and storing cryptos directly into our wallets much easier. But in this case, the centralized banks too might start accepting the fact than cryptos might enter the mainstream and then only it might be possible to collaborate with them.

Actually, most of the countries have started digitization and also there are platforms developed to start using digital money for payment systems. These kind of platforms are usually linked to your bank accounts and the money is directly been deducted from your bank account any time you make any payment so this makes payment monetary systems easier.

Peoples have started supporting such platforms so we could even expect in the coming future that peoples can shift onto the blockchain networks for payment systems if ever blockchain payments are made that easy and affordable.

There needs to be some changes before crypto markets can really enter the mainstream but it might not be impossible.

only time is stopping... in ten years, max in 15 it will be mainstream

So basically it is the government and those who are in control of fiat like banks, who basically do not want bitcoin to become mainstream.

As far as bitcoin is concerned there are some issues like scalability and high fees. In my view apart from regulations, these are some serious issues that are hindering its adoption in mainstream payment system.

Bitcoin lighting network solves most of these issues.
Its still the people in power which is stopping the growth of bitcoin.