Bitcoin Forum

To all those who are waiting for Bitcoin to "go mainstream" - stop waiting, it already is.

Most educated people by now have heard of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has been featured on most news sites and most popular TV news casts. It has been featured in CNN, BBC, CNBC, Fox News, Marketwatch, Forbes, Financial Times and many more resources. There have been several viral stories and old people have been spotted buying bitcoins at ATM's.

Bitcoin is mainstream.

Why hasn't it gone to the moon yet then?

Easy answer. Because people CHOSE not to use it.

Most people HAVE HEARD about Bitcoin and consciously decided that they WILL NOT USE IT.

Facts:
- Most people are not tech savvy enough to use Bitcoin
- Bitcoin client is cumbersone to use
- There have been many reports of how hard it is to secure Bitcoin especially for technically challenged people
- Bitcoin is not user friendly
- Bitcoin is unsecure and easy to steal if you aren't careful
- Old money/baby boomers are too senile to understand Bitcoin (hence the comments from Charlie Munger of Bitcoin being rat poison)

Why I am still pro Bitcoin and think it will raise in 5-20 years (after 20-30 years we might be getting AI which will change everything and possibly Bitcoin system will be depreciated):
- The protocol has ONLY ONE fault, the 51% attack, which does not destroy Bitcoin only harms it and has little chance of being used.
- Protocol is solid, has intrinsic value, is unique, is comparable to early e-mail
- Bitcoin has intrinsic value for money laundering, black markets and other mostly grey economy related fields
- There is a high chance of some companies coming up with clients that would be noob/average people friendly.

I think that Bitcoin is a fun little gamble that can pay off massively.

It will never go to literal 0, but it can drop a lot naturally.

By the way, if you have invested more than a little portion of your savings and your life depends on Bitcoin, then you are an idiot of extreme proportions and deserve to lose it all.

It is not mainstream.

Mainstream means widely-adopted. Bitcoin is not widely-adopted at all.

correct


doubt it, i don't think bitcoin can survive this year, it's final capitulation incoming!

I would literally hit your face in the brick if I met you in real life. You are so stupid, it's like you're some kind of a bot or parrot. You cannot answer any questions given to you. I'd do the same if you were claiming it will go to the moon. And your Indian Engrish pisses me off even more. Fuck, why are people so fucking retarded these days.

Mainstream can also mean that it's relatively heard of and popular. It is quite popular in news, marketwatch often has articles on it, so do other financial magazines. In the financial world, Bitcoin IS mainstream. It's just not being actually BOUGHT and USED.

i don't care what you feel, you can't change the fact of the downfall of bitcoin, what questions did you send me?

There is no Bitcoin downfall, I remember when it was still sub $30, now it's $449.

how about this? got a better one for you:
few weeks later you can say: "There is no Bitcoin downfall, I remember when it was still sub $0.00001 or totally free, now it's $0.001 or at least 10k bitcoins worth a pizza?"

No, because the purpose of Bitcoin is to be used as a currency. We are at a tiny fraction of what is theoretically possible in this regard. So when we are talking about the actual purpose of Bitcoin, we certainly cannot say that Bitcoin has gone mainstream.

Regarding what you say in the OP, I actually think the fact that people are so slow to choose to use Bitcoin because of the myriad reasons you cite is not a problem at all. This has been the fact since day 1, and it is what contributes to the way the boom/bust cycles work. Nothing has changed in this respect... which to me is bullish (dare I say it).

Just because lots of people have heard of something doesn't make it mainstream. The old Native South American practice of shrinking heads is widely-known about, but it isn't mainstream. Although perhaps we should adopt the practice on Bitcointalk!  :D

+1

When price was 1200 everyone knew about it.  Even my 75 year old father heard about it and asked me if its a good investment cause he heard it frim obscure radio show.  I said HELL NO.  Glad I talked him out of that

Trust me everyone knows about it and nobody cares.

I downloaded a wallet  to play around. Such PITA to use and I'm a geek.  Its like expecting normal people make torrenting mainstream when they rather use Netflix

It's a currency that needs a market. I mean, if you don't live in Europe, you don't use Euros. Of course, you will say that Bitcoin is universal, but most countries do not accept USD as payment, except when you trade them at the bank or a local money changer.

No, it is not. It is rather inconvenient to use yet to be mainstream. People hear about it and don't use it not because the idea is flawed, but because most people are lazy/stupid. Once bitcoin is easier to obtain, handle and spend for a common person, the adoption will come - because it is a better form of money.

If you compare bitcoin to the internet, we are in 1994 or so. A solid protocol (tcp/ip) is working for many years already, there are several cumbersome interfaces to it that only geeks use, most people heard about it but less than 1% used it, and alot of startups are developing tools and services for it. Wait for a year 2000, which in bitcoin world would come much faster than in 6 years (since there is direct financial incentive which was very indirect in the tcp/ip case), and see then what mainstream for bitcoin really is.

I agree with most of the sentiment of OP and some other intelligent contributors in the thread. It's not "mainstream" in the sense of adoption, but I agree it is "mainstream" in terms of awareness. The important part of our populace in the U.S. and developed economies have heard of Bitcoin, yes. I agree with piramida that their decision to remain on the sidelines is, in part, due to laziness or an unwillingness to "dig deeper" and understand the technology. I also believe that, in part, it's just the natural risk aversion of the average individual. It also has limited utility (right now). There are only a relative handful of places to spend your money.

Of course the technology is sound, though no perfect. There is utility, even if it were marginalized to the black market and underworld, so it will retain some degree of value (~$50-100 at that point, imo). But the real mainstream adoption will only take place once early adopters have tested the waters to the extent that a viable ecosystem is established, maintained, and growing (or not having massive bubbles) at some healthy annual rate. Once that happens, most individuals will forgo the thoughts of "is this a ponzi scheme" and will seek out the most user-friendly approach to adoption, without understanding it. They will have simply come to believe "it just works."


I believe everyone here, and everyone that uses it within the next 3-4 years will be considered early adopters and we will be the evangelists for what BTC is capable of producing. If you're in it to get rich, I hope you're willing to wait another 5 years, at a minimum.

Will we go lower? Almost certainly. I believe the true valuation of 1 BTC is roughly around $300 USD. That said, it's obvious I'm bearish right now, but I'm bullish on the long term future.

All your contra-points boil down to it being not user-friendly or being easy to use. I agree. That needs to change, but who says that this won't actually change? HTTP isn't user friendly, as well. Yet everyone uses it every single day - most of the people don't even know they are!
Your positive points boil down to the fact that it may work and that it is a speculative asset. I also agree. That mere fact may be enough to keep people interested. And that's also what makes me stay optimistic - in some way, because regular stocks don't offer anything, yet they're traded for their potential profit. Bitcoin offers even more, on top of that.

p.s.: The 51% thing isn't only a disadvantage or problem, it's actually the foundation of finding a consensus in Bitcoin! Which is remarkable!

A bit of an off topic question, but what is the plan for handling the blockchain size issue?

Lol at these butthurt boatmissers wanting BTC to crash to enjoy other people's suffering.
News just in: It will not crash and you will self hate yourself for not taking advantage of another opportunity to get cheap coins. Enjoy.

There is a foooking gargantuan gap between hearing the word and understanding what it actually entails.

Stop telling people to buy into a failing system for your own profit!

We crashed 26% in the past 30 days, sure go on keep on saying it's not crashing, more drop every day, and faster every day!

The system is rigged and falling apart right now, GET OUT.

I really don't believe in the "it's too complicated to use" argument.

Could it be more convenient? of course!

You make it sound like everyone has to compile bitcoin-qt and/or use bitcoind from the command line.
My netbanking experiences so far have all been complicated up to a point where I would call them equally difficult to handling bitcoin.

The reality is that bitcoin is still highly speculative and this gives it the aftertaste of a pyramid scheme, especially if people do not care about how bitcoin works form a technical standpoint.
People mostly hear of bitcoin when it bubbles or crashes. The media is not exactly motivated to cover the "dull" topic of what bitcoin can offer from a technical standpoint.

Either way a majority of the convenience use cases are actually just companies implementing payment systems on top of the technology.
The whole concept of one-click purchases etc. is to reduce the effort a customer has to make when buying something.
Regardless of credit cards or bitcoin you can bet your hat on the fact that large companies will implement payments in a way where
you just "give them" your details once and they do the rest.

Bitcoin is in no way mainstream because the concept has not reached people's minds yet.

The possibilities seem endless when anyone and everyone (also things!) in the digital space is given the ability to send and receive value.

It really hit me when I wrote down a private key on a piece of paper and sent funds to it.
The reality that that mundane piece of paper is now storing additional real value is simply amazing.

Bitcoin will be mainstream when most of the people we know will start to use it, at the moment the adoption is far away to be completed.

You realize the average user likely can't locate the client after downloading it, right? The average user types a URL into Google instead of a browser's address bar. That's where we're at. You really give the average user too much credit.

That average user also somehow manages to log in to their netbanking, enter credit card details in various stores, upload crappy pictures to their facebook timeline and install apps on their smartphones. (oh, and possibly even file their taxes!)
I am assuming we speak of persons of reasonable intellect capable of learning and not of the mentally challenged.


A quick glance at the internet and a lot of its content reminds me that while you may claim that the average user can't overcome the technical burden, it would actually be great if they really couldn't (not with bitcoin but with digital technology in general)

That's an excellent analogy.

I also agree to this.

This is a legitimate issue. I understand that only a better client could negate this. A company creating a user friendly client.

Idiot spotted, provided detailed analysis or gtfo. Yes, detailed means with actual numbers and calculations for your prediction.

To be mainstream it needs a lot more market cap.

Entering text into an input box and clicking big buttons on a device that say "Login," "Attach Photo" or "Install" suddenly makes the average user literate enough to understand, appreciate, and actually acquire BTC? We'll have to agree to disagree. :)

Ask a hundred random people if they've ever heard about Bitcoin.

On average, at least 98 of them will say no.

And it was $1240 nine months ago. There is an obvious downfall.

agreed

he is a lying scammer or bag holder

Oh really? Who am I scamming?

I bought Bitcoin well below this price.

u mad, no coiner?

I agree with the OP. Bitcoin is mainstream, and mainstream folks are seeing it as a investment scheme they found out about too late to profit.

The only use cases for Bitcoin where it really thrives are small scale illegal activities. But even bottom feeder drug dealers prefer cash, it's simpler and more universally accepted and more anonymous.

Mainstream?  :D :D
I don't know where you live, maybe around the silicon valley...

Facebook is mainstream
Paypal is mainstream

Bitcoin isn't mainstream for the moment


Agree there, a lot of these people who don't know PayPal, even facebook to keep the examples

imo bitcoin will grow with the current and nexts generations, give it time

just see how a lot of old peoples are still reluctant to credit cards, my grandfather still uses checks ONLY  ;D

FTFY

I have no idea how you got your BTC but the little bit that I bought literally took me less than 10 minutes to purchase.

You are mixing things up here a bit. Using BTC is easy, buying them maybe a little bit harder.
The fair analogy would be using your credit card vs. actually applying for one at a bank.

In this respect bitcoin is infinitely more easy to get and use because you literally need no credentials whatsoever and the software required is free and open source.
Here, I just generated myself a "credit card" -> 1ErSxw6KardUzKiCoPgAfKRhNejCgvNNBc
That is all I need to receive and spend bitcoin. I could even stick to that single address and reuse it.

This is not about the average user not being able to acquire bitcoins.
It is about the average user not being interested enough to make the trivial effort of looking into it.
But as services evolve and provide benefits such as discounts they will start to notice.

Silk road is actually a great example for this. The reality of drug abuse will not change, you will always have that in societies.
Bitcoin promised more ease of use so average users who happened to be drug abusers found a reason to notice and use bitcoin.
I do not want to argue about the morals and implications of silk road and black/grey markets.

Tipbots are another great example of why users may look into bitcoin and I think ultimately tipping and micro-transactions (looking forward to those inverse bloom filters!)
will be a large factor for widespread bitcoin adoption.

Mainstream is when everyone on the street using it for transaction and know how bitcoin work.

We still have less than 1% worldwide market share on trade and payment.

The way I see it, Bitcoin is way too complicated for mass adoption. Most you could hope for is a high percentage of the 1% than can use it. What it needs are offices, like banks have, to teach people about bitcoin, why bitcoin is good, and guide them through the process of opening  a wallet, buying bitcoin and teaching them how they can use those bitcoin. Plus better and more streamlined (noob friendly) way to use it on the internet.

Still needs big dumps and bumps. It will be mainstream when Amazon and Google accepts bitcoin.

It isn't mainstream at all. Go to the street, ask random people what Bitcoin is, draw results.

Exactly, I know much more people who doesn't know a thing about bitcoins then those who use btc.

I did. Most people had heard about it.

On one hand Bitcoin has definitely gone mainstream, but on the other it still has a ways to go.

A day doesn't go by when there isn't something I want to purchase on the Internet, but sadly they don't accept Bitcoin and I don't use credit cards or Paypal so I have to add them to my list of "I hope these guys take Bitcoin soon".

For example, the sports betting market is absolutely huge, but none of the large bookies take Bitcoin (except for 5 Dimes but that isn't fully operational yet).

In my mind, Bitcoin can be considered truly mainstream when Amazon, Ebay and large, reputable sportsbooks start accepting it. I truly believe they will, it is just a question of how soon.

I don't see Bitcoin as mainstream yet, and that's why:


Yes, there is some degree of media coverage on BTC, BUT most of the stories I usually hear on the news about BTC are BAD news, basically FUD.


Because probably they are too scared out from all the FUD from media. The thing is that most people (even the so called educated ones) hardly ever think "out of the box". They are very scared and always fear anything that seems to (or tends to) defy the governments. One could say that people are well controlled by fear.


Agreed, with all topics. That's why we're all together here talking and working in order to imporve BTC.


I agree that Bitcoin will raise in 5-20 years, and that's why I don't think BTC is mainstream now, for it will be mainstream then.

i suppose OP is saying that it got mainstream exposure, and adoption never materialized. i'm not convinced of that, but only time will tell whether bitcoin is really being adopted. (merchant acceptance, for one, doesn't necessarily tell us much)