Bitcoin Forum

What are some features that bitcoin (and it's wallets) needs to implement to make it a viable alternative to fiat/credit cards?

In my opinion some new features could be:
- Lower transaction times (not necessary but would be awesome if they were lowered)
- High security (somehow, possibly a wallet would have to implement a way for consumers to EASILY secure their bitcoins themselves)

1. Faster confirmation.

2. Wallets with truly random seed for address generation.

3. More merchant adoption who will do business in bitcoin, not dump in the market.

2. Wallets with truly random seed for address generation.

Don't all wallets have this (the known ones at least)

3. More merchant adoption who will do business in bitcoin, not dump in the market.

We must convince them for this to happen!

I think what bitcoin really needs isn't down to the technical side but just down to adoption and awareness. Stuff like confirmation times seem irrelevant to me as the transactions are instantaneous.

More people knowing about it and using it.

thats what btc community needs not bitcoin itself

It was actually designed for optimal confirmation. There are ways to have instant confirmation using third parties, but network propagation has limitations.

Mycelium has a hardware wallet generator that allows the user to create their own entropy.

Of course they would prefer that if just to save the exchange fee. They already save on credit card processing fees. They also have to deal with tax laws and corporate expectations. If bitcoins are considered a commodity, then they are considered unsold goods. That looks bad to bean counters. Bitcoin needs new legislation for business. Baby steps.

1. Better TX fee & confirmation speed
2. A real bitcoin user that use bitcoin as currency
3. Bigger user / community
4. Easy to use wallet for normal people
5. More service that accept bitcoin

I think it's viable as is but would like to see more services built on top of it.

Low transaction time would definitely be a necessity to integrate it into payment systems.
However the security factor depends more on the wallet, that is used to store bitcoins in.

More distribution? :D
More merchant accept bitcoin.
Wallet with high security(its really need).

A need for the average person to use bitcoin, that is all.

Bitcoin needs more people who can take a leadership role about educating people and businesses about Bitcoin (and fewer grumpy people).

for most of us on here having a wallet on our phone or computer and sending btc is easy. For people like my mom who I gave .25 btc to get her started it took forever just to explain to her how to store it and update her wallet etc.

Ease of use is the short answer but many different things need to be solves within ease of use lol.

I think that reducing the transactions time must be a priority in the next changes
it is not good that if you want to move coins you need even hours to have them ready

What it also needs:


1) Less volatility.  If you want Grandma and Grampa to adopt it or Average Joe.  They are not going to transfer their funds to Bitcoin from CHQ/SAV and look at the ticker every hour and worry about losing on a dump.
2) More consumers.  Getting merchants means nothing at this point now.  We have major companies accepting but nobody spending.
3) Ease of use.
4) Make it worth while and advantageous compared to Fiat or CC.  Offer discounts... rewards.  Otherwise they ain't switching.


Start there.

I think this:

1) Faster confirmation. 10 minutes is too much actually and is uncomfortable for that people which pay with bitcoin.
2) Number of transaction for second. 7 is too low and actually VISA (for example) process 48 billion transaction in one day. Bitcoin only 80.000 and it is able to process only 605.000 transaction.
3) Big raise of price and an ETF for introduce liquidity to the market

Awareness of bitcoins to more people from all over the world.
More security to wallets and limited downtrend
Adoption from more merchants as a payment method.

actually: just time.

Remote destruction by self if stolen.  ;D

I think that Bitcoin need more support from bitcoin community.
We have to promote BTC more to the people around us, specially to businesses.
Otherwise, growth of BTC will not be fast as we expect (or desire).

What does Bitcoin need?

EASY.  It needs a "Killer App".

Microsoft had Windows, Apple had the IPhone, Google had search, and Facebook had their social media website.

None of these were the first of their kind.  There were GUI OSes before MS Windows 95, touchscreen phones before the first Iphone, hundreds of search engines before Google, many many social media sites like Friendster, Xanga, Myspace before Facebook ever launched.

What all these tech giants had in common was they perfected it.

Bitcoin isn't a company I know, but once the developers, inventors, investors, programmers all come together and build an application or tool to use Bitcoin's underlying tech that the masses can't be without, then that is when the world will know and find a need for it.

No "Killer App" yet for Bitcoin.  You'll know when it's here.

We completely agree. That's why we developed 'Locks' to help more of the general public into Bitcoin
https://medium.com/@Coinapult/send-receive-lock-fa58069d70fe

It needs more and more new investments.

It needs to be simpler to get into. I remember when I first looked into Bitcoin it took me awhile to figure it out. The wallets were confusing to me and I didn't really understand how it all worked. For the average Joe looking at Bitcoin, it can seem very complicated so they just walk away from it.

well, it depends on what you choose
there are some really simple wallets

Lately it seems to need another willy bot lol...j k

Swipe and go. That will really make whole lot of difference in terms of retail acceptance. If possible give an assurance that transaction will go and finalized through with just one single confirmation

So you lose all hope of getting bitcoin back, ever? Bad idea.

I think a card known as Xapo does that for you. Never tried it out though.

Wait until the 'big' traders from Wall Street get wind of bitcoin and its easily manipulated markets :-\ :o

Trezor is a great proof of concept. Someone needs to buy them out and build military grade devices with full bitcoin functionality and also special use wallets. The math is secure but our devices are not.

It needs a good spanking.

I've been wondering lately, what the market decides... Maybe the novelty has worn thin, the security issue, the app, some disastrous turns in world economies, I mean, worse than now... Many things have to come together, and maybe a low stable price is good.
There's no song and dance. It's tech and finance and economics. If you aren't interested, you just ain't interested. Doesn't mean you won't use it, you just don't need to know. The killer app will seduce that consumer. BTC should go more "under the radar" and figure out a way for people to use it without realizing it. Safe and easy.

I think currently, there is no need for bitcoin in day to day lives of average people.

I recently got one, they are incredible!

But once again to average users they look difficult to grasp and use.

"And anonymous is important too  :)"

Check out bitmixer.io if you're very interested in remaining anonymous!

The "faster confirmation time" has been discussed a lot
(mostly by noobs).

It's not really necessary.  Most small transactions are
fine with 0 confirmations which takes seconds.
Larger transactions will be just as secure with 1 confirmation as
if you had 10 confirmations with a 1 minute blocktime.

The only advantage faster confirmation would provide
would be the difference between 0 and 1 confirmations
on medium sized transactions, but the trade off is
more orphaned blocks.

I don't see Bitcoin changing the confirmation time
anytime soon.

LOL
spanking till to the moon :D


Yes that's right.
and that's natural, for your security too.

It needs easier way to buy them, atm machines are a pita.

I agree that BTC needs to be easier to buy, maybe being able to buy them in stores...just like itunes gift cards or whatever.

I also think it needs to be easier to manage private keys and such...which a lot of the stuff that people would think is confusing.  Once all that stuff can be done in the background of apps and out of site...it won't seem so overwhelming to people that are not that technologically savvy

I think that the confirmation time of transaction at the moment is quite optimal and reducing it does not make any sense. It would be quite useful to improve security. But most of all bitcoin needs to expand its recognition and distribution.

It's mostly a matter of time, we need to wait for everyone to use bitcoin.

I think for 2015, BTC, now just needs to keep getting easier and easier to use.   Maybe some newer applications that can help do some of the things in the background that people find confusing or overwhelming. 

Bitcoin needs legal framework. Many countries ban cryptos, how can it grow into masses?

The only suggestion that makes sense in this thread.
The tech is fine. Smartphone wallets are easy to use.

Bitcoin needs legal framework which does not constrain its growth.

So kind of like Coinbase's license?

Bump.

There's alot of things Bitcoin needs in the longterm.  In the short term, hopefully these:

-Bitcoin needs Greece to adopt Bitcoin upon it's impending "Grexit" from the Eurozone
-Winklevii Gemini exchange to finally launch
-Winklevii COIN ETF launch
-Continued innovative startups and funding rounds
-More mentions in the mainstream media, TV, and movies

There's a bunch of needs, but just this for 2015 would be dandy.

It needs properly licensed, insured exchanges in all the major world zones. Coinbase is a start but I heard it's not fully licensed in all US states and only does business with US citizens.

bitcoin ATM, worldwide accept bitcoin as legal tender and everyone using it as real money  ;D

A lot of them... :

http://www.diamondbhai.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/greater-fool-theory-diamondbhai.jpg

i see 3 pages of people talking about what bitcoin needs.

in short this is what bitcoin needs.

less assholes talking on forums and more people actually doing something..
i think 95% of people on this forum think that bitcoin is a sentient being that can walk and talk and do things you ask it. but the truth is that bitcoin is not sentient, THE USERS ARE!!. (that means you, .... yes you reading this post.. YOU.. not someone else.. YOU!!)

so any a-holes that complain that bitcoin doesn't do something, or a-holes that want bitcoin to do something else, i have a tip for you.

YOU need to get involved and actually do what you want bitcoin to do. its only code after all. YOU need to actually get out your basements, and do something.

for instance if you want bitcoin to be accepted in YOUR local shop. YOU should contact YOUR local shop.
for instance if you want bitcoin to be easier to buy locally then YOU need to find people that live in YOUR local area to buy from or sell to

and if your going to reply that im calling you a lazy ass-hole. then atleast you are admitting that you recognise you are not personally doing anything .

after all the smart people that are doing things know this message is not about them

A way to get all that ridiculously high amount of coins from the early adopters into random people's wallets so the coin distribution doesn't look as high as fiats and people don't feel scared to invest on it.

Bitcoin needs more leaders. Basically people who can take an idea and run with it.

That is the secret of success in any field.

I don't use it myself, but I think we got a little push on what BTC needed, which as a US based Exchange.  Hopefully the Winklevoss one gets up and running soon, and then I think the floodgates will open again.

The easier it becomes to purchase and use BTC, the better the whole crypto economy will become...

Brainwallet hardening against rainbow table attacks so people can store wealth in their heads without fear
of it being 'mined' in the future.

Currently I think Brain wallets work on Sha256(Pswd) and I've often wondered if this could very simply be hardened against attack by introducing a much slower Hash function along the lines of   Sha256(Brypt(Pswd))

 

In my humble opinion this thread over complicates the issues. I don't think Bitcoin  needs anything other than time...

It needs the following universal shift:

Less idiots.

A facility to allow time delayed transactions so I can send BTC to a secure Brain wallet address 5 yrs in the future.

Adoption. We need more people to use Bitcoin. However, to do that, we need a faster confirmation time.

A fast confirmation isn't possible without a third party ( like greenAddress, it has an "instant confirm" function).
For me bitcoin should only remain decentralized, and maybe in the future will be a good alternative for a lot of people.

1) faster confirmation or as you said lower transaction times
2) more adoption by either users and/or merchants
3) most importantly IMO, is stable price not 100$ difference every month

Question:What dors bitcoin need?
Answer:A new owner :P

Obviously some faster confirmation time and some Insurance maybe???

imo

1. faster transaction confirmation
2. work on anonymity , either using a wallet inbuilt mixer or any other method

1. Faster confirmations (BUT, this will increase transaction fees)
2. Better security (for unsophisticated or lazy user, there needs to be a mechanism by which after every spend, the difference in your account is automatically send to a cold wallet generated on the spot. There must also be a way to store the private key that comes along with it.)
3. Less volatility (if I knew how to solve this problem I'd be rich).

I think that answer is very simple.
- More users
- More merchants accepting Bitcoin.

Without this, BTC will never become mainstream.