and the big holders are doing it.
coinbase, bitpay.. have 300,000+ merchants
localbitcoin.. does millions of "escrows" a year

it is not because bitcoin itself paid them first.
it is not because bitcoin grew arms and made the businesses.

is because PEOPLE started businesses
so join them.. risk the most by talking to people and start a business (cost is negligible even for the unemployed) then work in the hopes of getting paid. rather then get paid in the hopes of getting work

you are just as much part of bitcoin as anyone else. it does not matter what your bitcoin balance is. you can start a business with no bitcoin, you can start a business with no fiat.
you just need to not wait for other people to do it for you

bitcoin is a currency.. not a business
dollar is a currency.. not a business

dollar doesnt have a pot for you to promote dollar.. people need to create businesses and offer services to earn their dollar

core are doing fine. they set up a business(blockstream) and have contracts to help code altcoins for private companies (insurance and banks) and allowing them time to code bitcoin on the side.

i digressed, so lets highlight the 2 businesses you mentioned.. escrows and payment gateways.

you dont need bitcoin to start these businesses.
because for payment gateways, retailers GIVE you the bitcoin, you sell 99% of it to give fiat to the retailer, you keep 1%
because for escrow services, buyers GIVE you the bitcoin, you hold it and later give 99% of it to the seller, you keep 1%

no one is asking anyone to get on a plane and spend wild amounts of cash to get a retailer to use bitcoin. but if you want your local shop
to accept bitcoin then next time you shop at your local shop (no extra cost) introduce them to bitcoin.
its like any job. you never get pre-paid.
you do some work and get paid at the end of the week or month..
dont do the work, dont get paid you get sacked.

if you want to get paid in bitcoin you need to do the work.
many people have been successful setting up their own payment gateways and escrow services..
its just NOT automatically handed to them on a plate, prefunded. all wrapped up in coded heaven

yep and as the title says bitcoin users are what is holding Bitcoin back, because it needs users to build the infrastructure

if the problem is simply escrow
the answer is that as a human. a human needs to set up an escrow service. a human needs to code an escrow service. a human needs to vet other humans.
bitcoin is just code. its the human need for humans to do things when interacting with humans that is the problem

humans=users

bitcoin is not an A.I, it cannot program its own escrow. it cannot have eyes or feet to deliver goods on users behalf to ensure its received.

the signature proof gavin and about half a dozen special guests seen (media too)
MEUCIQDBKn1Uly8m0UyzETObUSL4wYdBfd4ejvtoQfVcNCIK4AIgZmMsXNQWHvo6KDd2Tu6euEl13VT C3ihl6XUlhcU+fM4=

Converted to hex:
3045022100c12a7d54972f26d14cb311339b5122f8c187417dde1e8efb6841f55c34220ae002206 6632c5cd4161efa3a2837764eee9eb84975dd54c2de2865e9752585c53e7cce

this signature is not new though.. its been in our faces for 7 years. if showing the signature means the person is satoshi, then

i am satoshi
you are satoshi
we are all satoshi

now with all that said. here is my point.

the code of bitcoin will not grow legs, walk into your local town and ask your local retailer to accept it.
without HUMANS getting off their ass and doing something to ask retailers in their town to accept bitcoin, users will just be waiting forever for some unicorn magic to speed up mass adoption so they can have a full bitcoin lifestyle, as oppose to an occasional use.

much like if FIAT collapsed, suddenly people get off their ass and start asking retailers to barter. rather then hoping a bar of gold grows legs and does it for them

bitcoin is better then gold exchanging properties(not lugging it around)
bitcoin is better then "institutional trusts" exchanging properties(not requiring institutions to manage)

but it does require people to interact.
bitcoins code is great. but people seem to want to sit on their hands and think the code will make real world changes to speed things along without the real world getting involved

so if you want mass adoption to speed up so that you can see products in YOUR home town to be priced in bitcoin. YOU have to do something

lets first talk about fiat
on a good day, you can rely on banks to hold your funds with the blanket of protection that if proven that someone other then you takes funds without authorisation. The bank will just magic more money into existence to compensate you.. which happens to a person once every 5 years on average.

but every day, banks magic money into existence in many ways(mainly loans). meaning that a $10 you have now, would have bought you 30 loaves of bread 15 years ago, but will only buy you 5 loaves of bread this year. in 30+ years(whenever you retire) may only buy you 1 loaf of bread.
this is not due to some hacker directly stealing from your account.

on a bad day the banks could take some of your money without your acceptance. first they start with fee's then they start with negative interest.
ensuring your left with a bigger loss to buy even less loaves of bread when you retire.

on a very bad day they can go bankrupt and only give you pennies on the dollar (their 'protection' has cut off limits)
look at the Zimbabwe dollar, look at greece.. how many loaves of bread can you buy now with a set amount of Zimbabwe dollars that you could 20 years ago, how many loaves of bread can you get in greece now that you could have just 5 years ago

in short saving fiat for retirement will never give you back more then you have put in.(if you use the breadloaf value measure) even if they gave you $20 for every $10 you put in, it still will equal less loaves of bread when you retire


with the events of 2007-2008(banks go bankrupt, banks negative interest, bank debt, retirement investments evaporating) which woke some people up to the 'bad day' side of fiat.

its NOT about putting ALL your funds into bitcoin today.
yes we are still in the early stages and its silly to tell people to drop FIAT to go 100% gold, or 100% offshore or 100% bitcoin. but just dont go 100% fiat, because fiat buys you less loaves of bread as time goes on. bitcoin is only used by 0.3% of the world occasionally, and even less as a full time living-lifestyle choice. meaning bitcoin is not useless to spend direct.. but still in the early days of mass adoption

its about in realistic terms allowing anyone, even the unbanked to have an offshore place to hold value that is not storing $10 as $10 but as its own value to hedge against fiat value, much like the rich hand over fiat to off shore trusts measured in assets, but without the headaches of 2-5 days to cash out the funds from the 'institutional trusts' they set up.

its about having a safer place to store rainy day funds to save up for later knowing you can spend them without as much of a headache of dealing with institutional trusts. its about thinking of the future when you know people wont be able to rely on banks as much. its about having a contingency and not putting all your eggs into one basket(greece suffered by relying on euro banks as the only egg basket, and now they are hurt).

right now bitcoin is the middle ground between having an independent 'trust' of value, with the digital platform to spend it on goods direct.. without having to directly cash out, taking 2-5 days to then buy goods. which is the problem institutional trusts have.
right now bitcoin is the middle ground between having an asset of deflationary value, with the digital platform to spend it.. without having to find a specialist to barter to cash out, taking time and labour to then buy goods. which is the problem physical assets(gold/antiques) have.

as for pricing goods in bitcoin
much like the chinese pricing goods in dollars for Apple to buy microchips in dollars and sell to customers in dollars and pay staff in dollars so that america doesnt rely on the chinese yuan(even if the goods are initially priced in yuan behind the scenes).
much like the middle east pricing oil in dollars for fuel companies to buy in dollars and sell to customers in dollars and pay staff in dollars so that america doesnt rely on the Saudi riyal(even if the oil is initially priced in riyal behind the scenes).

it takes time for suppliers to price goods in bitcoin and merchants to buy goods from suppliers in bitcoin to sell to customers for bitcoin and pay staff in bitcoin to bring bitcoin into a circular mass adoption usage that no longer relies on fiat. so that more people can happily live only spending bitcoin and earning bitcoin as a real lifestyle choice (some people are but only a few, it will grow slowly)

its better to think of it this way: does the euro seem pointless and useless because a Yank only see's a chicago pizza priced in dollars.

you cant hack bitcoins away from an address from the bitcoin network side. (its why people trust bitcoin)

but your friend obviously had a computer or phone to send transactions.
so gaining access to that device is something you should talk to his family about.

inform them that he left them some assets on his device and teach them how to send the bitcoins to a trustable exchange who can give them fiat when they need it.

then let them choose the best time to do this, and allow them to find a computer specialist to get to the devices passwords.

"Blockchain" is just one element.

it does not need to be secure by sha256. it can be secured by any algo and still have features to chain blocks together.
it doesnt even need to rely on a second layer of security by having a second hash of specific difficulty(mining vs signing (POW/POS))
it doesnt even need to rely on distributed copies.

so when corporations remove the 10+ layers of security bitcoin has (keypairs, distribution, mining, etc, etc) just to use 1 layer of security. (the chain) its not as secure as bitcoin.

and businesses have different needs. EG how many employees have access to update a specific element of data(keypairs). how fast it needs to update(mining or signing), which all make blockchain a great utility but without the extra layers of security that bitcoin has as standard, should not be treated as secure as bitcoin

but with that said there are MANY, MANY uses corporations can find that can secure their data better and save them on maintenance costs..aswell as open new opportunities to do new things that they never considered before.

bitcoin is just code.

people should not sit on their hands and think that bitcoin will do something special to suddenly make walmart accept it.
PEOPLE have to make decisions to start businesses or if you already have a business decide to accept bitcoin.

so i agree with the OP part that users are the problem.

people need to start looking around there home towns and find other bitcoiners.
set up some social events like bitcoin meetups at a bar if its only a couple of you or proper events if your in a popular area.

get to know people and start trading bitcoins as usually if there are a few people there is always someone that wants cash and another person wants bitcoins.

get to know people and start bitcoin businesses in your towns/cities.

but i disagree with the OP part about buying bitcoin with a credit card. well thats just the same as buying something with a cheque signed with that special ink that fades after an hour until its disappeared. (it wont get accepted)

in which case you need to know who the other person is to slap them with a wet fish or court order should they do you wrong.. but thats where the OP falls down a never ending spiral by halfway through the post saying he wants bitcoin to be bought without having to give proof of id(register) but then blames bitcoin sellers at the end of the post if they dont ask for enough proof of id

the only way it would work is that the lending site itself took responsibility, and chased after scammers
since you hand over bitcoin to the lending site. you are not investing bitcoins on the scammer.. you are investing an SQL balance within the site with the scammer.
it is the lending site that "owns" the coins it receives and "gives" the coins to the scammer
it is the lending site that "owns" the documents and ID it is handed by the scammer.
it is the lending site that "owns" the coins it receives back (not often) and "gives" the coins to the user when they ask to turn their onsite credit into real bitcoin

the user does not get to see the passport or other documents of the scammer, so the users should not be taking the responsibility of loss. the lending site should

when a lending site just works as a chat room and then the users then privately tell each other their passport details and proof of residence. then the lending site can absolve itself of responsibility.

but when the lending site takes a users money, does the vetting of the scammer, promotes the scammer as credible and hands the money to the scammer
then the lending site should be involved with chasing the scammer. especially if there is no way for the first user to know the scammers life story.

but we know lending sites wont do this. so its best to just stay away from lending sites.

think of it like depositing funds into an exchange.
to send funds to the exchange. you do a normal bitcoin transaction with normal bitcoin fee.

now forget about the blockchain..
you can day trade on the exchange to your hearts content using bots to do trades real fast, all your trades on the exchange are not listed on the blockchain. and your not paying bitcoin miners a fee for every trade done on the exchange..

and when you withdraw(settle) from the exchange your only paying bitcoin miners the standard transaction to release funds out of the exchange

.. any fee's inside the exchange is not related to bitcoin fee's or mining costs as they have nothing to do with it.
any fee's inside the exchange are just amounts the exchange itself wants to profit on.
some exchanges have no trade fee's some do.
again this has nothing to do with the bitcoin network or miners.

for instance
say Visa / Mastercard set up a LN hub, expect 1-2% fee per use
say starbucks set up a LN hub, expect 0% fee per use and a possibility the customer getting 0.1% back as a loyalty scheme to continue being their customer.
say the programmers of lightning set up a hub. they may want to charge something to work as the middleman to get some income to cover their costs of all their hard work programming the network

at this point i cant see anyway of guessing what fees a hub will go with, but i can presume they would vary depending on who the hub is and what services / products they offer customers. the only thing that is sure. is the cost to deposit(setup/fund channel) and withdraw(settle/close channel)

seems someone preferred to avoid the topic to adhom about an adhom

now then.

the current ACTUAL debate is consensual '2base-4mbweight' buffer increase by EVERYONE in the community releasing an implementation. so that fans of any implementation can all happily stick with their favourites and still have the open choice to decentrally vote in or out of a safe increase of capacity, while not hindering segwit either, or having to change to another "brand"
yes this means the quadratics doomsday is also a moot point because segwit still gets to work

things lauda needs to learn

C++
explicit limit vs consensus limit
consensual vs controversial
reading code not social distraction
definition of hypocrisy
who is spoon-feeding him and why they do it

now then.
the current ACTUAL debate is not laudas meandered hypocrisy of the doomsdays of controversial forks of 16mb by groups of warewolves and vampires preventing linear.

but consensual '2base-4mbweight' buffer increase by EVERYONE in the community releasing an implementation. so that fans of kings, warewolves and vampires can all happily stick with their favourites and still have the open choice to decentrally vote in or out of a safe increase of capacity which still allows the kings to have their way too, and no one thinking they have to jump camps to get it.
yes this means the quadratics doomsday is also a moot point because segwit still works
again it does not mean segwit wont function by increasing the 2mb base, so relax lauda your kings still have a job and are not sacked
again this does not mean any excess bloat that kings are not also accepting as safe

the issue is simple
the cost of recovering a loss far exceeds the loss itself, and scammers know this.

if you cannot physically slap someone with a wet fish. dont hand them your money
if you affordably slap someone with a wet fish. dont hand them your money

from the bitcoin network prospective
the fee would still be one standard(https://bitcoinfees.21.co/) bitcoin tx fee to lock funds in. and one standard bitcoin tx fee to settle
(just like any other onchain transaction requires these days)

but the way to think of it would be. if you done 100 trades in LN you have not have had to pay the standard bitcoin fee 99 times.
ofcourse i presume a negative interest malicious hub could ask for a little extra for himself, and i presume the guys making a particular software for such will want a cut too..
but from bitcoins network prospective, just standard bitcoin fees to lockin and settle.

yes escrow can be another use.
also faucets.
also exchanges.
also gambling sites

EG faucet puts in 0.1.. customer puts in 0.00000010 (total 0.10000010)
then every 10 minute when a customer raids a faucet, the faucet owner puts 500sats in favour of customer

and so on every 10 minutes until they want to settle.
that way it saves on many thousands of "spam" transactions of 500sat ever being seen on the blockchain
(knitpickers: yes i know 10 sat tx and 500sat tx's are already ignored as "too small" onchain, i was just using it for illustrative purposes where bitcoins value may increase to no longer treat 10-500 as too small, but doesnt spam the blockchain every 10 minutes)

issues i see.. (adding onto last post)
bitcoins blockchain allows 1 person to sign for what they hold.
LN however is a partnership of negotiating who gets what of the multisigs holdings.
i can foresee merchants becoming the new-age banks. because customers using LN will need the merchants signature to agree. (just like a bank authorisation)

as you say malicious users: imagine a hub gets so popular people lock funds in for months on end. then the hub decides to get greedy by implementing negative interest. only agreeing to sign a tx where the hub gets an extra 1% of a trade. knowing the customer cant simply get their funds out without the hubs signature

other issues is DDoS and spam attacking hubs, because transactions are not stored in 6000 locations(nodes) and just 2(hub and customer) there are issues with that.

understandably there are major benefits of LN for faucets and gambling where customers are spending/trading multiple times a day. which would be a great benefit to speeding up some things. but LN is not the ultimate solution for everything bitcoin and its best to not throw all your funds into a multisig address "managed" by a second party, otherwise its no better than using a bank.

in short once a few issues are sorted it has a purpose in some markets as a optional service. but should not be advertised as requiring everyone lock in all their funds to LN multisigs and never use traditional transactions(unmanaged onchain) again

in simplistic terms
LN is just X parties creating a multisig by handing each other a public key (not private)
this public key creates a multisig address

they double check they are both using the same address after joining the public keys together. and then both side put in some funds.
funding the address is done onchain. but the funds are locks for xxxx blocks.
lets say they both put in 0.1btc each
which would be on the blockchain 2 transactions

now that they both have something to lose they are more willing to be honest with each other.

offchain they create a private transaction to spend the 0.2btc total by giving person A 0.1 and person B 0.1 and both sign it
this is the defacto 'refund' transaction.

then later, still privately if person A buys something. they agree that person B gets more..
by giving person A 0.099 and person B 0.101 and both sign it
obviously person B wants the extra 0.001 each purchase so he is happy to sign. and person A wont receive the goods until he signs so he is happy to sign

later person A buys something else

by giving person A 0.098 and person B 0.102 and both sign it

the first transaction can be happily forgotten as they now have a new active transaction they are happy with

later person A buys something else
by giving person A 0.097 and person B 0.103 and both sign it

and so on and so on for over lets say 90 trades.
...person A buys something else
by giving person A 0.007 and person B 0.193 and both sign it

as long as both people are online. signing it is near instant and these transactions are only stored on in the mempool of the individuals involved

after a while they decide its time to settle up. so close the link between each other and broadcast the most uptodate transaction onto the bitcoin network:

and even though there have been 93 trades between A and B. all the bitcoin blockchain sees 3 transactions (2 to setup 1 to settle)



hope this has helped people visualise the simplicity of the concept.

LN uses buzzwords like bi-directional. but because its not using a long chain of transactions that are linked to previous transactions. its more like having a pool of funds and negotiating who deserves what.
meaning person A could prove goods are not delivered and they both sign that A gets a little more and B gets a little less

however there are still a few issues that need sorting.
the private communications channel(ensure they dont lose touch or other issues)
locking initial funds in
3rd party(hubs) to mitigate disputes
parameters to settle
preventing double spends(person A sending defacto refund to get 0.1 back even after buying 93 products)