The only reason fiat money has value is because people accept that it has value. Sure fiat money used to be backed by gold or silver. But Gold and silver has value for the same reason. People hold money becuse it can be exchanged with goods or services. Some people have decided that they want to hold cryptocurrency instead as money. It's that simple.
If Bitcoin were to be accepted by all businesses and stores then I think many more people would start using it instead of fiat.

That's a good point. Many people equate tangibilty with something having real financial value or not. Others think that something can only have value if its value is validated by the government. But the truth is none of these things determine the value of something. Only each person can decide if something has value, and how much value it has. And that's how everything is valued in the financial world.

The government validating the value of Bitcoin goes against the notion of why Bitcoin was invented in the first place: To have a type of money that the government can't tamper with its value with.

It's quite interesting that people keep on claiming that Bitcoin is somehow not real.

If the question is, would Bitcoin become the reserve currency for fiat? If all people start using Bitcoin then it could be. But I don't think that governments would allow that to happen. During the huge price surge that happened more than a year ago most governments around the world started putting regulations on Bitcoin and some even banned its use.
This wasn't simply because they were trying to protect people from a very volatile asset or to protect against market fluctuations that Bitcoin could create, it was because they worried that they would not have control over the money supply, if more and more people started putting their money into cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin can actually take on the role that gold had before it was unanimously decided that currencies don't have to be backed by commodities, many decades ago. If used for that purpose, it would have most of the advantages of gold, and almost none of the disadvantages.

Technically Bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme any more than gold is a ponzi scheme. Participants are buying and selling Bitcoin in a free market, by agreeing on the price. That's how all transactions are made in all markets. Yes, many people have called Bitcoin a ponzi scheme. But this either is because they don't know what Bitcoin is, or they're implying that people are putting their money in to something that has no real value. But what defines the real value of something? Value is subjective.

Those other cryptocurrencies are about people who didn't buy Bitcoin when it was cheap and are trying to find a very cheap one now that will greatly appreciate.

The issue could be that if people start relying on companies for storing their Bitcoin, instead of keeping and storing it themselves, it won't be much different than the traditional banking they were doing before they started using it. The main purpose of Bitcoin was originally for it to be an alternative to banks.
One of the main reasons why corporation started paying so much attention to it was the launch of the Bitcoin investment products in the major exchanges, which kind of legitimized it for them. But perhaps the good thing about it is that it means they think Bitcoin has a future. If they thought it was just a fad they wouldn't spend any money on it.

Yes, it would be nice to educate people about cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency should be taught in universities and schools because this is the future currency, and people should learn its technology.
But aside from that, which version of the Bitcoin story will they be taught? What Bitcoin is from the government's viewpoint? Or the virtues of Bitcoin for having a real free market currency, that the government manipulate? It would be greatly debated topic.

That great rally last year brought a lot of attention to Bitcoin. The price declined much since then, but it's at a good price now since when the fast rise first started.

With regards to the issue about what people's tendencies are for owning and using Bitcoin, there was a recent survey that shows that most consumers and investors are optimistic about all cryptocurrencies, even after that big price decline. The survey showed that, for long term success, the most highly regarded are Bitcoin, Etherium, Ripple, and Litecoin. But there are still major concerns about market volatility and security.
Even some major luxury car brands have announced recently that they've started accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment method.

I think another issue that needs to be sorted out is the amount of power consumption caused by mining. People are becoming more and more concerned about the environment and global warming, and soon they could be raising arguments against Bitcoin.

Bitcoin can't really be banned. It's on the internet. If people really want to use it they can. Is the government going to ban Bitcoin mining?
Sure, they can ban mining within their country. For example, Venezuela has banned imports of all mining equipment into the country a few months ago. But as long as Bitcoins are being mined somewhere the people can keep exchanging Bitcoins.
If a government bans Bitcoins in that country, most people wouldn't use it, as they would want to be law abiding citizens. But some people would still continue to use it.

Most people have been using Bitcoin as an asset for a long time. Few people use it as money to purchase things with. Most people even learned about Bitcoin as an investment.
This was actually a case where a person had obtained money (Bitcoins) via illegal activities, and the government previously couldn't confiscate the money because according to the law in South Korea, Bitcoin was not considered a tangible asset. This new decision was specifically to confiscate those Bitcoins by declaring Bitcoins as an asset.

The reason for that is simple. The Chinese government doesn't want its citizens to be putting their money into something which it can't control. By using Bitcoin Chinese people and companies can avoid paying taxes and can get their money out of the country pretty easily.
It's not just about people in China who are buying Bitcoins, the Chinese government is reducing the number of miners in the country too. The way their doing this is not just by putting up laws and through their central bank. The government is actually reducing the amount of energy available to miners. The reason that China was such a suitable place for miners was because of the low energy costs. Many large mining setups in China have started moving to other countries.

That's true. It's a different kind of money that most people aren't familiar with. Especially people who are older or are not tech savvy. Opening an account and buying and selling Bitcoin has become quite simple actually, but I think there are many people that think there is a security issue about it.

Ordinary folk are listening to experts and government agencies, and the way Bitcoin is being described by those people make people avoid getting involved. Many famous investors are saying that Bitcoin is not something that will last, and governments are labeling it as a scam. In the media, it is being equated with money laundering and the payment method used by criminals.

People can only learn about Bitcoin and how it can be used if they do their own research about it. They can't be waiting for governments to be touting its use, because Bitcoin and similar currencies are something that governments don't want people to be using.
The price rally that happened last year was great for ordinary people to take notice, but it created the perception that this is just something to make some quick money with. The true value of Bitcoin and the technology it's based on is still not known by most people.

It's true that South Korea is an important country and is affecting the Bitcoin market. But Chinese investors have a huge influence. China has a high concentration of Bitcoin miners too. The huge rise in the price of Bitcoin since one and a half years ago was mainly caused by Chinese investors trying to secure their wealth and keeping it out of the reach of their government. That's what mainly caused the initial price rise, and then it all turned in to a speculative investment that all people around the world joined in on.

The topic of what influence Asian governments are having is that they are causing a reduction in the price of Bitcoin. It was especially South Korea imposing very strict regulations on Bitcoin a few months ago that made the price go lower.
Many countries in Asia don't like Bitcoin at all. They do like the technology and the concept though, but they want it to be regulated and to be under their governance. Most of them are working on issuing their own cryptocurrencies.

Developing countries could really benefit from Bitcoin. But governments creating their own currencies using blockchain is not really going to make much an of a difference in those places I think. One of the problems in these countries is corruption. It's not going to help those countries much if corrupt governments start using blockchain.

The way it would help those countries and is if people start using it for doing business and transactions. If most people in those places start using Bitcoin it could create a real free market. That's how a society creates wealth. People could use it for paying fewer taxes to governments. It would also allow businesses to keep more earnings for themselves and this could also mean lower prices for customers.
It could even help in countries where there are strict capital controls, and allow the citizens of those countries to do business internationally.

The comparison between gold and Bitcoin is being done much these days. Actually, Bitcoin is being called "digital gold", because there really are some similarities. The main similarities are that the amount of both of them are finite, and no two people can own the same bar of gold, or the same Bitcoin, at the same time.
Would people who are investing in, and storing away gold, stop doing that and start investing their money into Bitcoin? Most probably not. People who've been investing in gold are not just going to now put all their money in Bitcoin. Unlike Bitcoin, gold has a proven track record (of thousands of years) and has industrial uses. So it isn't just valuable as a means of storing value and doing transactions.

Most countries don't support it because, for them, Bitcoin is something that is competing with their own government-issued fiat money. And any money that is being invested into Bitcoin is money that is not getting invested in government bonds or that country's stock market. Which government would want that? Additionally, it's hard to track and hard to tax. Most countries would want to completely ban it, but can't do so because it would mean violating individual rights. So all they're going for now is adding more regulations and warning potential investors about the price volatility,

There are countries that have special tax benefits for buying and selling Bitcoin. Countries like Germany, Denmark, Belarus, and Slovenia all have tax exemptions depending on the amounts being traded and for how long the amounts have been owned.

In China, it is illegal for any bank or company to be trading Bitcoins but it is legal for individuals to trade among themselves. Many countries in South America have completely banned it. These are usually countries where the government wants to control all monetary transactions very tightly. One of the countries is Venezuela. Equador has banned the use of Bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies with a vote in their parliament. They are working on their own national crypto money and don't want Bitcoin competing with it.
I think, right now, the only country that is officially accepting it as a legitimate form of payment is Japan.

Many of the features listed are actually shared by other cryptocurrencies, so they are not unique to Bitcoin. The question is why is Bitcoin specifically more popular. Bitcoin is the first and most popular cryptocurrency. Most people don't even know about other cryptocurrencies and think Bitcoin is what the whole cryptocurrencies thing is. Obviously, it has huge brand recognition.

But These things don't mean that Bitcoin can't be surpassed though. If you look at market capitalization, until the beginning of the previous year, Bitcoin was like 95% of the entire market. But since then other ones, especially Etherium has been gaining market share. There was actually a time during the middle of the previous year when the market cap of Bitcoin and Etherium got kind of close.

I think that another cryptocurrency can become more popular than Bitcoin if it has some innovative new features. These can be about ease of use, better security features, or even something like lower power consumption (mining) because then it would be touted as being part of a green economy and would attract attention from environmentalists.
For example, another cryptocurrency that has been gaining great popularity very recently is Ripple. It has some innovative new features, and so much so that some analysts are saying that it should even be considered a cryptocurrency in the way that Bitcoin is.

Bitcoin has seen a lot of action during the past few months. There has been huge volatility in the price, and there are many people that are investing in it without knowing what it really is. I think in the begging, it was people who were idealistic and investing in it long term. But then it became about people who are just putting money on it simply for the fact the price has been rising.
I think what really makes paper money safer than Bitcoin is the fact that governments can ban it (to a great extent). (The price was going to continue rising, but I think that announcements from governments about possible regulations are the reason why prices aren't rising like that anymore.)
That's probably the reason why fiat money would be preferred by many over Bitcoin.

There isn't much relation between the two, or to use a more technical term, correlation. Gold is a precious metal that has been used for thousands of years, while Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. Gold's price movement is more stable while the price of Bitcoin has been especially volatile lately. And, analysis done between them shows that the correlation is close to zero.
 
There is something similar about them though; Both Gold and Bitcoin are thought of as safe assets by investors. So probably in certain financial situations, when investors are trying to get out of the cash position that they might be holding and are looking for a safe place to put their money, and this maybe because of national monetary policies or the state the global economy is in, both Bitcoin and Gold are two of the best candidates.

There is much information that is freely available on the internet about Bitcoin. There are some good books you can read, some of which are free. One good book for learning about Bitcoin is called "Mastering Bitcoin". I think that it's a free book but I'm not entirely sure. This book talks about the technology of Bitcoin, as well as how wallets are created. the way transactions work, the security features and all kinds of other details.
You can also find many videos on the topic on Youtube. Checking out this forum and various blogs can also be of use to know about the most recent news.

The populations in Africa are precisely the people that should be using Bitcoin because there is rampant government corruption in African countries. Bitcoin is a great way for such populations to keep their money. And the African continent has huge phone usage rates that are rising quickly. According to estimates, half of the population in the African continent are signed up with a phone service, so they could easily start using Bitcoin. People don't know much about Bitcoin there though, and that's why they're not using it.

Some countries in South America need to be using Bitcoin too; For example, Venezuela.
Even in countries where Bitcoin is banned people can find ways to use it if they want to.