I disagree a bit about this. UPI is the same in the sense that there too we scan QR codes. And the money DOES arrive instantly in the merchant's account and they can spend it immediately. No waiting for days. Having used it extensively, that's how it works.

The rest of the points I agree with though. The personal info thing and the other points you made.

I'm currently going through a Bitcoin course for developers while studying for Summer of Bitcoin. Well I came across a pretty interesting scenario and I'm wondering what's going to happen if that were to be the case.

Since Bitcoin is by definition, deflationary, because it has a limited supply, it will supposedly have more purchasing power over time (assuming good adoption and acceptance of bitcoin). Bitcoin is limited to 21mil forever. I quote from the course,


Deflation in bitcoin is not caused by a collapse in demand, but by a predictably constrained supply. Now what would happen if people did start suddenly hoarding? I mean HODL is just a huge meme at this point but what if EVERYONE actually did that? What would things look like then?

To be clear I'm in no way arguing against bitcoin. I am just trying to put myself in the shoes of the average person and trying to see why they would consider moving to this. Myself? Big supporter. I am admire the technological aspect itself. This isn't arguing why I don't want to use it. I'm just trying to think of if the adoption would work if convenience is such a big factor. Yes global nature of bitcoin is a thing that's something I pretty much don't see happening with UPI. Thats a valid point.

Thats true. But what if for example, Google suddenly decides to lobby and introduce this exact same concept in the US, and then in the other countries too? (I'm not exactly sure if I'm using the right terms here). GPay is the app that's the most widely used for UPI transactions in India. What if Google suddenly decides they want to introduce the same thing the US too? Would that hinder the growth of bitcoin?

Yeah cash transactions are convenient. So why would someone go for bitcoin? Where small transactions can take quite long to get verified (ignoring the lightning network implementation). And can the convenience factor of UPI hinder in bitcoin adoption?

No. But won't adoption matter in terms of trust in bitcoin, and how stable it is at any point?

UPI isnt an altcoin. It is a fast (almost instantaneous) and very convenient way to transfer fiat from your phone. You can check the wiki link in my OP.
I would really suggest having a look at it.

All valid points above. I agree with the losing money thing, inflation definitely concerns me. And privacy concerns are there - that's true. But actually using the payment systems that are in current effect (specifically UPI), I do have a hard time seeing why anyone would want to switch over. Yes it isn't global. But I would assume that the average consumer doesn't really do that many global transactions per day, its mostly buying stuff from small stores, supermarkets, transferring money to family/friends etc. UPI so far has been great for that. Yes it's controlled by the government and yes a collapse is frightening.

But what percentage of the world's population will actually care about the tech underneath it all, when all they want is convenience. I'm fascinated by the tech, don't get me wrong. But discussing it with another tech enthusiast made me actually question if large scale adoption will happen at all, just because of the convenience factor. Yep there is always a tradeoff between convenience and privacy. What is convenient isn't private. But where is the balance?

As for not trusting fiat because of inflation and government motives - that's fair. But what percentage of the population actually has that fear? In my experience quite little when I come to really think of it.

What about the volatility thing though? How would early adopters deal with that and fluctuating prices? Because currently things that are available to be bought for bitcoin, aren't really prices in bitcoin per say. They are priced in terms of what the owner expects in fiat for that item. If the value of bitcoin against that particular fiat plummets, the price in bitcoins for the item will increase. These swings are pretty common. Thinking about it, I thought of a plausible argument - that bitcoin is still in its early adoption state. It hasn't been fully realized as a medium of exchange yet. When it is, things will actually be priced in terms of just what they expect for bitcoin, as then consumers will have trust that bitcoin is a medium of store of value and a medium of exchange in and of itself.

But then what about the fact that if the demand for bitcoin one day drastically decreases, the value would plummet too?

I was recently talking to a friend regarding BTC (we're both university students thinking about venturing into bitcoin and blockchain development) and we got into an argument about why would someone even want to transition to BTC. Why would people want to change the already established status quo, and what are the actual benefits of doing so. Like we understand that its a revolutionary tech and all that. But he asked me why would someone actually want to give up the convenience of the already established status quo and dive into a volatile currency like bitcoin, the value of which can just suddenly drop one day if there is not demand at all.

His argument was that if banks disappear, there's still some guarantee that we somehow get some of our money back, as its supported by the government. But demand for bitcoin just disappear one day and the value would vanish with it too. He says that just based on tech we cannot really move over, because trust is more important and fiat has earned the trust of the world as of now. I've brought up convenience and decentralization, to which he gave the counterexample of UPI (a thing that's widely used in India) and come to think about it, its actually extremely convenient. No transaction fees, just scan a QR code and pay. No need to carry any cash on you, and its almost universal. UPI wiki Its available everywhere, on roadside stalls, anywhere. Want a plate of momo? Scan and pay. Pizza? Done. Shoes? Done. You can pay for nearly anything by just scanning a code and its instant. Why would someone want to leave that convenience and want to move over? Is the promise of a better technology enough for this to happen? I would like solid arguments.

Yeah I understand that. But currently the extent of adoption that Bitcoin has had in today's society makes it just another form of accepting money that will essentially be converted to fiat. Its currently not a unit of account anywhere. Like, if a shop has a bitcoin price for something, that's not the true bitcoin price, rather a converted price for the fiat amount the shop owner is willing to accept. If bitcoin falls against the particular fiat currency, the asking bitcoin price would increase exponentially for that item.

Only when merchants are willing to accept bitcoins for payment without regard to the bitcoin exchange rate against fiat currencies can we truly think of Bitcoin as having become a unit of account. For that they need to be willing to see that alternatives to fiat exist too. Unless a large part of the population accepts that Bitcoin has some sort of inherent value (rather than just being an exchange thingy to convert to fiat later), its not really going to be a true currency.

I mean of all of the major forms of "currency" in the recent history of man, Bitcoin is the one with the most censorship resistance. Gold was better in this sense than fiat, but still not ideal because the very physical nature of gold made it difficult to transport and trade in, and susceptible to government intervention. Fiat is totally regulated by the government it is issued by, its completely centralized. Bitcoin isn't - but its not anonymous either - that is something a lot of people don't understand. Every transaction publicly available in the blockchain and allows forensic analysis. But at the network level, it is permission-less, there is no human intervention that decides if a transaction is allowed or not.
That is what makes Bitcoin censorship-resistant, and more so compared to other kinds of currency.

I kind of agree, but also the fact that most people do not really want to change from the current global standard that is fiat makes it difficult, its kind of like preaching into the void. There's no way a large part of the population will accept bitcoin as a form of viable currency exchange in their lifetimes.

But the tech enthusiast can be convinced otherwise. There are programs to make people more and more involved in understanding bitcoin, its use, why it can become the new money standard that can be used worldwide - without conversions and centralized oversight. Things like Summer of Bitcoin is definitely helping people in my country get more hands on with bitcoin (albeit its mostly just university students), but nonetheless, these initiatives come with courses that shed light on some of the aspects of bitcoin that make people avoid it - mostly because they don't know about it all that much.

Well post quantum cryptography is going to evolve too. Developers aren't going to be stagnant and lets be honest, quantum computing still has a ways to go before it gets anywhere close to posing a threat to the bitcoin algorithm, or any encryption system for that matter. People expect about a decade or so. But the existing quantum technology is by far very experimental currently, and not that much of a threat to any encryption algorithm, so we are safe for now. And I expect quantum-resistant methods to be out before quantum computing can actually break these algorithms.

In fact, there are many articles COINTELEGRAPH article on quantum threats detailing approaches that are already in progress that want to mitigate the quantum threat - many aided by big corporations with a lot of funding. This is just how cryptography has always worked, someone tries to break the encryption system while others keep designing countermeasures.

A hardware wallet is definitely the most safe way to go. People have recommended the two most widely used options above...Trezor and Ledger. So those would be the "safest options", provided that you follow all the recommended practices, keep a backup properly etc.

The other way that I recommend, which is frankly mostly because of the convenience (I don't have a huge amount of BTC, if you do, you should probably try a hardware wallet and even better would be to not put all your eggs in one basket, so separate stuff and keep in various wallets...trust me the investment is worth it if you own a considerable amount in BTC), is using Electrum. Its open source, and as long as you know what you're doing - everything's safe and in your hands. Its also very conveniently accessible, that helps.

I mean I wouldn't say its not very important? Because according to statistics, India has the most "number" of people owning crypto. Just by sheer number of people, it has the "largest user base", 100 million, compared to the ~25-30 million in USA. Sure, USA still has the most trading volume and India isn't even close, but this growth in India has been just in the past 1-3 years. The growth is exponential, mostly due to the median age of Indian population being 28.4 yrs (Source: worldometers), and them being eager to learn about new technology.



So I wouldn't really say the country with the most people adopting and trying out the technology is "not very important", it might as well be in the coming years. And this 30% tax and TDS is definitely going to hurt the enthusiasm among adopters.

I guess the most significant thing to come out of this was the Shopify integration thing? Because that would make use of the bitcoin lightning network to allow fees ~0% rather than the ~3% in case of Visa. And people don't even have to deal with BTC if they don't want to, retailers can chose to settle payments in any currency they want, it just gets converted to BTC and then fiat.

So no need to worry about volatility too. I didn't find the rest of the stuff that interesting. Only the above might cause an increase in exposure of BTC in the short-mid term imo.

I saw a post regarding the same already in the forum. So I decided to just post a reply there instead of creating a new topic.

Source: Bitcoin may soon be accepted by McDonald’s, Walmart via Lightning Network, Mallers says



So according to the article, the bitcoin lightning network can be used to instantly settle payments with close to 0% transaction fees.
I think this is a huge step forward, as the volatility of BTC won't come into play, because the customers don't even have to pay in BTC for it to actually work. Neither user or merchant has to interact with BTC at all, but the merchant would be saving ~3% here than if they had gone with using VISA.


Also, all shopify sites accepting BTC is huge!

Source: Bitcoin may soon be accepted by McDonald’s, Walmart via Lightning Network, Mallers says



So according to the article, the bitcoin lightning network can be used to instantly settle payments with close to 0% transaction fees.
I think this is a huge step forward, as the volatility of BTC won't come into play, because the customers don't even have to pay in BTC for it to actually work. Neither user or merchant has to interact with BTC at all, but the merchant would be saving ~3% here than if they had gone with using VISA.


Also, all shopify sites accepting BTC is huge! Why isn't this being talked about more?

Here come some more territories legalizing bitcoin. I guess we'll see how it goes - without proper implementation, its not gonna go anywhere. But I'm rooting for these territories as the area and population are both pretty less so adoption should be easier imo.