VISA marketcap = $207 billion. Gold marketcap: $7 trillion

[Qartada]

It's very clear exactly what gold's intended purpose is though.  Bitcoin's value is based on both its use as a currency and its gold like properties, so it needs to have both at least to some extent.  Transaction fees should be high enough to create a fee market without making people flock to altcoins (to be honest, for a majority of people to go to a specific altcoin it would take some very, very high fees, especially since a lot of people view Bitcoin as an investment as well).

A more reasonable comparison though would be the market cap of fiat currency versus gold - then you'll find the reality.  Fiat currencies are worth many, many trillions of dollars - even the dollar is worth many trillions of dollars.  You forget that most average people actually hold their savings in that crap, just because they can hand over some cash and they know that it's done - and even with digital fiat, it's done from their perspective.

[QuestionAuthority]

Visa is neither fast nor cheap 

right. i don't think many people realise the amount of time and steps that it takes for a visa payment to end up as real cash in the merchant's account.

*big pretty picture*

it's a real shame bitcoin is such a hard sell to consumers, because for merchants it's almost perfect.

Yes, for merchants it's perfect. You get paid first. You get paid fast. Your profit is guaranteed whether you deliver a product or not (just ask Butterfly Labs). The only way your customers can guarantee that they will get their product is if your Bitcoin customers go running to mommy government (like the SEC) and beg them to interfere with your free liberal anti-big bank coin to get your money back for you (and even that didn't get back all the money from BFL).

For consumers, it's somewhat less than perfect. The majority of people that got their money back from Butterfly Labs used PayPal to pay for their mining equipment. So PayPal saved a bunch of bitcoiners asses and returned their funds. The reason fraud protection exists is because it's too easy for unscrupulous businesses to fuck tons of customers and run away. Fraud protection costs money. That's why the extra costs are associated with using a credit card, debit card and most types of main stream payment methods.

It's been easy for BitPay and others to sell the idea of accepting Bitcoin to businesses. It hasn't been so easy to convince the average joe to go out and buy Bitcoin to shop with for anything other than black market contraband because they don't need another unsafe method of spending money. They can just send cash in the mail for that.

[stadus]

This is an interesting discussion but I think we will get there on time, bitcoin is growing and it will surely grow in the future. I would not limit my imagination for now, the only basis of my prediction in the future is based on the increasing number of transactions on a daily basis and it significantly increase compared to the past years. Bitcoin system should be able to compete with them in time and it will happen soon, let's watch for that the development is going on and looks fast.

[Amph]

Visa is neither fast nor cheap 

right. i don't think many people realise the amount of time and steps that it takes for a visa payment to end up as real cash in the merchant's account.



it's a real shame bitcoin is such a hard sell to consumers, because for merchants it's almost perfect.

People are idiots and don't understand actual confirmation in VISA takes several days yet they cry and complain about lightning network being "too centralizing". Go figure.

We could beat the entire banking industry with segwit+LN+sidechains but a couple idiots are blocking progress.

not several days but months, because you can do chargeback up to 180 days, which is insane compared to bitcoin

they can't udnerstand that the electronic money they see coming fast on their bank account are there because there is a guy changing a little number on his computer for you

that numbers has zero value, and the real money connected to it come much later, but to speed this process up they do this trick