If you still don't understand what the deal with Bitcoin is, don't worry: Even it's biggest boosters admit it is still probably still too early to be useful to the mainstream.
In a talk this week sponsored by the NYC Foundation for Computer Science Education, Union Square Ventures founder Fred Wilson identified the two key hurdles Bitcoin still must overcome to be useful to an average consumer.
The first is the cryptocurrency's chicken and egg problem: Nearly six years after Satoshi Nakamoto published his Bitcoin spec paper, demand for Bitcoin remains largely speculative, or induced. Here's what Wilson told his audience:
We said, If you come tonight, you're either a student, in which case we have sponsors who were making donations to cover the students, or you're buying a $25 ticket...But you had to pay it in Bitcoin. And I got a lot of emails from people, particularly in the last few days, who said, I don't have any Bitcoin, I would have to buy the Bitcoin, it's going to take me three days for the Bitcoin to show up in my account. So I'm not going to be able to get the Bitcoin in time to make it to the event. If you had Bitcoin in your account it was simple, you just gave 1/20th of a Bitcoin and you come. So, not enough people have it. And forcing people to buy the Bitcoin to give the money to the charity isn't a great model, and we actually saw that in this event.
The other obstacle Wilson identified to mainstream adoption is that the security systems surrounding Bitcoin remain - though he also says this is in itself represents a huge investment opportunity, as it will help address the first issue:
One of the real issues with Bitcoin right now is that it's not that secure, and the reason it's not that secure is, it's easy to hack into people's computers, if they have a wallet on their own computer, it's easy to get in there and steal the Bitcoin. Bitcoin theft is a big issue. Bitcoin fraud is a big issue. And what will have to happen is we will need to see companies like Coinbase and others merge that can invest heavily in security. And that's both technological security, and also process security - to make you comfortable to keep your Bitcoin there. And I think that that's probably going to be first big commercial opportunity in Bitcoin, is to create secure systems. Because without that, I don't think we'll ever get enough confidence and trust in the system for people to really start using it.
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