Informal survey: What are Bitcoin's biggest challenges?

[xDan]

Technically:
- ease of use still a problem. Progress continues, slowly. Browser integrated wallets are key. One click purchase on any bitcoin accepting site is a killer feature.
- average joe, even average-geek-joe, simply cannot safely store a large amount of BTC. People are going to continue to lose large sums of bitcoin.

Culturally:
- I think a lot of people simply do not see a need for Bitcoin. I think to be honest, we need to ignore that sector. Too much effort is being put into marketing BTC to people who are happy with their credit cards. The largely ignored area is: kids. Technologically literate and malleable young people, who perhaps do not have bank cards, or for whom having a wallet on their smartphone will seem "cool" and futuristic. Simply installing a wallet on their smartphone without having to register or identify themselves to any bank? That monetary/spending independence should appeal to a teenager.

What I think will herald mainstream adoption is some service or app that appeals to young people and also serves a useful function. A killer app. Tipping and such on reddit is a small example; but that's primarily for the geek crowd. What's bitcoin's killer role in the snapchat demographic?

(but of course the killer "app" may simply be bitcoin as money, to buy anything anywhere, and so the hard part is still getting hold of bitcoin)

Practicality:
- buying it. Still tricky. I want to see vouchers you buy in a store (like mobile top-ups). I'd like to see buying BTC as easy for a kid as a mobile top-up. Go into a store, hand over cash, swipe their smartphone, and acquire their BTC. The very pessimistic view (which I think might be correct) is we'll have to wait for a parallel economy to appear so there is no cashing in or out. It may be all the AML regs kill any quick and easy bitcoin purchasing.
- tax complications. A company having to work out how they pay tax on Bitcoin income. Sure, if they use some service to convert automatically to $ or whatever it's easy, but in an ideal world they'd hold a balance in Bitcoin. I know I could run Bitcoin earning ads on a site of mine, but I avoid it because tax is annoyingly complicated enough as it is.

[profitofthegods]

Technically:
- ease of use still a problem. Progress continues, slowly. Browser integrated wallets are key. One click purchase on any bitcoin accepting site is a killer feature.
- average joe, even average-geek-joe, simply cannot safely store a large amount of BTC. People are going to continue to lose large sums of bitcoin.

Culturally:
- I think a lot of people simply do not see a need for Bitcoin. I think to be honest, we need to ignore that sector. Too much effort is being put into marketing BTC to people who are happy with their credit cards. The largely ignored area is: kids. Technologically literate and malleable young people, who perhaps do not have bank cards, or for whom having a wallet on their smartphone will seem "cool" and futuristic. Simply installing a wallet on their smartphone without having to register or identify themselves to any bank? That monetary/spending independence should appeal to a teenager.

What I think will herald mainstream adoption is some service or app that appeals to young people and also serves a useful function. A killer app. Tipping and such on reddit is a small example; but that's primarily for the geek crowd. What's bitcoin's killer role in the snapchat demographic?

(but of course the killer "app" may simply be bitcoin as money, and so the hard part is still getting hold of bitcoin)

Practicality:
- buying it. Still tricky. I want to see vouchers you buy in a store (like mobile top-ups). I'd like to see buying BTC as easy for a kid as a mobile top-up. Go into a store, hand over cash, swipe their smartphone, and acquire their BTC. The very pessimistic view (which I think might be correct) is we'll have to wait for a parallel economy to appear so there is no cashing in or out. It may be all the AML regs kill any quick and easy bitcoin purchasing.
- tax complications. A company having to work out how they pay tax on Bitcoin income. Sure, if they use some service to convert automatically to $ or whatever it's easy, but in an ideal world they'd hold a balance in Bitcoin. I know I could run Bitcoin earning ads on a site of mine, but I avoid it because tax is annoyingly complicated enough as it is.

Great points about focussing on the younger generation, with Bitcoin perhaps being the first and easiest (as well as coolest) step for them to take towards their own financial independence from parents - and vouchers from stores is a great idea.

[bridgesro]

Technically:
- ease of use still a problem. Progress continues, slowly. Browser integrated wallets are key. One click purchase on any bitcoin accepting site is a killer feature.
- average joe, even average-geek-joe, simply cannot safely store a large amount of BTC. People are going to continue to lose large sums of bitcoin.

Culturally:
- I think a lot of people simply do not see a need for Bitcoin. I think to be honest, we need to ignore that sector. Too much effort is being put into marketing BTC to people who are happy with their credit cards. The largely ignored area is: kids. Technologically literate and malleable young people, who perhaps do not have bank cards, or for whom having a wallet on their smartphone will seem "cool" and futuristic. Simply installing a wallet on their smartphone without having to register or identify themselves to any bank? That monetary/spending independence should appeal to a teenager.

What I think will herald mainstream adoption is some service or app that appeals to young people and also serves a useful function. A killer app. Tipping and such on reddit is a small example; but that's primarily for the geek crowd. What's bitcoin's killer role in the snapchat demographic?

(but of course the killer "app" may simply be bitcoin as money, and so the hard part is still getting hold of bitcoin)

Practicality:
- buying it. Still tricky. I want to see vouchers you buy in a store (like mobile top-ups). I'd like to see buying BTC as easy for a kid as a mobile top-up. Go into a store, hand over cash, swipe their smartphone, and acquire their BTC. The very pessimistic view (which I think might be correct) is we'll have to wait for a parallel economy to appear so there is no cashing in or out. It may be all the AML regs kill any quick and easy bitcoin purchasing.
- tax complications. A company having to work out how they pay tax on Bitcoin income. Sure, if they use some service to convert automatically to $ or whatever it's easy, but in an ideal world they'd hold a balance in Bitcoin. I know I could run Bitcoin earning ads on a site of mine, but I avoid it because tax is annoyingly complicated enough as it is.

Great points about focussing on the younger generation, with Bitcoin perhaps being the first and easiest (as well as coolest) step for them to take towards their own financial independence from parents - and vouchers from stores is a great idea.

I really like this perspective too. I hadn't thought much about it before now, but I think targeting the next generation should be something the community pursues more.

[thms]

The biggest challenge for Bitcoin is the insanely inconvenient decimal place and how this prevents people from trying bitcoin.

1 Bitcoin = 600USD

Regular Joe thinks: "Wow bitcoin is too expensive I won't buy it"

Now shift the decimal place and we have

1 Bitcoin = 0.60 USD

Regular Joe thinks: "Ok I'm gonna buy 10 dollars worth of bitoins."

I know that this is stupid but that's what's happening. The price of bitcoin is preventing more people to at least try bitcoin. See this example:

TIL A&W introduced a burger that was bigger and less expensive than McDonald's Quarter Pounder, but it failed because customers assumed 1/3 was less than 1/4.
link: http://jamesjchoi.blogspot.com.br/2014/07/why-third-pounder-hamburger-failed.html

Bitcoin could become the next 1/3 burger.

And defaulting to units such as micro, milli, etc, won't help much. People want to own whole numbers of bitcoins.

[gbooz]

A good summary of challenges. Any suggestions how to overcome these?

[Daniel91]

Like the title says, I'm conducting an informal survey of Bitcoin's biggest challenges. Specifically, I'd like to hear what you all think are the biggest challenges in three categories:

• Technically - As in the Bitcoin client, the operation of the system, mining, security, etc.
• Culturally - As in mainstream acceptance, user and merchant adoption, Bitcoin's image (or image problem), etc.
• Practicality - As in the practical uses and difficulties in Bitcoin (a good example would be people who worry over wait times for confirmations).

There's no need to limit your answers to one per category; feel free to pose as many as you like for each category or post answers to just one or two of them. Your answers can be as detailed or straightforward as you please.

Thanks, and I look forward to reading your responses!

Very interesting questions.
As Bitcoin client I think that security is fine but I'm not expert in this field.
Culturally, I think this is the biggest challenge for our Bitcoin community, how to make Bitcoin more popular, specially in young generation, so that step by step Bitcoin can become mainstream. If we don't succeed in this Bitcoin eventually can be just another good idea never realized fully. We should try to adverise Bitcoin more, and explain more to the public, specially to merchants, so that Bitcoin can be spend in many more ways, and this will eventually help that more people start using Bitcoin.
Practically I think very serious issue soon for all of us, who keep Bitcoin in hope that price will rise and we earn additional income from this, will be how to report this income to the tax offices.

[pand70]

The biggest problem of bitcoin right now is trust. Actually the lack of it... Lack of trust in the bitcoin system itself, the software and the companies around bitcoin.

The thing is that only time can fix this particular problem...

[gbooz]

The biggest problem of bitcoin right now is trust. Actually the lack of it... Lack of trust in the bitcoin system itself, the software and the companies around bitcoin.

The thing is that only time can fix this particular problem...

I would agree regarding the trust as the currency. BTC has to become a currency, not a speculative asset for gambling. This means price stability/growth stability. Then the problem of a lack of adoption will be resolved. Yes, trust is the most important issue.

[bridgesro]

The biggest problem of bitcoin right now is trust. Actually the lack of it... Lack of trust in the bitcoin system itself, the software and the companies around bitcoin.

The thing is that only time can fix this particular problem...

I would agree regarding the trust as the currency. BTC has to become a currency, not a speculative asset for gambling. This means price stability/growth stability. Then the problem of a lack of adoption will be resolved. Yes, trust is the most important issue.

That's what I've felt for a while is Bitcoin's biggest challenge. It needs to get over the image of an investment and move on to being a unit of trade.

[deluxeCITY]

The biggest problem of bitcoin right now is trust. Actually the lack of it... Lack of trust in the bitcoin system itself, the software and the companies around bitcoin.

The thing is that only time can fix this particular problem...

I would agree regarding the trust as the currency. BTC has to become a currency, not a speculative asset for gambling. This means price stability/growth stability. Then the problem of a lack of adoption will be resolved. Yes, trust is the most important issue.

That's what I've felt for a while is Bitcoin's biggest challenge. It needs to get over the image of an investment and move on to being a unit of trade.

A unit of trade can still be viewed as an investment. Look at gold, it is the oldest unit of trade that exists today, but many people also treat gold as an investment.

[ajareselde]

The biggest problem of bitcoin right now is trust. Actually the lack of it... Lack of trust in the bitcoin system itself, the software and the companies around bitcoin.

The thing is that only time can fix this particular problem...

I would agree regarding the trust as the currency. BTC has to become a currency, not a speculative asset for gambling. This means price stability/growth stability. Then the problem of a lack of adoption will be resolved. Yes, trust is the most important issue.

That's what I've felt for a while is Bitcoin's biggest challenge. It needs to get over the image of an investment and move on to being a unit of trade.

A unit of trade can still be viewed as an investment. Look at gold, it is the oldest unit of trade that exists today, but many people also treat gold as an investment.

But gold is worth something due to its properties, especialy in technical sence, unlike bitcoin, that has no other purpuse other than for trading/speculating.
If i was to invest large amounts of capital into something like that, i would like some guarantee that:

-it cant be stolen from me without option to file a claim (dispute)
-it wont be banned from existence
-cant be copyed by anyone, ever again.

And due to bitcoin nature as open source software, and ireversibility of payments, it simply makes me reconsider my investment.
I do have some portion invested in bitcoin, just in case something insane happens, but i realise how that is high risk investment, and so should others before they invest.