one reason why bitcoin will not surpass fiat

[MingLee]

Because most people don't like changing their way or conception of real hard cash. BTC is for a minority of people like us only.

There is no-one who would want to change their way of money and their concept of money unless they wanted to, and for a majority of people they simply do not want to change what they see as valuable because otherwise it fucks with everything they know, and a lot of people are resistant to change and don't want anything to happen with it. Which is understandable.

[Fatanut]

I guess one of the main reasons why Bitcoin will not be able to surpass fiat is the fact that a lot of people hates Bitcoin. They basically hate what they don't know. Also, our ideas about Bitcoin, all the integration in our minds will surely not be implemented due to lack of funds. But maybe some day somebody will go such trouble to implement the most brilliant ideas out there.

[Nahl]

Because most people don't like changing their way or conception of real hard cash. BTC is for a minority of people like us only.

yes it's true because maybe bitcoin users in the whole of this world only less than 10% rather than all the people in the world and that mean almost 90% of people using cash for their transactions every day and most of them also not interested and don't know what is bitcoin and on my thought even for next 20 years bitcoin will never surpass fiat

[naidray]

Bitcoin will not surpass fiat because most people feel insecure about safety of bitcoins.Unless all governments approve bitcoin as a payment option, it will not surpass fiat

I do not believe in the term 'surpass' but when considering the potential of bitcoin, it will dominate fiats.
Yes, bitcoin will lead the list of highly being used format of money in future. In this e-commerce world, even developing countries also having very big market for online shopping. For online shopping, bitcoin would be the right choice.

[Hirose UK]

what is smart contact of bitcoin anyway?

the reason why bitcoin is not fully mainstream because it's not known by a lot of people out there, there are a little people who use it as well.

beside that, we need government to legalize bitcoin as payment.

it's just about those problems.

[n691309]

Another reason which I would add is How do you buy bitcoin? the answer is through fiat (mostly) so bitcoin is way too far from fiat and can't surpass the fiat never (in the next few decades)

[JumperX]

what is smart contact of bitcoin anyway?

the reason why bitcoin is not fully mainstream because it's not known by a lot of people out there, there are a little people who use it as well.

beside that, we need government to legalize bitcoin as payment.

it's just about those problems.

Yes and unless we won't be able to buy anything with bitcoins, fiat will always rule the world, as if we want to spend our coins then we need to convert it to fiat first to use it anywhere.

[goldcoinminer]

For the simple reason that fiat is easy to use and anyone can easily understand it while bitcoin is complicated for those people who are computer literate, that is also the reason why fiat is more popular than bitcoin now and in the near future.

[deisik]

but in fact we just shifted the trust to the coder who made the smart contract. sure we could verify the code, but how many people can do this (remember the DAO)? my mother can certainly not.
so in order to make smart contracts a big point for bitcoin we will need generations and maybe even have some sort of basic smart contracts training in schools. so this is not very likely.
even today nobody reads the fine print and just trusts that everything will work out fine (most people think they can sue to get the money back is something fishy happens). but all we need with smart contracts is just one misspelled letter and the money can be lost without recovery.
people are dumb, so fiat works just fine for them. bitcoin might be to advanced for people to really go mainstream without destroying many peoples lives, because they made a small mistake or trusted the wrong code/people.

can we solve this problem? should we get used to the losses? or is this one of the reasons bitcoin will never go mainstream?

A few hundred years ago the total majority of population had been illiterate and couldn't even read. Does it mean that people were more stupid (or less clever, if you want me to put it this way) in general than they are today? I guess no, so it still boils down to proper education at proper age. For example, it is next to impossible for an adult to learn a foreign language (which is really foreign to his mother tongue) up to the level of fluency (skills in aural comprehension and speaking ability before all) that children growing up in a multilingual environment naturally acquire seemingly without much effort on their part...

In this way, I deem that what you consider as an insurmountable problem can still be efficiently solved if addressed in a proper manner

[delliaerd]

Because the most of people not usually use bitcoin everyday in their life so easy as they use fiat for. If you want to bitcoin can surpass the fiat it is a big work to do. Bitcoin should accompanied by fiat in the dissemination

[nealvanessa990]

we hear about cool and new bitcoin ideas every day and also how these ideas will improve the standing of bitcoin. a cool feature that makes it better than fiat.
i want to talk about one such feature. bitcoin can reduce the trust we need when money is involved. let us say i want to bet a friend of mine and to make sure we pay after the bet is resolved we use a smart contract.
this sounds fine and reduces the trust needed.
but in fact we just shifted the trust to the coder who made the smart contract. sure we could verify the code, but how many people can do this (remember the DAO)? my mother can certainly not.
so in order to make smart contracts a big point for bitcoin we will need generations and maybe even have some sort of basic smart contracts training in schools. so this is not very likely.
even today nobody reads the fine print and just trusts that everything will work out fine (most people think they can sue to get the money back is something fishy happens). but all we need with smart contracts is just one misspelled letter and the money can be lost without recovery.
people are dumb, so fiat works just fine for them. bitcoin might be to advanced for people to really go mainstream without destroying many peoples lives, because they made a small mistake or trusted the wrong code/people.

can we solve this problem? should we get used to the losses? or is this one of the reasons bitcoin will never go mainstream?

Bitcoin never will be fiat.Government will never accept Bitcoin as a currency that's the reason bitcoin will never go mainstream.Only we can easier our lifestyle with bitcoin.fiat currency have more bound we can not use fiat currency as bitcoin everywhere accepted.

[samcoin]

Bitcoin will not surpass fiat because most people feel insecure about safety of bitcoins.Unless all governments approve bitcoin as a payment option, it will not surpass fiat

People think that Bitcoin is a competitor for the fiat money, while it is not. bitcoin is a store to save the money value like gold, do you think that gold can surpass fiat?
Even when you want to buy something with bitcoin, the estimated amount will be calculated by dollar, but you pay equivalent amount of bitcoin, so bitcoin isn't independent currency.

[Labumi]

Bitcoin will not surpass fiat because most people feel insecure about safety of bitcoins.Unless all governments approve bitcoin as a payment option, it will not surpass fiat

People think that Bitcoin is a competitor for the fiat money, while it is not. bitcoin is a store to save the money value like gold, do you think that gold can surpass fiat?
Even when you want to buy something with bitcoin, the estimated amount will be calculated by dollar, but you pay equivalent amount of bitcoin, so bitcoin isn't independent currency.

Yeah it was a thought, some people who do not know for sure about the bitcoin. everyone has an opinion each and can prove all of these opinions is the fact that it already exists. so, we just enjoy what the pleasure or profit us in the bitcoin

[ObscureBean]

I can only speak for myself, but bitcoin surpassed fiat seven years ago for me. Using a credit card or fiat system seems ridiculously archaic and dumb now. It's like switching to a smart phone, no one ever goes back to a flip phone.

Common man, seriously? You mean to say you don't use fiat/cash/cards/bank accounts at all anymore?? If you do, then you should try not to bite the hand that feeds you. Also, the "smart" phones of today could learn a thing or two from their ancestors. I remember a time when I used get over a week of battery life from one full charge.

[deisik]

Bitcoin will not surpass fiat because most people feel insecure about safety of bitcoins.Unless all governments approve bitcoin as a payment option, it will not surpass fiat

People think that Bitcoin is a competitor for the fiat money, while it is not. bitcoin is a store to save the money value like gold, do you think that gold can surpass fiat?
Even when you want to buy something with bitcoin, the estimated amount will be calculated by dollar, but you pay equivalent amount of bitcoin, so bitcoin isn't independent currency

I beg to differ (while in reality I just push your claim a little further). Bitcoin is not a dependent currency. To the degree that it can be claimed otherwise (i.e. inasmuch as it cannot be considered an independent currency), Bitcoin is not a currency at all. It is a financial (read speculative) asset which is being traded for dollars, euros and so on, but nothing beside that in this respect. Alternately stated, there is no such thing as a dependent currency...

Since it would contradict the concept of currency (money) as such

[karmakeddon]

People think that Bitcoin is a competitor for the fiat money, while it is not. bitcoin is a store to save the money value like gold, do you think that gold can surpass fiat?

Gold is the basis of fiat. Countries without gold reserves or smaller gold reserves has smaller value for their currency. Governements cant print paper money if their gold reserve is non existent since it will become destabilized. Fiat is just the paper representation of how much the country has in assets and debts.

[groll]

It would not be easy for people to having negative thoughts on bitcoin especially people who do not understand the process.  People who cannot understand how bitcoins work.  It is too complex for someone especially those people who are not expose into modern technology and advancement. 

[beerlover]

Another reason which I would add is How do you buy bitcoin? the answer is through fiat (mostly) so bitcoin is way too far from fiat and can't surpass the fiat never (in the next few decades)

You will be able to have bitcoin for your efforts. I sense a future without fiats when everything is available for bitcoin but after decades. Fiats are already surpassed by electronic cards when we are having banking facilities. Fiats now exist only with/for illiterate people.

[icoyan]

Monetary policy - controlling the supply of money - is a big lever in a country's economic toolbox. Letting go of fiat would mean letting go of that - and we can see with Greece how bad that can be for a country. That means that either fiat will always be here or an alt currency where the national (or international, in the case of ECB) bank can control the supply of money will have to be developed.

[deisik]

People think that Bitcoin is a competitor for the fiat money, while it is not. bitcoin is a store to save the money value like gold, do you think that gold can surpass fiat?

Gold is the basis of fiat. Countries without gold reserves or smaller gold reserves has smaller value for their currency. Governements cant print paper money if their gold reserve is non existent since it will become destabilized. Fiat is just the paper representation of how much the country has in assets and debts.

Gold has long divorced with fiat, for almost half a century already. If you have any scruples about that, I advise you to read more about the so-called Nixon shock that led to the de jure cancellation of the US dollar convertibility to gold. All other countries dropped gold as an asset backing up their currencies long before that. For example, Great Britain, like a few other countries, abandoned the gold standard during the Great Depression...

And fiat is a representation of the economy of a country as a whole, not how much gold, debt or any other individual asset it has