The adoption boom is coming

[gentlemand]

Does gold scale? I don't think so.

Hmm. It kind of does in comparison. You can take possession of it via jewellery, physical lumps, you can buy some fictional paper gold if that turns you on, transfer vault ownership or even mine it yourself.

With Bitcoin its absolute certainty of transfer puts it miles ahead of gold. You know what you have instantly, it arrives fully verified and no one can take it away from you. At the same time that act of transfer is both the most vital part of the whole thing and the bottleneck. It can't be handed over in any other 100% trustable way.

[Biodom]

Does gold scale? I don't think so.

Hmm. It kind of does in comparison. You can take possession of it via jewellery, physical lumps, you can buy some fictional paper gold if that turns you on, transfer vault ownership or even mine it yourself.

With Bitcoin its absolute certainty of transfer puts it miles ahead of gold. You know what you have instantly, it arrives fully verified and no one can take it away from you. At the same time that act of transfer is both the most vital part of the whole thing and the bottleneck. It can't be handed over in any other 100% trustable way.

Let me rephrase...Gold scales poorly, unless you are a government size or bank size entity that can have large vaults.
I don't want to store bricks of gold, maybe it's just me.
7 tx/sec gives plenty of typical gold size tx. I don't think that scaling is a problem at all considering LN presumably coming soon for small size txns. All recent network jamming happened because some malicious entity(ies) spammed it.

[xIIImaL]

Mainstream adoption is coming, get coins now while you still can
Once the whales move in, whole  coins will be too expensive for the average user  ( $10k+)  and people will deal in Mbits or maybe even satoshis...

Yup I could wish business whales like Microsoft, HP,Walmart and more companies should accept bitcoins. These kind of will definitely make good change around the world for bitcoin market.

[Sithara007]

Mainstream adoption is coming, get coins now while you still can
Once the whales move in, whole  coins will be too expensive for the average user  ( $10k+)  and people will deal in Mbits or maybe even satoshis...

Yup I could wish business whales like Microsoft, HP,Walmart and more companies should accept bitcoins. These kind of will definitely make good change around the world for bitcoin market.

I really doubt whether these companies will be willing to accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment, as many of them are having tie-ups with the big banks and VISA/MASTER. There is going to be a lot of resistance in recognizing Bitcoins.

[FxR]

I don't think mainstream adoption is coming at all. How many people use bitcoins to purchase stuff from Overstock?

Bitcoin is behaving more like an asset class (gold, property etc). People who want to store wealth away from the prying eyes of govt. People in places like Venezuela and Argentina who are dealing with delinquent currencies and want something to hold it's value.

But in the west normal fiat will continue to be used to purchase the necessities of life.

that's because there is still no real way to earn bitcoin easily for the average people aside from buying which is not convenient for many, and also it feel like investment, many don't want to invest, they want to acquire, you don't invest to have fiat, you acquire it, so until bitcoin will not be easy to acquire it will no be on par with fiat

It'll never be easy to acquire for everyone.
Let's say a boss will pay all of his employees in BTC. The boss is the person that has to get through the hassle of getting that BTC.
Mining is the only way to get Bitcoins these days and that's not accessible for the simple man anymore sadly.

[jondeen707]

People need a real reason to use bitcoin over fiat, and so far I haven't seen really compelling reasons.

Exactly that is missing. Especially in well developed countries with a top notch fiat based payment infrastructure. It completely wipes away the need for Bitcoin being used as currency tool. If you purely look at online spending purposes, then Bitcoin is still the top leader for me. I use Bitcoin in 90% of the times when I transact with people around the world, or do an occasional purchase at a web store accepting Bitcoin.

That's heresy, I know, but to me bitcoin works much better as an investment tool and store of value than as a currency to be adopted for spending.  But we'll see.

The investment aspect, as well as the store of value aspect, will be the main points of Bitcoin that people will be interested in. Gold is no longer the sole ruler in the market that people can use as a hedge, store of value, investment, etc. Bitcoin is here and ready to be used by people appreciating what it can offer them. I hope even the hard headed average joes will also realize that. It will be an insanely though job to get them on board.

The store of value and a viable alternative to gold are the major factors that drive more people to Bitcoin. But let's not play down it's importance as a digital payment system, it is there and it works. I guess we all would want it to grow faster though.

[TastyChillySauce00]

Mainstream adoption is coming, get coins now while you still can
Once the whales move in, whole  coins will be too expensive for the average user  ( $10k+)  and people will deal in Mbits or maybe even satoshis...

Yup I could wish business whales like Microsoft, HP,Walmart and more companies should accept bitcoins. These kind of will definitely make good change around the world for bitcoin market.

microsoft had accepted bitcoin long ago (In December 2014) as their one of many payment options even though they ever erasing it from the list but they just get it back into their sites. (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/14/microsoft-stops-accepting-bitcoin-on-windows-10.html)
the news above are publishing about microsoft's apologizes

and i do agree that adoption by some mainstream website will really give an affect or impact to bitcoin. may even skyrocketing the adoption

[talkbitcoin]

the adoption boom were supposed to come for a very long time ago and it has not yet happened. instead we have been seeing a slow adoption which to be honest seems more realistic to me.

i have not been familiar with some of the projects mentioned here but the ones that i know of seem to be very interesting but i doubt that they can live up to the hype for example like MU2 which said price will be $2000 after its release!

[jtipt]

Indeed 2017 will introduce well thought out new use cases. I also believe this will influence the growth and the price of bitcoin.
MegaUpload 2.0 for example will help many people familiarize with bitcoin and is just the beginning.

We certainly need a new wave of adoption. We seem to have hit a wall, a bit of a plateau. I hope something can draw lots of people in & we see the price rise significantly.

But, I just believe into the reciprocal of your statement. The price rise significantly attracts many new people into bitcoin adoptions. The adoption boom is already happening, it may go intensive when bitcoin prices approaches $1000 again.

Yes, exactly as the price increases people think investing in bitcoin may actually be profitable. And when btc reaches $1000 I am sure many new people will adopt it, maybe even mainstream media show some news flash about it so even more people are likely to research about btc more.

[Dafar]

ITT: OP leaves the discussion 

[Ayers]

I don't think mainstream adoption is coming at all. How many people use bitcoins to purchase stuff from Overstock?

Bitcoin is behaving more like an asset class (gold, property etc). People who want to store wealth away from the prying eyes of govt. People in places like Venezuela and Argentina who are dealing with delinquent currencies and want something to hold it's value.

But in the west normal fiat will continue to be used to purchase the necessities of life.

that's because there is still no real way to earn bitcoin easily for the average people aside from buying which is not convenient for many, and also it feel like investment, many don't want to invest, they want to acquire, you don't invest to have fiat, you acquire it, so until bitcoin will not be easy to acquire it will no be on par with fiat

It'll never be easy to acquire for everyone.
Let's say a boss will pay all of his employees in BTC. The boss is the person that has to get through the hassle of getting that BTC.
Mining is the only way to get Bitcoins these days and that's not accessible for the simple man anymore sadly.

boss can get them via exchange or via gateway like bitpay in a more easy way, if he is a merchants for example, instead of being a private, also he would get all his revenue in bitcoin, and pay his employee with bitcoin, still far better than every individual buying by himself his coin

[FxR]

I don't think mainstream adoption is coming at all. How many people use bitcoins to purchase stuff from Overstock?

Bitcoin is behaving more like an asset class (gold, property etc). People who want to store wealth away from the prying eyes of govt. People in places like Venezuela and Argentina who are dealing with delinquent currencies and want something to hold it's value.

But in the west normal fiat will continue to be used to purchase the necessities of life.

that's because there is still no real way to earn bitcoin easily for the average people aside from buying which is not convenient for many, and also it feel like investment, many don't want to invest, they want to acquire, you don't invest to have fiat, you acquire it, so until bitcoin will not be easy to acquire it will no be on par with fiat

It'll never be easy to acquire for everyone.
Let's say a boss will pay all of his employees in BTC. The boss is the person that has to get through the hassle of getting that BTC.
Mining is the only way to get Bitcoins these days and that's not accessible for the simple man anymore sadly.

boss can get them via exchange or via gateway like bitpay in a more easy way, if he is a merchants for example, instead of being a private, also he would get all his revenue in bitcoin, and pay his employee with bitcoin, still far better than every individual buying by himself his coin

I agree, that's why I said it. But there will always be a handful of people that can't be pleased because it takes more work for them to get the Bitcoin. Be it bosses, miners, homeless people or whatever, someone will have trouble getting BTC.

[StevensonCarl]

Most likely this will happen but we still have to see this so lets see what is gonna happen with it, I think that it will be a success honestly.

[Carmen_Sandiego]

Indeed 2017 will introduce well thought out new use cases. I also believe this will influence the growth and the price of bitcoin.
MegaUpload 2.0 for example will help many people familiarize with bitcoin and is just the beginning.

I'm following closely the news regarding this, and other projects.
If developers deliver these applications, if at least some of these applications hit the market, we will see mainstream media coverage of Bitcoin, and probably a high increase in demand. From my point of view, these are good times to invest and hold Bitcoin.

[outatime1]

As more people try to get bitcoins, it is spreading thinner and demand is increasing. So it's not just that there are fewer being mined, it's also that more people are becoming interested in holding some bitcoins that is another factor.

[romero121]

The adoption boom is due to the much spreading happening across the whole world. This is just happening because people who were just part of the fiat had started realizing the true potential of bitcoin. The ongoing variation in price too is a factor for the adoption rise.

[xIIImaL]

As more people try to get bitcoins, it is spreading thinner and demand is increasing. So it's not just that there are fewer being mined, it's also that more people are becoming interested in holding some bitcoins that is another factor.

I think as price increasing evetyday. We could see more adoption from the people who added in their businesses. Due to thid demand bitcoin price rising steadily.

[rickadone]

As more people try to get bitcoins, it is spreading thinner and demand is increasing. So it's not just that there are fewer being mined, it's also that more people are becoming interested in holding some bitcoins that is another factor.

I think as price increasing evetyday. We could see more adoption from the people who added in their businesses. Due to thid demand bitcoin price rising steadily.

The adoption and price increase are depending on each other. But, we never could conclude which is pushing the other one. Because, more the adoption will trigger more demand and will eventually lead to higher price levels. Higher price levels usually will attract more people to get into bitcoin adoptions.

[Dassi]

One reason bitcoin has gained favor with people is the fact that fiat keeps getting devalued and people rather want something that increases in value with time.

[JimboToronto]

Does gold scale? I don't think so.

I think it does. Given that the basic unit of gold is the 12.4 kg bar, a mere ounce translates to satoshis compared to a whole bitcoin.

What are grams worth? Do we hear milligrams?

Fiat currencies are much less scalable than either Bitcoin or gold. Any one still use mils?