How a cashless society could kill Bitcoin.

[Monnt]

If Amazon and any other multi national is not happy to accept my coins I will buy goods from another one that is friendly with that. But  let speak seriously; do you believe that Amazon will not accept btcs when microsoft, dell and some others have already accepted? When amazon see its sales dive in not only bitcoin but some other altcoins will accept as a means of payment.

The problem is that the big companies are yet not trusting bitcoins maybe because its impossible to track who bought what if they implement bitcoins payments, while the government of any country would ban that site from which they can not take taxes and hence most of the sites are not yet accepting bitcoins.

[deisik]

If the government came out today and declared that Bitcoin cannot be accepted as legal tender for purchases, I believe Bitcoin would find a way. It would find a way only because of the anonymity that today's cash affords people. Cash is the lovely bridge that people use in turning their Bitcoins into value.

Tomorrow though, when there is no longer cash and the only form of payment is electronic, and where all electronic payments are handled by auditable pools of companies, what will happen?

If you want to look how that might look in the future, look at a company that already functions are entirely electronic payments.
Take a look at Amazon: If Amazon was ordered not to accept Bitcoin, and cash no longer existed in the world, how would one be able to use Bitcoin to purchase things on Amazon?

In order for Bitcoin to work in a world that is hostile against it, it needs the anonymity of cash. What happens when that goes away?
Would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this dilemma I've been having.

My theory is that, if the government wanted Bitcoin dead, it would be dead by now

It's not necessarily so

Also, it is not clear which government you imply specifically. There are many governments out there, and all of them are different in respect to Bitcoin (if you meant to refer to them collectively). Nevertheless, the government may just have underestimated the potential threat of Bitcoin, and it probably still does so. On the other hand, is there any real threat coming from Bitcoin at all? Surely not if we mean major players like the US, EU, China, and their kind. Smaller governments are irrelevant anyway, even if they choose to outright ban Bitcoin, and they seem to understand that. Paradoxically, Russia also changed their attitude toward Bitcoin eventually, as I got it, mostly because of other big players being more or less loyal toward Bitcoin (so as not to be a black sheep of sorts)

[BitcoinPanther]

Well I see it as battle of centralized and decentralized system where centralized have an edge over that decentralized system since the first one is supported by the government.  Having said that there is an authority behind cashless society, there is a big chance that it will kill bitcoin because it already do the supposed to be function of bitcoin.  Aside from same sort had been tested for several decade now and had been proven to work great unlike bitcoin which is at its early phase of development and application. 
So one factor that cashless society could possibly kill bitcoin by making the government to eliminate competition and that is banning bitcoin or same sort of decentralized cryptocurrency.

[South Park]

Well I see it as battle of centralized and decentralized system where centralized have an edge over that decentralized system since the first one is supported by the government.  Having said that there is an authority behind cashless society, there is a big chance that it will kill bitcoin because it already do the supposed to be function of bitcoin.  Aside from same sort had been tested for several decade now and had been proven to work great unlike bitcoin which is at its early phase of development and application. 
So one factor that cashless society could possibly kill bitcoin by making the government to eliminate competition and that is banning bitcoin or same sort of decentralized cryptocurrency.

A cashless society may happen but it is not going to happen everywhere at the same time, it will happen sooner in the developed countries, but in poorer countries cash will keep on existing so a possible solution for some time will be if you live in a cashless society is to buy cash from other countries and then use that cash to buy bitcoin and once you have it you can use the same channels as before to buy stuff with bitcoin like purse.io.

[Positid]

Well I see it as battle of centralized and decentralized system where centralized have an edge over that decentralized system since the first one is supported by the government.  Having said that there is an authority behind cashless society, there is a big chance that it will kill bitcoin because it already do the supposed to be function of bitcoin.  Aside from same sort had been tested for several decade now and had been proven to work great unlike bitcoin which is at its early phase of development and application. 
So one factor that cashless society could possibly kill bitcoin by making the government to eliminate competition and that is banning bitcoin or same sort of decentralized cryptocurrency.

A cashless society may happen but it is not going to happen everywhere at the same time, it will happen sooner in the developed countries, but in poorer countries cash will keep on existing so a possible solution for some time will be if you live in a cashless society is to buy cash from other countries and then use that cash to buy bitcoin and once you have it you can use the same channels as before to buy stuff with bitcoin like purse.io.

I agree with you on that, the fact that majority of the world's population are still living in poverty, they are not subject for a change in the future as they will still continue with the old ways.

[TastyChillySauce00]

Well I see it as battle of centralized and decentralized system where centralized have an edge over that decentralized system since the first one is supported by the government.  Having said that there is an authority behind cashless society, there is a big chance that it will kill bitcoin because it already do the supposed to be function of bitcoin.  Aside from same sort had been tested for several decade now and had been proven to work great unlike bitcoin which is at its early phase of development and application. 
So one factor that cashless society could possibly kill bitcoin by making the government to eliminate competition and that is banning bitcoin or same sort of decentralized cryptocurrency.

A cashless society may happen but it is not going to happen everywhere at the same time, it will happen sooner in the developed countries, but in poorer countries cash will keep on existing so a possible solution for some time will be if you live in a cashless society is to buy cash from other countries and then use that cash to buy bitcoin and once you have it you can use the same channels as before to buy stuff with bitcoin like purse.io.

I agree with you on that, the fact that majority of the world's population are still living in poverty, they are not subject for a change in the future as they will still continue with the old ways.

That poverty is really a problem that can't be wiped out from a century ago until now or even longer and it means that waiting until poverty cleared is such a waste of time. Technology must be developed with the cheapest possible to make those poor people could afford the technologies thus they can be getting involved into cashless society

[eternalgloom]

Well I see it as battle of centralized and decentralized system where centralized have an edge over that decentralized system since the first one is supported by the government.  Having said that there is an authority behind cashless society, there is a big chance that it will kill bitcoin because it already do the supposed to be function of bitcoin.  Aside from same sort had been tested for several decade now and had been proven to work great unlike bitcoin which is at its early phase of development and application. 
So one factor that cashless society could possibly kill bitcoin by making the government to eliminate competition and that is banning bitcoin or same sort of decentralized cryptocurrency.

A cashless society may happen but it is not going to happen everywhere at the same time, it will happen sooner in the developed countries, but in poorer countries cash will keep on existing so a possible solution for some time will be if you live in a cashless society is to buy cash from other countries and then use that cash to buy bitcoin and once you have it you can use the same channels as before to buy stuff with bitcoin like purse.io.

I agree with you on that, the fact that majority of the world's population are still living in poverty, they are not subject for a change in the future as they will still continue with the old ways.

That poverty is really a problem that can't be wiped out from a century ago until now or even longer and it means that waiting until poverty cleared is such a waste of time. Technology must be developed with the cheapest possible to make those poor people could afford the technologies thus they can be getting involved into cashless society

The biggest problem is that our current economic system also creates poverty, capitalism in its truest form relies on having people work for as little money as possible.
Companies will always try to skim the rules and do have any morals in general.

[South Park]

Well I see it as battle of centralized and decentralized system where centralized have an edge over that decentralized system since the first one is supported by the government.  Having said that there is an authority behind cashless society, there is a big chance that it will kill bitcoin because it already do the supposed to be function of bitcoin.  Aside from same sort had been tested for several decade now and had been proven to work great unlike bitcoin which is at its early phase of development and application.  
So one factor that cashless society could possibly kill bitcoin by making the government to eliminate competition and that is banning bitcoin or same sort of decentralized cryptocurrency.

A cashless society may happen but it is not going to happen everywhere at the same time, it will happen sooner in the developed countries, but in poorer countries cash will keep on existing so a possible solution for some time will be if you live in a cashless society is to buy cash from other countries and then use that cash to buy bitcoin and once you have it you can use the same channels as before to buy stuff with bitcoin like purse.io.

I agree with you on that, the fact that majority of the world's population are still living in poverty, they are not subject for a change in the future as they will still continue with the old ways.

That poverty is really a problem that can't be wiped out from a century ago until now or even longer and it means that waiting until poverty cleared is such a waste of time. Technology must be developed with the cheapest possible to make those poor people could afford the technologies thus they can be getting involved into cashless society

Poverty is a problem that has been with humanity since the beginning and there does not seem to be a solution for it, in fact technology seems to make the division even larger, for example in the past when there was not much technology everyone needed to walk to go where they wanted, now the poor still need to walk to reach whatever destination they may try to reach but if you have money you can go anywhere, in a car, a boat or a plane.

[carlerha]

Well I see it as battle of centralized and decentralized system where centralized have an edge over that decentralized system since the first one is supported by the government.  Having said that there is an authority behind cashless society, there is a big chance that it will kill bitcoin because it already do the supposed to be function of bitcoin.  Aside from same sort had been tested for several decade now and had been proven to work great unlike bitcoin which is at its early phase of development and application. 
So one factor that cashless society could possibly kill bitcoin by making the government to eliminate competition and that is banning bitcoin or same sort of decentralized cryptocurrency.

A cashless society may happen but it is not going to happen everywhere at the same time, it will happen sooner in the developed countries, but in poorer countries cash will keep on existing so a possible solution for some time will be if you live in a cashless society is to buy cash from other countries and then use that cash to buy bitcoin and once you have it you can use the same channels as before to buy stuff with bitcoin like purse.io.

yes that is right to say, i think in most of the developed countries most of the people are doing online shopping and they do not use cash, the trend is now even increasing in poor countries, i think after some time almost all the people will stop using cash and they will give preference to online payment.

[Chris4210x]

A cashless society could kill bitcoin because we will see fast and easy to use systems that the mainstream will love. Just looking at success stories like Venmo, AliPay and WeChatPay and many others show how it could be done right. Thousands of transactions in an app that everybody loves, centralized secured so that nobody will ever lose its funds naturally, low fees and many other benefits.

How could a slow Bitcoin, that is semi anoym, with bad user experience, high risk of losing brainkey, high risk of getting hacked personally compete with such a system? Bitcoin and other digital currencies have to improve dramatically to provide a real alternative to the mainstream. We still have a long way ahead and if I look at the Chinese FinTech markets, Bitcoin is losing to the mainstream rapidly.

[cpfreeplz]

A cashless society could kill bitcoin because we will see fast and easy to use systems that the mainstream will love. Just looking at success stories like Venmo, AliPay and WeChatPay and many others show how it could be done right. Thousands of transactions in an app that everybody loves, centralized secured so that nobody will ever lose its funds naturally, low fees and many other benefits.

How could a slow Bitcoin, that is semi anoym, with bad user experience, high risk of losing brainkey, high risk of getting hacked personally compete with such a system? Bitcoin and other digital currencies have to improve dramatically to provide a real alternative to the mainstream. We still have a long way ahead and if I look at the Chinese FinTech markets, Bitcoin is losing to the mainstream rapidly.

Lol what the hell? Stick with fiat because clearly you aren't seeing the basics of bitcoins to be beneficial. Slow? Transactions are instant. Fail. High risk of getting hacked? Then you're too dumb to google how to securely make a paper wallet or too cheap to buy a hardware wallet.

Bitcoins aren't going to be the only currency someone uses but that doesn't mean it can't be mainstream.

I use bitcoin to store wealth and rarely use it for transactions. IMO that's where bitcoins are a win.

[KennyR]

Well I see it as battle of centralized and decentralized system where centralized have an edge over that decentralized system since the first one is supported by the government.  Having said that there is an authority behind cashless society, there is a big chance that it will kill bitcoin because it already do the supposed to be function of bitcoin.  Aside from same sort had been tested for several decade now and had been proven to work great unlike bitcoin which is at its early phase of development and application. 
So one factor that cashless society could possibly kill bitcoin by making the government to eliminate competition and that is banning bitcoin or same sort of decentralized cryptocurrency.

A cashless society may happen but it is not going to happen everywhere at the same time, it will happen sooner in the developed countries, but in poorer countries cash will keep on existing so a possible solution for some time will be if you live in a cashless society is to buy cash from other countries and then use that cash to buy bitcoin and once you have it you can use the same channels as before to buy stuff with bitcoin like purse.io.

I agree with you on that, the fact that majority of the world's population are still living in poverty, they are not subject for a change in the future as they will still continue with the old ways.

That poverty is really a problem that can't be wiped out from a century ago until now or even longer and it means that waiting until poverty cleared is such a waste of time. Technology must be developed with the cheapest possible to make those poor people could afford the technologies thus they can be getting involved into cashless society

As described its better to make a technology advanced as well affordable and accessible by poor people which helps eradicate poverty. Another thing is that cashless environment makes the benefits from government to people directly without any intermediate which is good for poor.

[Japinat]

Well I see it as battle of centralized and decentralized system where centralized have an edge over that decentralized system since the first one is supported by the government.  Having said that there is an authority behind cashless society, there is a big chance that it will kill bitcoin because it already do the supposed to be function of bitcoin.  Aside from same sort had been tested for several decade now and had been proven to work great unlike bitcoin which is at its early phase of development and application. 
So one factor that cashless society could possibly kill bitcoin by making the government to eliminate competition and that is banning bitcoin or same sort of decentralized cryptocurrency.

A cashless society may happen but it is not going to happen everywhere at the same time, it will happen sooner in the developed countries, but in poorer countries cash will keep on existing so a possible solution for some time will be if you live in a cashless society is to buy cash from other countries and then use that cash to buy bitcoin and once you have it you can use the same channels as before to buy stuff with bitcoin like purse.io.

I agree with you on that, the fact that majority of the world's population are still living in poverty, they are not subject for a change in the future as they will still continue with the old ways.

That poverty is really a problem that can't be wiped out from a century ago until now or even longer and it means that waiting until poverty cleared is such a waste of time. Technology must be developed with the cheapest possible to make those poor people could afford the technologies thus they can be getting involved into cashless society

As described its better to make a technology advanced as well affordable and accessible by poor people which helps eradicate poverty. Another thing is that cashless environment makes the benefits from government to people directly without any intermediate which is good for poor.

A cashless society would give advantage to the government to easily function on their job, all transactions can easily be monitored and any illegal transactions will be trace directly, that's the fear of those who are doing illegal activities and even though from the legitimate users as we can never trust the government to serve the interest of the public all the time.

[Chris4210x]

A cashless society could kill bitcoin because we will see fast and easy to use systems that the mainstream will love. Just looking at success stories like Venmo, AliPay and WeChatPay and many others show how it could be done right. Thousands of transactions in an app that everybody loves, centralized secured so that nobody will ever lose its funds naturally, low fees and many other benefits.

How could a slow Bitcoin, that is semi anoym, with bad user experience, high risk of losing brainkey, high risk of getting hacked personally compete with such a system? Bitcoin and other digital currencies have to improve dramatically to provide a real alternative to the mainstream. We still have a long way ahead and if I look at the Chinese FinTech markets, Bitcoin is losing to the mainstream rapidly.

Lol what the hell? Stick with fiat because clearly you aren't seeing the basics of bitcoins to be beneficial. Slow? Transactions are instant. Fail. High risk of getting hacked? Then you're too dumb to google how to securely make a paper wallet or too cheap to buy a hardware wallet.

Bitcoins aren't going to be the only currency someone uses but that doesn't mean it can't be mainstream.

I use bitcoin to store wealth and rarely use it for transactions. IMO that's where bitcoins are a win.

Fiat has many problems that we can solve with digital currencies, Fiat is still losing over the time.

Bitcoin transfer announcement is instant, yes, but the settlement can take anything from 10 min up. That is not instant and does add cost and risk to business who want to work with Bitcoin. We at BlockPay.ch deal with these delayed payments all day. If a supermarket wants to accept Bitcoin as a payment, the supermarket has to hedge the settlement time and trust
a) the payment service provider (BitPay, Coinbase, BlockPay, etc.)
b) the sender aka customer
c) the bitcoin blockchain and miners,
that no party involved delay or cancel the transaction. Of course, no merchant wants to let the sender/customer wait until the transfer has been settled. Would you wait 30 min at a supermarket until the bitcoin settled? Who will pay for the risk of a canceled Bitcoin transaction? What if a sender has a modified Bitcoin Wallet and can manipulate the sending process? What if the sender set the mining fee so low that the transaction will never be cleared in the future? All these time issues are harming the business and are adding extra costs and barriers to accepting bitcoin as a payment option.

With social engineering, you can hack almost anybody, exchanges and bitcoin celebrities are a popular target nova days. How should business like Amazon start integrating Bitcoin payment solutions easily? They could easily get hacked and lose their funds. Paper wallets can be secure but are not practically for business. We need to build scalable backup solutions that allow you to store your private keys in the best matter. The solutions might even allow you to retrieve lost keys. Think about the average Joe cracking his phone, how will he ever get back his bitcoin? Bitcoin is a great invention, making everybody a bank, but do we all have personal bank grade security in place yet?
Regular financial service solutions will be a more expensive, but easier to use, less risk of getting hacked, and come with a fraud insurance.

Bitcoin apps are not easy to use yet, most mobile wallets lack any good design and struggle to introduce normal people to the world of Bitcoin and Altcoins. I still see a long way ahead for all of us to reach a broader user adoption.

Don´t get me wrong, I am pro digital currencies, but I see many problems we have to fix first before we can reach a global mainstream. The race against fiat is on!

[passwordnow]

If the government came out today and declared that Bitcoin cannot be accepted as legal tender for purchases, I believe Bitcoin would find a way. It would find a way only because of the anonymity that today's cash affords people. Cash is the lovely bridge that people use in turning their Bitcoins into value.

Even though there are news that are coming out since the past years that cashless society will be implemented soon with the use of microchips. I bet it that the government will ban bitcoin. There are a lot of financial experts that will volunteer to have sometime to give detailed explanation to the countries that are going to do it so. And instead, they don't have to make their own digitized currency they can simply adopt bitcoin so I believe that bitcoin will not be killed easily because of it.

[lionheart78]

If the government came out today and declared that Bitcoin cannot be accepted as legal tender for purchases, I believe Bitcoin would find a way. It would find a way only because of the anonymity that today's cash affords people. Cash is the lovely bridge that people use in turning their Bitcoins into value.

Even though there are news that are coming out since the past years that cashless society will be implemented soon with the use of microchips. I bet it that the government will ban bitcoin. There are a lot of financial experts that will volunteer to have sometime to give detailed explanation to the countries that are going to do it so. And instead, they don't have to make their own digitized currency they can simply adopt bitcoin so I believe that bitcoin will not be killed easily because of it.

I think government would rather create their own digital currency than adopting bitcoin. Government are not dumb to handover its Country's economy to Bitcoin whales.  It is the same as giving your country;s fate in foreigners hand.  This is one big problem why bitcoin is struggling to be adopted by any government.  Aside from that, government would favor cashless society because of the control the government always wanted.  And mostly the one stated by Chris4210x

[X-ray]

If the government came out today and declared that Bitcoin cannot be accepted as legal tender for purchases, I believe Bitcoin would find a way. It would find a way only because of the anonymity that today's cash affords people. Cash is the lovely bridge that people use in turning their Bitcoins into value.

Even though there are news that are coming out since the past years that cashless society will be implemented soon with the use of microchips. I bet it that the government will ban bitcoin. There are a lot of financial experts that will volunteer to have sometime to give detailed explanation to the countries that are going to do it so. And instead, they don't have to make their own digitized currency they can simply adopt bitcoin so I believe that bitcoin will not be killed easily because of it.

I think government would rather create their own digital currency than adopting bitcoin. Government are not dumb to handover its Country's economy to Bitcoin whales.  It is the same as giving your country;s fate in foreigners hand.  This is one big problem why bitcoin is struggling to be adopted by any government.  Aside from that, government would favor cashless society because of the control the government always wanted.  And mostly the one stated by Chris4210x

Government will not going to waste their effort creating a new digital currency but just digitalize what they've owned so it's like dollar have its digital form just like bitcoin in internet and i'm sure that it's already happening if you look at some webmoney that having balance in form of those currencies which were owned by the government

[burner2014]

If the government came out today and declared that Bitcoin cannot be accepted as legal tender for purchases, I believe Bitcoin would find a way. It would find a way only because of the anonymity that today's cash affords people. Cash is the lovely bridge that people use in turning their Bitcoins into value.

Even though there are news that are coming out since the past years that cashless society will be implemented soon with the use of microchips. I bet it that the government will ban bitcoin. There are a lot of financial experts that will volunteer to have sometime to give detailed explanation to the countries that are going to do it so. And instead, they don't have to make their own digitized currency they can simply adopt bitcoin so I believe that bitcoin will not be killed easily because of it.

I think government would rather create their own digital currency than adopting bitcoin. Government are not dumb to handover its Country's economy to Bitcoin whales.  It is the same as giving your country;s fate in foreigners hand.  This is one big problem why bitcoin is struggling to be adopted by any government.  Aside from that, government would favor cashless society because of the control the government always wanted.  And mostly the one stated by Chris4210x

Government will not going to waste their effort creating a new digital currency but just digitalize what they've owned so it's like dollar have its digital form just like bitcoin in internet and i'm sure that it's already happening if you look at some webmoney that having balance in form of those currencies which were owned by the government

That is unlikely to happen since bitcoin has been a big help in each country and it is still in process and would take many years before it happens. However, if that happens there would still ways for bitcoin to still exist. I know that time bitcoin is already well developed.

[el kaka22]

A cashless society could kill bitcoin because we will see fast and easy to use systems that the mainstream will love. Just looking at success stories like Venmo, AliPay and WeChatPay and many others show how it could be done right. Thousands of transactions in an app that everybody loves, centralized secured so that nobody will ever lose its funds naturally, low fees and many other benefits.

How could a slow Bitcoin, that is semi anoym, with bad user experience, high risk of losing brainkey, high risk of getting hacked personally compete with such a system? Bitcoin and other digital currencies have to improve dramatically to provide a real alternative to the mainstream. We still have a long way ahead and if I look at the Chinese FinTech markets, Bitcoin is losing to the mainstream rapidly.

I don’t think that cashless society will kill bitcoin, quite the opposite in fact, people are starting to relay more and more on using credit cards and digital money, and they are using internet in everything which means that the bitcoin may become the best alternative for cash and credit cards.

Yes, cashless society will make people to search for alternatives and they may finally find out the benefits of adopting bitcoins.

[deisik]

A cashless society would give advantage to the government to easily function on their job, all transactions can easily be monitored and any illegal transactions will be trace directly, that's the fear of those who are doing illegal activities and even though from the legitimate users as we can never trust the government to serve the interest of the public all the time.

Was it a subtly hidden sarcasm, or are you really serious?

In any case, I don't think it is a good idea overall to give any advantage to the government since when the government obtains an advantage, it usually uses it to serve their own interests in the first place. It doesn't really matter if you are law abiding or not since you are just made to follow the laws which you didn't endorse or give approval to. You should be your own law and responsibility, and Bitcoin is there to help, so to speak