How a cashless society could kill Bitcoin.

[X-ray]

This is just waiting the time, many peoples said if bitcoin will banned by the government and then will die, but until now its never happen.

That will never happen for ever in all the countries even if it happens, it will not find significant impact.

Government will emphasize cashless society just to fight against black money and corruption but that will help bitcoin to get popular among people as they will find more advantages rather than using other traceable e-currencies.

Then Government may take bitcoin favor or against decisions but bitcoin will get rapid adoption among cashless society regardless of their government's stand.

by banning bitcoin can't really make it die, just for example, so many governments around the world working together to eradicate piracy but they're until now fail even all of the country around the world working together, and if bitcoin users are still want to use it then it's really hard to be eradicated as hard as piracy which is spreading around the world

[pinoycash]

Cashless society is the Credit Card and Debit Card Users right? its a totally different market and would not affect bitcoin society. most of them come from rich and the upper class and capitalized on the new thing like bitcoins to be more richer.

[lOvE mE forEvEr]

Cashless society is the Credit Card and Debit Card Users right? its a totally different market and would not affect bitcoin society. most of them come from rich and the upper class and capitalized on the new thing like bitcoins to be more richer.

Yes, will not have an impact for the bitcoin user. Marketcap bitcoin is already very broad and diffuse, if any cashless surely won't affect anything, the proof is the price of bitcoin thus rose in recent days. I sure this year is better than 2016.

[Finestream]

Cashless society is the Credit Card and Debit Card Users right? its a totally different market and would not affect bitcoin society. most of them come from rich and the upper class and capitalized on the new thing like bitcoins to be more richer.

Bitcoin is cashless as well, so they are both good for faster transaction, what advantage bitcoin has for us is we have no restrictions to use our money at whatever we want to spend it with. There's a lot of rules to comply when you are using a regulated digital currency and you have no freedom at all as you are obliged to follow the rules otherwise you will have to pay the penalty government has imposed.

[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?

Unless one implements a form of anonymity in bitcoin, bitcoin is a privacy hell as compared to electronic fiat cash.  In fact, I guess it would be a dream for all agencies of whatever nature that want to audit people for their behaviour, that people use bitcoin.  Bitcoin is a privacy nightmare with its transparent ledger as it stands today.  Electronic cash (fiat) can only be audited with a special request, but the block chain is open to read and analyse for anyone.  It propagates real world knowledge of transactions like a bush fire

I agree with all the comments that followed this post about naivety of your thinking, namely, that governments who themselves issue the laws for us would require a special request to trace your fiat transactions, and from whom exactly, from God? I just want to say that all fiat transactions are already traced. The transactions that involve transfers of huge or just large sums of money are surveilled right on the spot. If you think that you can get away with a lot of small transactions, you'd better abandon that hope, all transactions are traced and if their total exceeds some threshold amount, they also get instant attention from anti money-laundering and similar agencies...

Basically, we are already well in 1984 regarding our financial life inasmuch as it involves fiat

[manselr]

Cashless society is the Credit Card and Debit Card Users right? its a totally different market and would not affect bitcoin society. most of them come from rich and the upper class and capitalized on the new thing like bitcoins to be more richer.

Most people still use cash, the only people that don't use cash are indeed the upper class that always have credit cards loaded with money. All those trust fund kids don't even have cash on their pockets, it's usually a big fat Visa. But even they still use cash sometimes.

The rest of the population use cash daily. By cashless society we are talking about all physical cash being removed. The impact would be huge and it would be felt within the entire population spectrum, this event will drive the price of bitcoin to unforeseen highs.

[audaciousbeing]

A cashless society to me means carrying out transactions without the use of Physical cash and to the best of my knowledge that is what is applicable over here as majority of transactions can be done even via the mobile phones or mobile applications and BTC is even still thriving as I dont see any competition as even BTC that I have is coinless without having a physical coin. So I see cashless economy as a platform and not a competition.

[Gotottack]

A cashless society to me means carrying out transactions without the use of Physical cash and to the best of my knowledge that is what is applicable over here as majority of transactions can be done even via the mobile phones or mobile applications and BTC is even still thriving as I dont see any competition as even BTC that I have is coinless without having a physical coin. So I see cashless economy as a platform and not a competition.

Maybe so. But that is not totally cashless in my opinion. Probably, a cashless society would be one where the state would be imposing to get rid of all the paper fiat currency and replace it digital currency they have created as replacement. This would, I think, would eliminate every digital currency in whole including bitcoins. But, the novelty of it being decentralized might save it.

[RodeoX]

If the government came out today and declared that Bitcoin cannot be accepted...

How? What government? Tonga republic?

If Amazon was ordered not to accept Bitcoin...

By who? Tonga republic again?

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?

How and why would that go away?

[South Park]

snip

What could kill Bitcoin is a "moneyless" society. I think that's less utopic than it sounds. (Take the open-source-software business: it's already largely money-less). In a few decades, maybe we'll not need the USD nor Bitcoin to get access to goods. Then Bitcoin, probably, will die.

I don't think there is going to ever be a society where money is not needed, open source software may not charge you money to you or anyone but if the software its useful the developers receive funding from large corporations to keep the project going.

[streazight]

I disagree with the OP. A "cashless" society would even benefit Bitcoin.

Well if India is anything to go by, then you are right - there wasn't much interest in bitcoin there at all till the withdrawal of the notes in circulation.

The only way that a cashless society could kill bitcoin is how people will buy bitcoin if there is no cash, with the bitcoin becoming harder to mine many people don’t have the hardware of that so their only option to do so is buy using real money to buy so how will they do that if there is no cash.

[Xenophoto]

The only way that a cashless society could kill bitcoin is how people will buy bitcoin if there is no cash, with the bitcoin becoming harder to mine many people don’t have the hardware of that so their only option to do so is buy using real money to buy so how will they do that if there is no cash.

Cashless society would mean that people have already converted all their fiat into a different currency that is not cash or fiat. In other words, literally every single paper money, every bank balance, has been converted into bitcoins or a currency which isn't fiat. Conversion from fiat to bitcoin is not a matter of problem anymore at that point. Assuming that bitcoin is our main currency in a cashless society, then the prices that are put in the stores are in bitcoins and not in fiat. There would still be price but only currencies that will be affecting bitcoins are altcoins.

[sportis]

I’m pretty confident that a cashless society will strengthen bitcoin. Banks they want a cashless world so as to have the absolute control of people's wealth. That means, banks will know every financial movement people they are doing and according their willing will accept or not their customers transactions. So, many people will turn to cryptocurrencies to fulfill their needs. Therefore more and more people will use bitcoins to buy/sell goods and services

[Positid]

I’m pretty confident that a cashless society will strengthen bitcoin. Banks they want a cashless world so as to have the absolute control of people's wealth. That means, banks will know every financial movement people they are doing and according their willing will accept or not their customers transactions. So, many people will turn to cryptocurrencies to fulfill their needs. Therefore more and more people will use bitcoins to buy/sell goods and services

I agree with that, bitcoin is cashless and we are just seeing an increase of adopters by the time it will happen. Government want to control people, so bitcoin enthusiast will remain in bitcoin to still feel the freedom and we can attract more adopters.

[CyberKuro]

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.

We will not see cashless world in next few decades for sure, not even in well developed countries because government also use anonymity of cash to fund projects which they don't like to reveal to public. Also it is quite hard to digitize whole economy because of possible data breach so there will be always some cash backing up those digital cash system.

Like gold bitcoin can also be traded directly as cash without need to exchange bitcoin to fiat and than purchase something and lets not worry about fully digitize economy because bitcoin is already a form of electronic payment so it doesn't require to be exchanged to cash. In future you may be able to buy anything with bitcoin over POS machine.

I agree, it need long time to withdraw and replace fiat money from circulation and totally switch to digital currency.
Talking about digital currency in the future, bitcoin maybe the best one and still exist.
It's an advantage for bitcoin if government decide to full adopt digital currency even if they prohibit the use of bitcoin.

[BobK71]

So they will have to make it into the UN Security Council to outlaw Bitcoin on a world-wide scale, right? I'm not talking about under what guise or pretext they are going to ban Bitcoin (money laundering, terrorism financing, climate change, etc), my point is that it would mean in effect recognizing Bitcoin as the threat to all "advanced and progressive humanity" as Joseph Stalin put it and, at the same time, its strength. The main issue is that governments today don't have as much power as they had some fifty years ago, and they may lose this battle in the end...

Bitcoin is parasitizing on fiat making use of its weaknesses, and while there is fiat there will be parasites

If we cut out all the noise, and get right down to it, the best hope for mankind is for believers in state-free money to form their own independent state.  The majority of mankind will then learn from example the benefits of free money.

The free-money state will need to have these features to survive:

- Monetary as well as economic and political freedom.

- Military deterrence against aggression.

- Economic self-sufficiency and refusal to trade with non-free-money states.  Trade has been the route through which the dominant imperial-bubble-based world system has gradually weakened the sound money practiced by states with different monetary beliefs.

It is not pure fantasy.  This small state can survive by modulating its foreign policy carefully, i.e. not becoming an immediate threat to the world system, but only a long-term one.  Since the imperial elites only think short-term (if they thought long-term they would agree with monetary freedom!) they could be enticed to co-operate with the new state.   (I.e. it has both a carrot and a stick to use against the world.)

[danherbias07]

I dont know why but I do agree with what you are saying. For me it will be still impossible to see a world without cash. I just cant imagine it yet. That is way too long for a leap. Not now, not yet.

[Fatanut]

I dont know why but I do agree with what you are saying. For me it will be still impossible to see a world without cash. I just cant imagine it yet. That is way too long for a leap. Not now, not yet.

"I agree with you, I don't know why. But I agree with you." - Typical dittohead mindset. Research further this topic, I advise (or just read the whole discussion). Don't just agree and leave.

Just think of a whole new world that has screens almost everywhere for people to check their current wallet balance. Every shop will have a screen to show the transaction that you have made. If you've watched, Elisium, that's how it would look like. Maybe not the whole setting of the movie, but the ones where they pay some digital coins to buy something.

[Wapinter]

I think if the whole world goes cashless, It would indeed help bitcoin adoption for Bitcoin is also a form of cashless payment.
Many opportunity will pop up for bitcoin with cashless society as traditional fiat system is a great hindirence for bitcoin.

[roomfirst]

When someday our life is no more use cash/paper money and start using electric one, i think bitcoin is really suit with it. Bitcoin is easy to use and can be combined with electric too. But, we need to make sure that people also know about bitcoin and know how it works.