what hinders bitcoin to become a mainstream currency?

[TravelMug]

volatility, age and adoption.
that is all the things that are "slowing down" the process. when price changes a lot as in big swings and the media is full of propaganda against bitcoin then regular people get scared of wanting to try bitcoin out. you know people love their money and don't want to lose it.
which is why it is a slow process and taking a long time.

although Japan is seemingly getting ahead of the rest of the world and they are reaching that stage.

Of course the scaling issue that has been causing continual disruption to the market price of bitcoin. I think this is foremost factor that been hindering us for the last couple of years for bitcoin to be really mass adopted globally. I agree with you that Japan is leading the way for bitcoin to be used by a lot of people globally.

[AK47-]

I think the main obstacle in bitcoin becoming the mainstream currency is its volatility. Bitcoin's volatility makes it awkward as a cash substitute.  Every transaction is a gamble.  For the seller, they must add enough to cover possible losses between the time they make the sale and the time they then either spend the bitcoin or trade it for fiat currency.

[dinofelis]

As a "daily means of payment", bitcoin is a clunky solution looking for a problem that almost doesn't exist.  In most countries where people have sufficient computer means, network means, education, .... to even be able to use bitcoin, there are modern fiat means of payment in place with which bitcoin cannot compete in terms of ease of use, legal protection, rapidity, generality, reliability, security, and yes, cost.
The "cost of a daily transaction" is in most of these places, negligible as compared to the taxes one has to pay on the transaction (value added tax, income tax, ...), you can pay with your credit card in a store, it takes 10 seconds, and what's more important: if there's a dispute, you have legal recourse.  If there's a computer mistake, you're not accountable.  If you've been stolen, you will get refunded.

All these are things that bitcoin payments cannot provide, if even technically bitcoin were capable to handle this kind of payment, which it isn't:
- at the moment, bitcoin can handle only about 4 transactions per second world wide
- you have to use the software correctly
- if you send you bitcoins by mistake, there's no recourse
- if you want to be sure that your transaction is taken into account, you have to wait a multiple of 10 minutes
- you need network connectivity (not only the store needs it, you need it too)
- you need to secure your wallet, as you are entirely responsible for any form of theft.

On top of that, bitcoin's price is volatile with respect to the price of things you want to buy.

All this makes that bitcoin is not solving any issue for most people, who already have a better solution to that.

Bitcoin is useful, however, for all those things where you cannot do the thing with fiat, or where it is difficult, risky or expensive to do with fiat.  In other words, in unregulated or illegal environments, bitcoin is an interesting means of payment.  Bitcoin used to be used also if privacy was a concern, but people are slowly finding out that bitcoin is a worse night mare on that side than fiat.  Fiat, as long as it is used legally, is pretty private.  It is not anonymous against law enforcement, but it is perfectly private against your employer, your neighbour, Google, or a Chinese hacker.  Bitcoin isn't.

So no, as compared to fiat, bitcoin is a clunky solution to an essentially non-existent problem for far most people.  It does have a niche application for all those payments where fiat cannot go, and where all difficulties in using bitcoin over fiat are acceptable.

But the main application of bitcoin is "greater fool game".  Most people holding bitcoin are in the belief (correctly until at a certain point) that they will be able to sell their coins for more fiat than the amount of fiat they bought them for ; that is, in finding a greater fool than themselves when acquiring their coins.

[mmo4me.2016]

I think that is not possible at this time, later not known, but the tax is the revenue of all countries

[AjithBtc]

Bitcoin haven't reached majority of population. This is one that hinders bitcoin go as a mainstream currency. Even this cannot be indicated because bitcoin is too young to reach the entire population in a short time of around 8years.

[Mumbeeptind1963]

Security? Crime? Inflation?
Bitcoin is money and thus serves the same functions that any money does: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value.But can it prominently satisfy all these functions?

I think the other alt coins, or the changing value of dollars. I believe that even though alt coins are being converted unto it, some people want other alt coins rather than bitcoin, but I dont even know why.

[avikz]

Bitcoin is structurally not fit to become a mainstream currency. The reason you have mentioned in not the main roadblocks, let me point out , why! Remember, money is produced by the government and government controls its flow to the masses. Also the value of any money is backed up by an asset like gold. Do you find any similarity with bitcoin here? No!

Bitcoin is not generated by government and not backed up by any asset. Only public trust is what we got for bitcoin. So bitcoin looks good as an investment or a method of online transactions where government doesn’t have much to do. Bitcoin is not meant to become a mainstream currency, take it as an investment and prosper in life. 

[The One]

Bitcoin is structurally not fit to become a mainstream currency. The reason you have mentioned in not the main roadblocks, let me point out , why! Remember, money is produced by the government and government controls its flow to the masses. Also the value of any money is backed up by an asset like gold. Do you find any similarity with bitcoin here? No!

Bitcoin is not generated by government and not backed up by any asset. Only public trust is what we got for bitcoin. So bitcoin looks good as an investment or a method of online transactions where government doesn’t have much to do. Bitcoin is not meant to become a mainstream currency, take it as an investment and prosper in life. 

False.

[Yakamoto]

Security? Crime? Inflation?
Bitcoin is money and thus serves the same functions that any money does: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value.But can it prominently satisfy all these functions?

Complexities along with the fact that people aren't prone to changing something they're satisfied with.

A lot of people simply don't care about all the issues that the fiat system prevents and the fact that their wealth is being tallied lower and lower and the work they do means less further on as long as they're able to still do the same things they do these days. That's ignoring the fact that for a lot of people Bitcoin is a lot more complex than a piece of plastic and a PIN.

[iqlimasyadiqa]

Security? Crime? Inflation?
Bitcoin is money and thus serves the same functions that any money does: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value.But can it prominently satisfy all these functions?

I think all these things are matters that affect current bitcoin. we know that bitcoin is very closely related to inflation. in addition to the bitcoin many people who use it for criminal offenses. not spared also some time ago frequent hacking against bitcoin wallet. This is very sad indeed, but until now we certainly must continue to support the development of bitcoin in the world.

[squatz1]

The government is the main obstacle that hinders bitcoin. The crimes are not caused by bitcoin, it is caused by people and they use bitcoin to make that crime, even fiat is not to be blamed so why blame it on bitcoin. Inflation is not a new thing. It has always been there since fiat exist and since bitcoin is like fiat in a way, then inflation will be there also. As for the security, bitcoin's security is strong enough to withstand attacks, wallets and exchanges are the one who are prone to attacks.

Going back to the government (in some countries), they impede bitcoin's progress and growth because of its anonymity and decentralization. We cannot blame bitcoin for being like that because bitcoin is bitcoin and that's that, the government just have to compromise and deal with bitcoin just the way it is.

Going to have to fully agree with ya on this one, some people say the reason for us not being able to go mainstream is the scaling issues that we have and how high the transcation fees are. Don't get me wrong this is one of the issues that Bitcoin isn't able to go mainstream but I feel that Government is the driving force behind stopping Bitcoin from ever going to everyone.

This is based on the simple face that the Government is going to want to have control over the money that is moved within their country and up to before the point of Bitcoin they did (Fiat Currency) now they don't like that within Bitcoin their losing control so they have to do something and they tack regulations on it.

Bitcoin is structurally not fit to become a mainstream currency. The reason you have mentioned in not the main roadblocks, let me point out , why! Remember, money is produced by the government and government controls its flow to the masses. Also the value of any money is backed up by an asset like gold. Do you find any similarity with bitcoin here? No!

Bitcoin is not generated by government and not backed up by any asset. Only public trust is what we got for bitcoin. So bitcoin looks good as an investment or a method of online transactions where government doesn’t have much to do. Bitcoin is not meant to become a mainstream currency, take it as an investment and prosper in life.  

False.

Yeah dude Money hasn't been backed by gold since like the 60's I think? Don't remember the year but now it's backed by the faith of our government.

[BitcoinPanther]

I think it is being decentralized itself is hindering Bitcoin to become mainstream currency.   As of now government does not support decentralization, mostly they need centralized currency so it is easier to implement updates and fix problems and most of all regulate it.  Aside from that  Bitcoin is really young and still under experimental state.  So definitely government wants to see more from Bitcoin to be able to acknowledge it as a mainstream currency.

[Lacander]

I think it is being decentralized itself is hindering Bitcoin to become mainstream currency.   As of now government does not support decentralization, mostly they need centralized currency so it is easier to implement updates and fix problems and most of all regulate it.  Aside from that  Bitcoin is really young and still under experimental state.  So definitely government wants to see more from Bitcoin to be able to acknowledge it as a mainstream currency.

Yes, the government wants to control all operations. And to enter a new official currency you need some time, perhaps the disappearance of another currency because of this.

[Betwrong]

people love to blame others for their mistakes or what they lack.
it is not the government, it is not the banks, it is not .... it is users themselvs. when you see people are not willing to spend bitcoin (use it as a currency) and see bitcoin as only an investment which they will hold for 100 years you can't really expect merchants to accept it and eventually reach mainstream adoption.

Actually a lot of people are willing to spend Bitcoin but they don't know how to do that since very few places accept it. Like someone said in this thread if Amazon or ebay were accepting Bitcoin it would become popular much faster. And I think those who see Bitcoin as a long term investment are in the minority, because most people want to have something right now, not waiting for it 20 years, let alone 50 or, like you said, 100 years.

[olubams]

Security? Crime? Inflation?
Bitcoin is money and thus serves the same functions that any money does: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value.But can it prominently satisfy all these functions?

Security will be my main concern because where others are reffering to government as a major standing block stopping bitcoin, they also have something to pick as excuse and that is the issue of security which means anything can be achieved with free flow of funds whether legal or illegal. And  in this era of insecurity all over and terrorism still having sway despite the various controls, then government cannot be too careful in which is a valid concern if you ask me.

[Wind_FURY]

I think the main obstacle in bitcoin becoming the mainstream currency is its volatility. Bitcoin's volatility makes it awkward as a cash substitute.  Every transaction is a gamble.  For the seller, they must add enough to cover possible losses between the time they make the sale and the time they then either spend the bitcoin or trade it for fiat currency.

Good answer. I have read some comments here that says it will be a mainstream currency and the funny part is there are people who mindlessly agree without considering why it is almost impossible to become one.

The infrastructure the banks built is there and it will last even if there is Bitcoin trying to disrupt it.

[Doofus]

regulation, come to my mind first, after all amazon and other are not accepting bitcoin because of no proper regulation, japan did experienced an increase after they regulated and accepted it as a payment

if every government follow what japan did, you can be assured that bitcoin will be successful

What comes first to my mind is the bitcoin is in a civil war.
the author of the article says high volatility, negative contonations and lack of regulation are all the factors.
 http://news.8btc.com/what-hinders-bitcoin-from-becoming-a-mainstream-currency

[erickkyut]

Nothing hinders Bitcoin to become a mainstream currency. It just that it is not yet prepared for that. There are still lots of people who does not have any idea about it. There are still countries who doesn't approved it. Maybe in the future, Bitcoin can become the universal currency. It has a very promising future.

[pooya87]

volatility, age and adoption.
that is all the things that are "slowing down" the process. when price changes a lot as in big swings and the media is full of propaganda against bitcoin then regular people get scared of wanting to try bitcoin out. you know people love their money and don't want to lose it.
which is why it is a slow process and taking a long time.

although Japan is seemingly getting ahead of the rest of the world and they are reaching that stage.

Of course the scaling issue that has been causing continual disruption to the market price of bitcoin. I think this is foremost factor that been hindering us for the last couple of years for bitcoin to be really mass adopted globally. I agree with you that Japan is leading the way for bitcoin to be used by a lot of people globally.

the scaling "debate" is the new thing disrupting the price of bitcoin. it has not always been this though. throughout the years there have been many different things that made the price similar to what it is now, fluctuating, crashing, rising fast,...
the problem is that market is still small and the exchanges have too much power on their small orderbook size to swing the price around a lot.

[ogoowinner]

Security? Crime? Inflation?
Bitcoin is money and thus serves the same functions that any money does: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value.But can it prominently satisfy all these functions?

I think it's because, sometimes, people like to see and feel things. Bitcoin exist only online, so people still have some doubts about it. All the fiat currencies in the world can be seen and felt, but it's not so with bitcoin and other crptocurrencies, and people are used to such system of money.