what hinders bitcoin to become a mainstream currency?

[dinofelis]

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.

I'm not so sure that when they would "see and feel" their bitcoin, that is, sleazy Chinese stealing electricity to feed their mining hallways, they would feel better about it 

[speem28]

Acceptance and Awareness are problems that hinder bitcoin to become the mainstream currency not Security, Crime or Inflation, people need to be open-minded about Bitcoin because they don't know anything about it. They should try to get out of their comfort zone and try new things in life. Security is not a problem in bitcoin, as it has a strong network or type of security that can prevent unexpected attacks. So by having this kind of security, crime can also be prevented. As for inflation, there is always a huge possibility that bitcoin will continue to grow as more people starts accepting it.

[bitbunnny]

Acceptance and Awareness are problems that hinder bitcoin to become the mainstream currency not Security, Crime or Inflation, people need to be open-minded about Bitcoin because they don't know anything about it. They should try to get out of their comfort zone and try new things in life. Security is not a problem in bitcoin, as it has a strong network or type of security that can prevent unexpected attacks. So by having this kind of security, crime can also be prevented. As for inflation, there is always a huge possibility that bitcoin will continue to grow as more people starts accepting it.

This is all true but even if all this was solved and in best order it's not very likely that Bitcoin would be mainstream currency. And not just Bitcoin, any virtual currency and the reason is exactly that, virtual cryptocurrency. This world and the finances despite all progress and technologies are functioning prety much traditional and conservative so material fiat money will rule this world for a long time.

[aoluain]

I think its near impossible for Bitcoin to become mainstream,
Like other crypto currencies it is used primarily as a trading commodity.

but it can improve to become another payment system.

This is how I evaluate it

This could take a number of things: Adoption, Awareness and Acceptance

As has been mentioned if lets say the top 10 global online retailers adopt and accept
Bitcoin as a payment option awareness and acceptance could follow.

So if the awareness raises in the general shopping population how do they
purchase in bitcoin because their wages and assistance are all paid in fiat?

They have to buy bitcoin with fiat, whats the advantage? This is the acceptance issue!

[Sarah08]

Security? Crime? Inflation?

None of these. IMO, the biggest issue is the lack of partnerships with the major online retailers such as Ebay, Alibaba, and Amazon. If any of these major online shops start accepting BTC, then the userbase will increase by many times.

It can be but i think it's because bitcoin is anonymous and can be use in crime so government cannot accept it and also we know the the bitcoin is a virtual currency and cannot be control the roaring high price of it government cannot accept a currency that they cannot control like what is happening in the bitcoin community 1bitcoin causes a thousand dollar.

[squatz1]

Security? Crime? Inflation?

None of these. IMO, the biggest issue is the lack of partnerships with the major online retailers such as Ebay, Alibaba, and Amazon. If any of these major online shops start accepting BTC, then the userbase will increase by many times.

I'd have to agree with you but I don't think these companies feel the need to do something like this as they probably don't think it would change the amount of business in which they get. I think that they think that people will be using them regardless of if they accept a crypto-currency like bitcoin and they'd rather not have to go through all the loops and bounds of having to go ahead and accept it.

As they would have to be spending money on a dev team to set them up with accepting it even if they used Coinbase, BitPay or one of those platforms that takes a flat 1 percent fee to use I think?

But one of the other big issues is that scaling problem with the amount of money it costs to sent Bitcoin and it's really not worth all the trouble for most normal people I guess.

[Xester]

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?

Bitcoin is a currency but not money. Before it can be considered money the government must have first have a declaration stating that bitcoin is to be treated as money or a legal tender. But given the situation of bitcoin today the only declaration and treatment of some state towards bitcoin is to consider it as a commodity with a value that can be used as a form of financial payment.

[audaciousbeing]

The challenge that I see here that is most likely causing the delay which is unconnected to government is the change in the traditional way the financial system is being configured. Although, we have seen several developments happened to the financial system, but this development is gradual and even aligning to the traditional thing we all know but what bitcoin will be offering is a complete deviation from that system which I see most governments of the world, are currently not ready for as they are busy with politics and declaring war here and there.

[Doofus]

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.

What i am thinking is tt if government can actually regulate btc, it might be adpoted by more people, and it's good for btc which acts independently.

[tincan2]

I believe educating our children is the single most important way we can empower Bitcoin's future users to ensure its remains a growing success. Also teaching the senior community could be a good use of time too. My gramps loves the latest technology. Doing a lot of microtransactions or making small bets like playing poker or Loteria a Mexican lottery/bingo game could be a good way as well. 

Bitcoin takes a lot of educating and no matter how you try to spin it, you mine as well say Bitcoin was brought to us by Aliens or Humans from the future to save us from our current monetary system. 

I feel its more education than anything, honestly for someone like myself I heard of bitcoin way back in like 2010 or so, sounded interesting wanted to spend 20$ on buying some but opted not to (bad decision could have made some money).  The reason why I didn't? It was confusing as hell to understand how to even get started. Fast forward now to 2017, I'm only starting to get in on this, and why?  Because there are slightly more resources now to understand what in the world bitcoin actually is and how to actually get started. 

Maybe if one day from an early age if people's kids are taught how to use bitcoin and what it is, then it will become more mainstream.

[Meowth05]

It is already the mainstream currency in the digital world but as we all know we have the physical money we know that the government will not make the bitcoin as main currency because they cannot control the price just what happen a 1 bitcoin cost thousand dollar.

[KuromaYoichi]

Goverment and people awareness of bitcoin is the main obstacle for bitcoin to become a currency. Goverment want to have their own currency which they can control, Goverment also has the right to create some regulation for bitcoin. No proper regulation = no merchant dare to risk their own business to accept bitcoin.

[Sakamoto09]

The really hinders the bitcoin in being the mainstream currency because it is anonymous and basically the government cannot control the bitcoin price and we all know that we have a physical money which we use i think we are not just ready for a big change in the currency if we all erase the physical money and just use a digital currency we need to change slowly and step by step in order to be successful in this thing.

[Schuyler]

The transaction fees used to be encouraging and the time it takes to confirm a transaction doesn't take that long. Now, transaction fees has soared so much and you risk losing your bitcoins if you don't pay the higher fees. If those things aren't a hindrance, I don't know what are.

[ufaiz50]

The transaction fees used to be encouraging and the time it takes to confirm a transaction doesn't take that long. Now, transaction fees has soared so much and you risk losing your bitcoins if you don't pay the higher fees. If those things aren't a hindrance, I don't know what are.

Now it's a hindrance but the main obstacle is the government based on the nature of the bitcoin that is an anonym that makes bitcoin itself in the eyes of the government many gaps to be used as a crime tool. Whereas bitcoin has features that are not owned by other currencies.

[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?

other famous alternative coins hinders it, alt coins divides the number on investment, people invested in different alt coins but at the end of the day , they will just convert it to bitcoin.

[eternalgloom]

The transaction fees used to be encouraging and the time it takes to confirm a transaction doesn't take that long. Now, transaction fees has soared so much and you risk losing your bitcoins if you don't pay the higher fees. If those things aren't a hindrance, I don't know what are.

The transaction fees are back to 'normal' for now, they only rise if there is a backlog of unconfirmed transactions.
Besides, even if you add too little fees, you won't lose the coins you've sent, it will either get sent very slowly or the transaction is dropped.

[sportis]

The way I see it is people awareness. That is, how people will be awakened on a global scale to show confidence not only in bitcoin but in crypto currencies too. But even if people really want it, is there any possibility that banks and the governments world wide let it go of? I don't believe so. Banks are interested about blockchain for their purposes but they don't like bitcoin.

[Emoclaw]

The difficulty for some people to understand it and the lack of usage by individuals which overshadows the compelling reasons (decentralization, lower fees etc.)
Awareness and adoption will lead to more awareness and adoption, it's a circle. But right now there's no awareness, though it's increasingly growing. What's more, Bitcoin cannot handle transactions at a mainstream level. The current scaling debate is only making matters worse. Eventually, it will become mainstream, unless some other coin replaces it.

[cabron]

BTC wallet being not easy to use and technology not known to regular people are just few factors that affect it to become mainstream. When I first look at the wallet address I have after learning how bitcoin works, it feels scary how how do i memories these? I can't even put in mind that 6 character password I have.