People say, including one of my close friends, that Bitcoin will never be used and accepted by normal people and businesses if it is illegal.
He could have said that "Bitcoin will never be used and accepted by normal people and businesses".
No matter if it's legal or illegal, more than 25 % of the world population are living with less than 2 usd a day. They will never get close to bitcoin.
And even in developped and rich countries, if you speak with people you will understand that every "normal" people is not willing to use bitcoins.
Some merchants try to implement it (but actually they only say that they accept bitcoins, but they instantly convert them to USD, and only get paid with USD).
Basically, bitcoin will be used for buying illegal stuff (drugs, and so on), for money laundering, or in a small part, for geeks or utopist people that are totally stupid. Not to mention the greedy people (like me?) only interested in making money (usd/eur) out of it.
Well that might be true enough, but consider this: What would the value of Bitcoin be if it was used "only" by everyone sick of the current system in the world? If it was "only" used by small to medium sized pioneering businesses in the world?
I think more than 1 billion $ market cap would be a safe bet.
Do you realize that it means around 50 usd / bitcoin?
(...)
But then something is going to happen:
1. People will realize how easy it is to exchange Bitcoins. We will have more sellers on sites like localbitcoins and new smaller exchanges.
The whole concept of bitcoins is flawed. When you make a transaction, you need an instant confirmation. For instance, if you pay something with your credit card, you want to be sure that the required amount was paid. And you can't wait a few min / hours / days. Bitcoins confirmation (and not transaction) are way too long.
Bitcoins fees are also way too high. I don't pay a single cent for having and using my credit card. I don't give a shit if sellers have to pay xx % to an American company to accept that kind of payment, as long as I got my credit card free of charge, and it's the same price if I pay with my credit card or cash ... Bitcoins fees are totally crazy if you want to send small amounts of money. But anyway, any fee > 0 seems overpriced to me considering the fact that my credit card has a lower fee.
Not reversible transactions + anonymous => you can be stolen anytime and can't do shit to recover your loss.
Bitcoin might have some advantages and could be used in some areas / websites or for very specific matters, but it will never be used a lot in the world, and not like you said.
