What Will It Take For Bitcoin To Replace The Dollar In Everyday Transactions

[alyssa85]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/02/23/what-will-it-take-for-bitcoin-to-replace-the-dollar-in-everyday-transactions/#6423871163db

Of all the problems that keep Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from replacing the dollar in everyday transactions, one stands out: volatility—value fluctuation in relation to the dollar.

That’s according to a recent survey conducted by Survata, an independent research firm in San Francisco, which found that 60.3% of cryptocurrency holders see cryptocurrency volatility as the most important barrier of using cryptocurrencies in everyday transactions.

Survata interviewed 402 online respondents between January 18, 2018 and January 23, 2018. Respondents were reached across the Survata publisher network, where they took a survey to unlock premium content, like articles and ebooks. Respondents received no cash compensation for their participation.

402 respondents is a tiny sample, and therefore the survey findings should be interpreted with extreme caution.

Still, the survey results aren’t surprising to Craig Cole, CEO and Founder of CryptoMaps. “Whenever you transfer bitcoin using blockchain, it can take hours. Because of the high volatility of the currency, the value can change dramatically during that time. So for many virtual currency owners, they see this and think it doesn't make sense to use bitcoin to purchase anything.”

What could change the situation? Two things. One is speeding up the time it takes to execute cryptocurrency transactions, something cryptocurrency exchanges are working on. “The focus has been on changing this issue,” says Cole. “Projects such as OmiseGO, DASH, Stellar, BitcoinCash and Litecoin have radically improved transaction speeds.  This has eliminated some of the angst that Bitcoin has given business owners and consumers.  With new point of sale platforms emerging daily like CoinBase Commerce, cryptocurrency will be a viable payment option for businesses for the sustainable future.”

Then there’s Wall Street, which has come up with financial products that allow market participants to hedge their positions against volatility in one of the major cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin. Merchants, for instance, concerned about Bitcoin volatility, can purchase Bitcoin futures, as discussed in a previous piece here.

It's interesting that the belief (based on experience in 2017) that it takes hours for bitcoin to confirm is now received wisdom and gets endlessly repeated, despite the mempool clearing.

[jjacob]

This will not happen, in my opinion. The US dollar has the world's largest and most powerful military backing it. Bitcoin has nothing but the belief of the community in a decentralized platform. Bitcoin may grow and become huge, but I do not see it replacing the dollar.
We all know what happened when middle east oil czars try to sell their oil in a different currency. "Regime change" occurs in their countries.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It's interesting that the belief (based on experience in 2017) that it takes hours for bitcoin to confirm is now received wisdom and gets endlessly repeated, despite the mempool clearing.

The issue is that although the mempool has now cleared, and transactions with fees as low as 5 sats/byte are clearing in a few minutes, nothing has fundamentally changed yet. The mempool could get clogged back up tomorrow, and we could again see fees of over 500 sats/byte still waiting 24+ hours to clear.

Until this fundamental problem is addressed, and we can say that mempool will always be clear, and fees will always be low, bitcoin will never replace the dollar.

[alyssa85]

The issue is that although the mempool has now cleared, and transactions with fees as low as 5 sats/byte are clearing in a few minutes, nothing has fundamentally changed yet. The mempool could get clogged back up tomorrow, and we could again see fees of over 500 sats/byte still waiting 24+ hours to clear.

Until this fundamental problem is addressed, and we can say that mempool will always be clear, and fees will always be low, bitcoin will never replace the dollar.

Agree. And the other threat is alts moving into the merchant space. For example Litepay launches on Feb 26th, and they're hoping to persuade merchants to enable it and accept litecoin. At some point you'll get merchants accepting alts more than bitcoin - which would be the deathknell of bitcoin once the press found out.

[doloresdeleon07]

America will not allow other currency to replace the dollar, they will see it as threat to their security,because they don't have total control of it. Give them control over Bitcoin, let them regulate it, then it can replace dollar. In doing that I think it will defeat the purpose of why Bitcoin has been created.

[preshpr1nce]

This will not happen, in my opinion. The US dollar has the world's largest and most powerful military backing it. Bitcoin has nothing but the belief of the community in a decentralized platform. Bitcoin may grow and become huge, but I do not see it replacing the dollar.
We all know what happened when middle east oil czars try to sell their oil in a different currency. "Regime change" occurs in their countries.

This is spot on
Any attempt to change the US power structure will be met with force, happens every time and this is why they put so much in to military.

In 2015, the US will have a declared military and defense budget of $601 billion, which is more than the next 7 highest spending countries combined

Also look at the trillions spent on the middle eastern wars alone, #1 military means far more than national debt to the US.

In saying that, the US have done some intentional things over the last 30 years to spread wealth over the globe, allowing most of it's work to be off shored has killed it's middle class and made others powerful, they are the biggest pusher of globalism and one of the steps for true globalism is a global currency, bitcoin/blockchain may just be this, the top Bitcoin holders are all American and Satoshi could be too, or even an American agency

http://time.com/money/5002207/richest-people-with-bitcoin/

All of those people are American.

[Happydd]

Between bitcoin and money are interrelated. All transactions, purchases, and exchanges of bitcoins are in dollars and are paid in dollars. But I think bitcoin can not be replaced with money to use in everyday life. That would be very difficult to use especially in my country.

[allthebitandbobs]

never going to happen .Bitcoin fees are to high and transaction time to slow for it ever to take place

[jseverson]

It's interesting that the belief (based on experience in 2017) that it takes hours for bitcoin to confirm is now received wisdom and gets endlessly repeated, despite the mempool clearing.

All that proves is that lots of people who talk about Bitcoin don't use it themselves. It's not unheard of for people to babble about subjects they have no knowledge of, after all.

But then again, it could be construed that they are talking about Bitcoin under the context where it's already being used to replace fiat in daily transactions, in which case, they aren't wrong. Most people who actually know a thing or two about Bitcoin should know that the current biggest barrier towards mass adoption is scalability (or lack thereof).

[Nakaba]

never going to happen .Bitcoin fees are to high and transaction time to slow for it ever to take place

It will happen but not today. Once cryptocurrency is fully adopted by people fiat money will not be the main currency anymore. Though it will take some time before it happened because the government and the central bank will surely suppress it just like  what they did in internet.