Bringing BTC to the mainstream

[whenhowwho]

This is the dream if i am to understand correctly. There is an easy way for this to happen if someone were to make a commercial for it it would take off. It would have to be done in non-geekspeak though. In the land of the meek and mentally defunct (USA) where i happen to live there are alot of angry people they have no direction if you could get them to get there head around it it would benefit this whole community.

Could you imagine what would happen if Joe Couch-potato got behind this? The largest most powerful consumer economy the world has ever known suddenly falls in love with bitcoins. Think beany babies and cabbage patch kids (dating myself) times a million. While looking at the search statistics I noticed something fairly amusing. There are only a handful of states with any searches at all and those that have heavy searching for bitcoin related terms are falling off a bit. For BTC to get any traction that will be long lasting there a number of things that have to happen. Of all the things that have been mentioned like merchants accepting them and etc the most important thing has been over looked. This thing is consumer demand. Most consumers have no clue what bitcoins are or what it could mean. The very same scenario with powerhouses such as ebay amazon and paypal when they were new. Without effective marketing to develop and encourage consumer demand BTC will only ever be a niche market from geek to geek and speculator to speculator.
When the story broke about the silk road there was a sudden spark of interest but that has since died down so it had very little traction.

So lets get this baby from a crawler to at the very least something that walks.


Here is what we need to do:

We need a group dedicated to making this consumer friendly think bitcoin cards (visa, Mastercard, BTC)

We need a marketing group than can be dedicated to marketing this effectively and in layman's terms in other words not having to explain sha256 or anything else that is going to make joe couch potato have a massive stroke.

Now im sure we need other things so lets discuss and get this very amoebic thing some solidity and moving forward 

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[chickenado]

Bitcoin is not ready for this yet. Before this can happen, user friendly tools for wallet security and trust need to be developed. Exchanges need to become more professional. A futures market needs to be established to stabilize prices on the side of merchants. Lots of work still to be done. Give it at least another 6 months before bitcoin is ready for Joe Average.

[V4Vendettas]

Then thats 6 months to plan and prepare. Hit the ground running man.

I would love to help but my only skill would be some graphic design that I picked up as an architecture student but still you have my pen untill you find someone better.

Build the team get them on skype do some brainstorming and all that stuff.

Give yourself some aims with dates take it on man and I'm sure you will draw the help we all need.

[Fakeman]

How about this, somebody creates or modifies an existing file sharing program to incorporate a BTC client. Basically you would bribe seeders with micropayments per % of the file or directory to let you jump the queue over those who bid less (or nothing). The seeder could also set a minimum bid to download. This would provide much more of an incentive to seed rare/old files, and would provide an alternative to mining for those with a lot of storage space but insufficient GPU power to mine. Of course those who host copyrighted files would have to worry about lawsuits etc, but such people take the same risk anyway for no financial gain.

[V4Vendettas]

How about this, somebody creates or modifies an existing file sharing program to incorporate a BTC client. Basically you would bribe seeders with micropayments per % of the file or directory to let you jump the queue over those who bid less (or nothing). The seeder could also set a minimum bid to download. This would provide much more of an incentive to seed rare/old files, and would provide an alternative to mining for those with a lot of storage space but insufficient GPU power to mine. Of course those who host copyrighted files would have to worry about lawsuits etc, but such people take the same risk anyway for no financial gain.

That’s a nice idea but I think its missing the core of the op. I think we are talking awareness not innovation.

Actually more I think about that more I like it maybe needs to be a new thread and get some coders on it.

[Fakeman]

It would definitely increase awareness if it caught on but maybe a separate thread makes sense as you say. What section of the forum would be best for that?

[V4Vendettas]

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?board=12.0 Maybe lol Im new here but I saw alot of techie chit chat and 00111001101 that made no sense at all so might be worth a go.

For the record I would pay a little fee to download film's etc that bit faster. If I did that kinda thing...which I dont....tinfoil hat on.

[Electrongolf]

Marketing and increasing user friendliness is all well and fine.

But, in order to attract the mainstream, there has to be a specific product/service that people want to use. (I need BTC to do X)

If there is nothing compelling to spend BTC on, it will never crack the mainstream.

[Fakeman]

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?board=12.0 Maybe lol Im new here but I saw alot of techie chit chat and 00111001101 that made no sense at all so might be worth a go.

For the record I would pay a little fee to download film's etc that bit faster. If I did that kinda thing...which I dont....tinfoil hat on.

Started the thread: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=26391.0 Of course upstanding citizens would only use such a thing for Linux ISOs & materials with expired copyrights and so forth.

[whenhowwho]

How about this, somebody creates or modifies an existing file sharing program to incorporate a BTC client. Basically you would bribe seeders with micropayments per % of the file or directory to let you jump the queue over those who bid less (or nothing). The seeder could also set a minimum bid to download. This would provide much more of an incentive to seed rare/old files, and would provide an alternative to mining for those with a lot of storage space but insufficient GPU power to mine. Of course those who host copyrighted files would have to worry about lawsuits etc, but such people take the same risk anyway for no financial gain.

For the sake of legitimacy I wouldnt suggest using BTC for an incentive for file downloads as that would be bad in the long run. Perhaps it could be used as a niche though fakeman.

Lets keep rolling with the idea. I agree that some security issues need to be addressed so lets develop a team to take care of that aspect. Although I think we could alleviate that with a move to some form of credit card type scenario.


I have been trying to get funding for a large scale mining operation and I am often asked what other kinds of opportunities there are and etc. There seems to be tremendous interest in the consumer aspect but when i try to explain what mining is their eyes seem to glaze over lol.

Bitcoin is not ready for this yet. Before this can happen, user friendly tools for wallet security and trust need to be developed. Exchanges need to become more professional. A futures market needs to be established to stabilize prices on the side of merchants. Lots of work still to be done. Give it at least another 6 months before bitcoin is ready for Joe Average.

I agree about the exchanges. They pretty much suck. They are very vanilla and not very well thought out. If a person were to create an exchange where a user could do everything in one place i.e credit card to fund and more importantly sell BTC and not have to use another web entity to actually get the value in a spendable form. Kinda like an E-Trade for BTC is what im thinking. The cost would be anonymity though which is by far my favorite part as i have a deep seething hatred for my government and do not wish to give them a dime. I would be willing to trade that to see BTC mainstream. It will take time but I know it can be done

[rafval]

its a matter of involving people by spreading the economy, not spreading the idea, until present users stop hording and start spending bitcoin its just going to stagnate and eventually collapse, the public want something usable, not a pyramid scheme

[whenhowwho]

its a matter of involving people by spreading the economy, not spreading the idea, until present users stop hording and start spending bitcoin its just going to stagnate and eventually collapse, the public want something usable, not a pyramid scheme

I disagree hoarding is a good thing. If everyone were to sell their bitcoins then the market would crash and they would become worthless. Nothing about bitcoin is a pyramid scheme i didnt get here because i signed up under someone else or any of that nonsense. Currently there isnt a whole lot of places where you can spend bitcoin and this will remain true until joe couch potato demands it. Getting them to want it is the trick and that is the purpose of the thread.

I do not have alot of posts on here but i read alot so I guess i would be called a lurker. I would say that if a person is going to be negative then they are not going to think about the issue in the right way. I remember when the internet went mainstream (thanks al gore lol) there were a ton of naysayers who said it was a passing fad and yada yada but yet here we are. The technical aspect of BTC is its strength and also it weakness. If a person can understand how it works then they are a rarity. Joe couch potato does not need to know how it works only to know that it does. Absolutely nobody is working to make it easier for joe couch potato to understand it and want to use it at least that i am aware of. Currently it is really only geared towards the end geek which is cool but it could be much much larger. Let's take paypal as an example. When it was first developed there was a ton of skepticism and now it is everywhere. That was pure marketing and being purchased by ebay helped quite a bit.

If you look at BTC as strictly a currency then a person would have to demonstrate its value. Currently its value is much the same as any other fiat currency. But really anything of value is only worth as much as people want it. Gold, silver, diamonds, platinum, tritium, all of these things have value but you cannot eat them you can only barter them. BTC is no different   

 

[rafval]

I dont mean people should sell, I mean they should spend, bitcoins value is as an exchange medium and its a very good one I think, if its not used for that its got no value

[whenhowwho]

ok then i agree that people should spend their coins on things they need or want but i would not suggest spending all of them.

[hugolp]

Marketing and increasing user friendliness is all well and fine.

But, in order to attract the mainstream, there has to be a specific product/service that people want to use. (I need BTC to do X)

If there is nothing compelling to spend BTC on, it will never crack the mainstream.

+1 My opinion exactly. People is not as dumb as some people here claim, but most dont see the need to use bitcoins.

[rafval]

ok then i agree that people should spend their coins on things they need or want but i would not suggest spending all of them.

they also need to sell products and services as well as buy, the hording is fine, Im no expert but I see the value continuing to drop until theres an economy and thats dependent on people using bitcoins rather then collecting them, not to say that thats not happening yet, but the best investment a horder can make is to spend some, in my ill informed opinion

[FreeMoney]

Sorry to continue the derail, but:

Every Bitcoin is always hoarded by someone.

The less prejudicial way to say that is that every coin is always saved.

[whenhowwho]

well we are so far derailed now i can no longer even see the tracks. It further demonstrates the problem. Lack of direction. Its not that most people do not see a need to use bitcoins it is that most people are not even aware that they exist or if they heard of them in passing they are not aware of their current value or their theoretical future value. 40 years ago people didnt see the need to use the internet although it existed in its must rudimentary form. 20 years ago people didnt see much of a need to buy things online or send an email. 10 years ago people had no clue what a SSD or USB Drive was. 3 years ago you had never heard of a bitcoin yet here you are. Joe couch potato isnt here though. Whenever JCP shows up there will be alot of happy faces. Can we get back on topic?

[coinvestor]

@whenhowwho
If you don't learn to crawl you'll walk weird. If you don't learn to walk you'll run weird.
People are working to build businesses around this; because every opportunity to make the facebooks, amazons, and eBays of now are in front of us. We wouldn't want those to fail because we started to make them too soon.

[whenhowwho]

@whenhowwho
If you don't learn to crawl you'll walk weird. If you don't learn to walk you'll run weird.
People are working to build businesses around this; because every opportunity to make the facebooks, amazons, and eBays of now are in front of us. We wouldn't want those to fail because we started to make them too soon.

I agree but I would not say it is too soon. I would say that it would be driving force to create something that joe couch potato can get which would also drive value.