Is Bitcoin "Mainstream" yet? The poll.

[pawel7777]

Simple poll. Question as in topic.

No time limit. Vote changing allowed.

Self-moderated just in case, but I don't intend to use it.


Things to consider:

Brand recognition - you can hardly find anyone who has never heard about Bitcoin. They sure as hell don't know how it works, but they heard about it.

Omnipresent mainstream media coverage - countless number of press hits and mentions, all the financial 'gurus' have talked about it. No one is surprised by this anymore.

Years ago most would define 'mainstream' as widespread merchant adoption, but maybe it just wasn't meant to be...

Vote. Discuss.

[squatter]

Things to consider:

Brand recognition - you can hardly find anyone who has never heard about Bitcoin. They sure as hell don't know how it works, but they heard about it.

Omnipresent mainstream media coverage - countless number of press hits and mentions, all the financial 'gurus' have talked about it. No one is surprised by this anymore.

Years ago most would define 'mainstream' as widespread merchant adoption, but maybe it just wasn't meant to be...

Vote. Discuss.

It's a mixed bag. I'd say that Bitcoin has certainly achieved mainstream awareness. Everyone's heard of it, CNBC and Forbes are shilling it daily, and the banks (GS and JP Morgan) are comparing it to gold.

I don't think its usage is mainstream yet, though. Just look at the transaction numbers. All cryptocurrency networks combined still represents a tiny sliver of global value transfer. And it really isn't ready for mainstream adoption yet, given the state of network congestion and the lack of exponential scaling mechanisms. With Rootstock deployed and the Lightning Network close behind, I'm hoping that the network is ready for that kind of scale in 1-2 years.

I voted "No."

[gundala]

It's a mixed bag. I'd say that Bitcoin has certainly achieved mainstream awareness. Everyone's heard of it, CNBC and Forbes are shilling it daily, and the banks (GS and JP Morgan) are comparing it to gold.

I don't think its usage is mainstream yet, though. Just look at the transaction numbers. All cryptocurrency networks combined still represents a tiny sliver of global value transfer. And it really isn't ready for mainstream adoption yet, given the state of network congestion and the lack of exponential scaling mechanisms. With Rootstock deployed and the Lightning Network close behind, I'm hoping that the network is ready for that kind of scale in 1-2 years.

I voted "No."

The role of media and social media is very influential. My friends have asked me about bitcoin because they have seen my social media account sharing about an ICO project. Some are interested, some are not, some even consider it a fraud. About 15 people in my office, there were only 2 people interested and asked me to guide him to join cryptocurrency.
So, as you say, news about bitcoin is mainstream, but not with its use.

[pawel7777]

...
So, as you say, news about bitcoin is mainstream, but not with its use.

But isn't public awareness enough to be classed as mainstream? You can't reasonably expect majority of global population to jump on it and use it.
Assuming that (almost) everyone has heard about Bitcoin, I could imagine that those who were interested in the concept already got in, and those who aren't - unlikely ever will. If so, then BTC won't get any more mainstream than it is right now.

Looking from other angle - if you accept that Bitcoin shouldn't be viewed as currency but rather as a store of value (or investment, speculative asset etc) then you can't define 'mainstream' as widespread usage and therefore, with that point of view, 'mainstream' is already here.

[monkeydominicorobin]

Yes. It is a mainstream type of technology. It is mainstream for those in the know. It mainstream for those who know how to wield it.

[coinycoiny]

Its just possible that this is peak bitcoin.

Everyone has heard of it, pre-xmas everyone was positive, now most publicity is negative/bubble etc.

Its becoming obvious that cryptos are useless for transactions other then drugs (and then bitcoin isn't the best choice)

From here I expect a slow decline into obscurity and we'll look back in ten years and wonder how stupid we must have been.

[Juggy777]

Simple poll. Question as in topic.

No time limit. Vote changing allowed.

Self-moderated just in case, but I don't intend to use it.


Things to consider:

Brand recognition - you can hardly find anyone who has never heard about Bitcoin. They sure as hell don't know how it works, but they heard about it.

Omnipresent mainstream media coverage - countless number of press hits and mentions, all the financial 'gurus' have talked about it. No one is surprised by this anymore.

Years ago most would define 'mainstream' as widespread merchant adoption, but maybe it just wasn't meant to be...

Vote. Discuss.

Hell ya it is, all the leading media publications now daily publish either it's news or its price's on a daily basis. Our favorite Jamie has to come and say sorry to us for calling it a fraud and then admit it's not a fraud. The father of valuation Buffet has to come out in the open and take a stand against it, I can't blame him, a lot of investment banker's would have been pissed had he taken a positive stand, that all I feel Bitcoins is already mainstream and those who miss out, we'll they just miss out.

[sarfwr]

In my country, almost every day from the newspaper, Internet and other media to see relevant information about the BTC, almost everyone know, BTC, so in my opinion, the BTC is the mainstream.

[coinSpecter32]

I voted Yes. In my opinion when we say mainstream, it is published on local and international media. More people are talking about it, being in the news all the time. I think that is what's happening right now.

[soham]

Bitcoin is not mainstream yet and I doubt it will ever be. Mainstream meaning a government recognized currency which is widely accepted for daily expenses and also bears the assurance of the respective central bank. Bitcoin is decentralized and its circulation and generation doesn't depend on any government. So it is structurally not fit to become a mainstream currency. It is a store of value and an excellent investment asset, at least for me.

[tegarp90]

not really i think, in my country Indonesia there are few people who knew bitcoin, it maybe only 5-10% of population in my country

[lunaalthea]

Yes bitcoin is considered as mainstream however a lot of people I do know does not even know how it functions. All they know is that many scams are being involved because of btc which is pretty sad. But then its their fault for not embracing this innovation. They will soon regret frowning upon the potential of btc

[Anti-Cen]

Yes it is main stream and the transaction fees have made us the laughing stock of the world
and this will rub off on all the other coins too.

$30 just to have 250 bytes of data saved to the block does not look good
next to "We are fighting the banks, Freedom" or the original white paper that
talked about "Virtually free transaction fees"

CPU Wars as the original concept was designed to promote has resulted in us
now having 20,000 miners just to process a mere seven transactions a second
so any developer who is worth is salt is also laughing at us.

We within the community we need to do some serious house cleaning because the
development team who could deal with the miners in seconds are clearly following
there own pockets these days and have become greedy and now the rot has set in. 

[HeRetiK]

It's a mixed bag. I'd say that Bitcoin has certainly achieved mainstream awareness. Everyone's heard of it, CNBC and Forbes are shilling it daily, and the banks (GS and JP Morgan) are comparing it to gold.

[...]

I think that pretty much breaks it down. Everyone and their dogs has heard of Bitcoin by now. Alt coiners and cryptocurrency "experts" are all over the place. Blockchain hype is as big as it has ever been.

Nonetheless the actual usage of cryptocurrencies is still in a very early stage. So adoption is far from mainstream.

As far as usage for speculation is concerned, I'd say Bitcoin is beginning to become mainstream though.


I would define Bitcoin to be mainstream once everyone and their dogs has not only heard of Bitcoin, but owns or uses it. Keep in mind that the internet had also reached mainstream awareness long before mainstream adoption.

[krishnapramod]

About less than 1% of the world population uses Bitcoin, and this was achieved in a time span of 10 years. There has been exponential growth in adoption in the last couple of years. If you take the whole world's population/money/assets into perspective, I think still around 1% does seem a considerable number. IMO Bitcoin isn't mainstream yet, but on its way. Hitting $10K, Bitcoin futures/NASDAQ plans to introduce Bitcoin futures this year, there is a steady flow of Bitcoin-related news, both positive and negative from mainstream financial media outlets, IMF chief Christine Lagarde telling central bankers to not ignore Bitcoin, a few countries working on framework to regulate Bitcoin, and the upcoming G20 summit where Bitcoin is going to be a topic of debate. Not mainstream yet, but I guess the adoption phase is shifting from early adopters to early majority.

[SHAWN-MIDWAYS]

Bitcoin is very much mainstream!
But people and other institutional investors are holding back because of the current slow confirmation times of transactions and the high fees which are not suitable for small transactions.

[xiaopang11]

I think bitcoin is now mainstream, because more and more people now know that bing has accepted him, and in the near future, maybe bitcoin will replace the current currency.

[PhilippeStevens]

It's not mainstream yet and probably will never be. First truly mainstream crypto will be TON (telegram's currency), I think. It'll be a hell of a project.

[cybersofts]

Bitcoin is very much mainstream!
But people and other institutional investors are holding back because of the current slow confirmation times of transactions and the high fees which are not suitable for small transactions.

Yes, bitcoin is on the verge of becoming full mainstream because everybody knows about bitcoin.
The only thing left is for the governments everywhere in the world to start accepting bitcoin as a digital store of value like gold.   

[Kprawn]

I think this is a region thing... In most first world countries Bitcoin is definitely mainstream {based on your criteria} In your

3rd world countries, with less access to mass media and internet access, Bitcoin is still relatively unknown. I visited some of

the African countries last year and I asked around and people there mostly know about M-Pesa. {This was developed before

Bitcoin in 2007}