Can Bitcoin scale to become a major payment network?

[Masonwilliam]

Can Bitcoin scale to become a major payment network?

[ganlianshifu1]

I think it takes a long time to realize!
Because BTC is not legal in many countries! In some legitimate countries, such as Japan, BTC can be traded in many places! Many website transactions also support BTC payment!

[tanoe]

I think it takes a long time to realize!
Because BTC is not legal in many countries! In some legitimate countries, such as Japan, BTC can be traded in many places! Many website transactions also support BTC payment!

Many members are also thinking of the same thing in another thread.
This can happen if everyone on earth already knows of the bitcoin and switches to a day's use. it takes time to get there.

[fiulpro]

You know since it's unregulated there were people who took advantage of that and Bitcoins were used in undercover business and illegal things too.

For the them it was a large payment network and for some parts it still is , I don't think that this happened because they realized that it is beneficial for them to be unregulated by the government, and as Soon as other people come to realize how well it suits their demands they will start using it on a large scale and it is possible for sure

[tikaka]

I think the potential of btcoin is huge. So, it can happen. But it takes a lot of time for it to become a global network because it is experiencing some difficulties such as slow transactions and huge costs and it is limited in some countries. In the future it will overcome difficulties and it will become the international payment network

[pooya87]

bitcoin IS scaling as we speak. it starts with SegWit and how that has been increasing the capacity. so far we have seen 2MB+ blocks be mined when the adoption of it was increased. there are other proposals such as Shnor signatures that will also help with this on chain scaling.

there is also the side chain solutions that are currently in the bug testing process. Lightning Network for instance is currently at ~200 nodes and the network of it grows fast.
with things like LN there is no scaling anymore, they can handle virtually limitless number of transactions and instantly.

[christian07]

Bitcoin is a digital money that supported by many users all around the world so to become major payment i think it can,if we have English as an international language we can also think that we can have international money like this digital currency that can easy way to transfer money all over the world in just one click not like bank that you need a lot of confirmation before you already got your money.

[Kotone]

Can Bitcoin scale to become a major payment network?

Given the proper items for accommodation or the proper technologies to let it be online. THen i think it can be with people clamoring for more cashless and digitized payment setting I think that it is just right that if given more time it can have more time to scale into a payment system that can be used and the utilized not just by a single entity but by the whole world

[andrei56]

bitcoin IS scaling as we speak. it starts with SegWit and how that has been increasing the capacity. so far we have seen 2MB+ blocks be mined when the adoption of it was increased. there are other proposals such as Shnor signatures that will also help with this on chain scaling.

there is also the side chain solutions that are currently in the bug testing process. Lightning Network for instance is currently at ~200 nodes and the network of it grows fast.
with things like LN there is no scaling anymore, they can handle virtually limitless number of transactions and instantly.

True, scaling has been an issue for quite some time but to deny the progress we have made in the past year will be a mistake, not only because that will be denying reality but also because it was a costly victory for the devs, they were able to activate segwit but as a result lots of bitcoin forks came out and have done nothing but to make bitcoin seems like joke with coins like bitcoin diamond or bitcoin silver.

[mevmike]

there may be a lot of hindrance for this thing to happen.
and the most obvious one is the transaction speed.
we cant deny the fact that if it will be used as a payment system many people will complain about its speed.
whether you are the buyer or the seller you will be having a hard time waiting for your transactions to be completed.

[louie69]

Probably yes, this may become a major payment network in the future years to come and for some countries, it is already operational. Considering bitcoin's accomplishments, more and more large corporations are taking consideration of what bitcoin can do for their business especially for monetary transactions that are fast and efficient to the users.

[Futurm]

I think it's possible in the future, but not now.
Because BTC now there are still many problems, such as block congestion and transfer speed is slow, the problem of high transfer fees, if lightning network solves these problems, so it's possible.

[Findingnemo]

Can Bitcoin scale to become a major payment network?

Yes definitely it is one of the major payment method used by today's generation of people . Bitcoin will reach many people in last year it is one of the best achievement from online crypto currencies and it has the highest value when comparing to all other currencies used by people in the world .

[sofi@]

Yes its possible but it would take time especially now there's a lot of issue on bitcoin that I think should be fix first. The technology of crypto currencies are really good and can surely helps the economy to grow further but since bitcoin is decentralize government find it hard to support it but I am hoping that time will come and bitcoin will become a major payment network.

[VitKoyn]

Can Bitcoin scale to become a major payment network?

Of course it is possible, there is already an implemented scaling proposal which is segwit and lightning network is on its way but the real problem here is people don't see Bitcoin as it must be which is payment method, instead people are taking advantage of Bitcoin's volatility and use it as an investment. But what I think is if lightning network will be the solution to scaling problem of Bitcoin, at can be a good start for merchants or online shops to start accepting Bitcoin as payment method and also those who stop accepting it will resume it even even if it is highly volatile.

[QuestionAuthority]

If you follow what real core developers are saying like Van der Laan (don’t listen to Gavin “Wright is Satoshi”  Andresen), it will take many years, likely decades, for bitcoin to scale to anywhere near a major payment network.

In order for bitcoin to compete with just the ACH Network it would need to move $43 trillion and 25 billion electronic financial transactions each year. That’s roughly 125 times more transactions than bitcoin is currently doing very poorly. There is a backlog in the mempool so it can’t even keep up with what it’s currently doing.

If you look at the transactions processed by the major credit brands (Visa, MC, Discover, etc.), it appears to be around 100 billion transactions. That’s 500 times more than bitcoin is currently processing poorly. Now we’re up to 625 times increase in transaction volume for bitcoin.

Pure EFT transactions (debit card) is around 50 billion per year. That adds another 250 times more transactions worldwide than bitcoin is currently doing poorly. We are now at 875 x current number of transactions that bitcoin is now doing horribly at keeping up.

It’s safe to say that at minimum it will take many decades before bitcoin can be made to effectively scale enough to just replace the ACH Network. It could possibly take the entire lifetime of the youngest bitcoiner on this forum before to could scale enough to take over all major worldwide financial transactions. If it could be made to handle that kind of volume, bitcoin would need to change from its current 5 or less transactions a second to 56,000 transactions a second and the blockchain would fill up the New York public library.

[dimastegar]

No. I think with expensive transaction fees and slow delivery times, Bitcoin will not be a major for payment. And again, there are still many countries that have not legalized Bitcoin. And there are many other reasons that Bitcoin is not yet suitable to be a major payment.

[evilgreed]

No. I think with expensive transaction fees and slow delivery times, Bitcoin will not be a major for payment. And again, there are still many countries that have not legalized Bitcoin. And there are many other reasons that Bitcoin is not yet suitable to be a major payment.

                     I do agree with you, perhaps it can be consider as a second or alternate way of payment system but as far as i can see it could not be the main currency. Considering those several countries that doesn't accept bitcoin as their payment, it only shows that there could be lot more of things to come, it may also change when the time comes, but there is no guarantee that it will really be exactly as we think about.

[tehjohn]

If we compare Bitcoin to the early beginnings of the Internet, there were 9600Baud Modems (the ones where you put the phone-receiver in) - sometimes emails needed hours to go through due to using the same protocol like websites and i remember downloading Diablo I Beta for 36hours for about 120USD total. So compared to fees and speed and congestion this is basically the same ... give it some time to mature and look what we have today. SMTP / POP / IMAP and sometimes HTTP for Emails - so consider Bitcoin Core 0.15 (Not even 1.0RC) as a very early stage and wait for the development ... mass adoption is happening 300.000 new accounts per day on coinbase do not lie

[Yokonaumiyaki000]

Can Bitcoin scale to become a major payment network?

Maybe one day. But not anywhere near. I'd say less than 50% of the people know and have the knowledge in bitcoin. And these people use bitcoin as a payment network. But being a major payment network means that like real money, you can use it spontaneously anywhere, anytime. And by anywhere i mean across the globe(which is impossible for bitcoin) since not every country likes the idea of it. And just like what every body say, the transaction takes time.