How to improve the usability of bitcoin?

[gundala]

This is a new innovation, all things related to cryptocurrency are very closely related to the internet, gadgets, and the like. This is very effective for millennials, who are easy to accept and adapt to technological developments. As for the older generation, this will be difficult to understand and learn. If we look at the side for the millennial generation, the progress so far is very good, this decade has shown very significant developments, especially from price developments. Meanwhile, in terms of utility for broad adoption, many personalities can become banks for themselves without a third party, although it is difficult to be widely accepted. So for me this is good enough, slowly but surely. Online shopping trends are also slowly adopting cryptocurrency, the weakness may only be in the volume, the rest is quite perfect I think.

[FlightyPouch]

If bitcoin really wants to become a universal currency payment system, how can we optimize the design for ease of use and make it easy for most people to get started easily and with low risk?

So what do you really want? lower the risk for the investment or for people to use it easily? In terms of usability, bitcoin can easily be used by a lot of people. It is efficient and fast in terms of transaction but the thing is that it is not that accepted by a lot of merchants and stores since it is volatile. I think we should also think that bitcoin should be stable which I don't think is a good thing since that means someone is controlling the market and that also means that there is no decentralization.

[Sadlife]

I think for bitcoin to become a universal payment for salary or any types of services is, it needs more adoption from governments and country's. But bitcoin is decentralize so these guys are most likely impossible to adopt bitcoin, so we can rely on average joes and Institutional investors.
If most of the worlds population uses cryptocurrency then banks and governments has no choice but to adopt it.

Thus making bitcoin a universal payment that is peer to peer.

[Darker45]

There is a speculative (investment) presence in the current bitcoin discussion scene. Only known and used by a few people.

If bitcoin really wants to become a universal currency payment system, how can we optimize the design for ease of use and make it easy for most people to get started easily and with low risk?

As a payment system, I guess the main thing that Bitcoin should be improving is its transaction speed. If the system will become the main global payment system, it has to be able to process thousands, if not millions, of transactions per second. At its current 7 TPS, it has a long way to go.

[LogitechMouse]

~

It took how many years before fiat has been used worldwide??
How many years did fiat currency take so that it will be known as our universal currency?

Knowledge. This will help people in all aspects from lowering of the risk to the usage of it.
Development. I know that we are in the development stage right now or the evolving stage where some problems of Bitcoin is getting solve bit by bit.

Give time for crypto to be known worldwide and lets see how it goes within the next decades. Don't expect too much with Bitcoin at this moment because it is only 10 years but what it achieves right now is good already. Adoption will increase little by little. Lets just wait for it to be used globally.

[Artemis3]

It wants to become the universal payment currency, but it will never be. This is why I support the "digital gold" name of it. It's more of a transferable gold, but one with fixed supply.

Take it as if you were able to pay in gold coins/bars on some websites. The main problem here comes with the possibility of sending a fake gold coin and scamming the service. On the other hand, we have double spending with BTC but counter-measures can be taken. Double-spending aside, Bitcoin is much more safer for services to accept especially because it does not need a physical transfer but only a digital one.

One of the typical reasons services and companies do not accept BTC yet is volatility, and that is understandable. Unless you want to accept and hold BTC while also assuming a risk of negative price change, you'll have to rely on and trust a third party that exchanges your BTC into USD in an instant. Another issue comes with fees during network congestions and tx confirmation time. If all of these would somehow be solved, Bitcoin would be much more practical.

No. Double spending is not an issue, this is why people wait for confirmation(s). Many things can be paid waiting, they don't have to be instant. Online purchases are a great example of this, it doesn't matter if it takes 1 hour or 6 or 12 to confirm, once confirmed they ship the items, end of drama. For the same reason people should not mess with the transaction fees, or let their wallets do so. 1 sat/B is the only fee that matters, the rest is for emergencies only.

If you don't want to keep the bitcoins, fine, exchange them. Pricing is not much of an issue, as you can simply use the price in another coin and simply accept the equivalent at current market exchange price. Under inflation price move all the time, you are simply spoiled to have never experienced it, thinking life could not go on with moving prices. It can, its not the end of the world. A merchant may lose a bit someday, but will gain anotherday. This is bitcoin, not some altcoin that will never recover. In the long run bitcoin always goes back up.

[kryptqnick]

The current implementation is good enough imo. The rate of adoption might not be as fast as other tech but that's simply because there is much freedom in the crypto/bitcoin ecosystem. People need to learn to be their own bank, avoid stupid mistakes, etc which might be suitable only for those who are young or open-mined.

If we put the 10 year age into perspective, what we achieve so far is amazing. What started as a simple experiment has been used by some merchants and users to create their own economy, and that is great.

The spending culture or whatever you talked about will follow when there is enough clarity (either regulation, government stance tc) and exposure to new people, added with an increase of merchants accepting crypto/bitcoin. It will come sooner or later.

I am a fan of Bitcoin, and I think that it did achieve a lot, but that doesn't mean it's doing fine in terms of the spending culture or adoption. Only around 2% of the population use Bitcoin at all. At the current adoption rate, Bitcoin will take a couple if decades to catch up with top payment methods, if I am not mistaken. Moreover, I really don't think that most users of Bitcoin but goods/services with it. They gamble, trade or hold, but there options if spending Bitcoin as money are too limited. Not to mention that it's largely unrecognised, so any time one needs a proof of funds, BTC doesn't count.

[FaithInCrypto]

If only merchants do accept payments in Bitcoin forms like credit card or fiat but I am not sure how are we able to handle the exchange part as it the rate isn't always stable. I guess it will only be a dream for now and I believe the crypto team are currently finding out how to overcome this problem.

It would be nice to have a Bitcoin app where you can store your BTC there and use it anytime you shop.

[alexsandria]

There is a speculative (investment) presence in the current bitcoin discussion scene. Only known and used by a few people.

If bitcoin really wants to become a universal currency payment system, how can we optimize the design for ease of use and make it easy for most people to get started easily and with low risk?

Actually if you will be talking about bitcoin, the one that will comes to your mind is that it is for just investments and gambling nor trading, but your wrong because bitcoin and cryptocurrency is always made for the people for them to be used by the people but as of now still a few people is just known this, to be honest it is known by everyone but still they don't know what the used of it so if there would be really a way on how to make a positive things on how it will be low risk then it will be good for the people.

[White Christmas]

If bitcoin really wants to become a universal currency payment system, how can we optimize the design for ease of use and make it easy for most people to get started easily and with low risk?

So what do you really want? lower the risk for the investment or for people to use it easily? In terms of usability, bitcoin can easily be used by a lot of people. It is efficient and fast in terms of transaction but the thing is that it is not that accepted by a lot of merchants and stores since it is volatile. I think we should also think that bitcoin should be stable which I don't think is a good thing since that means someone is controlling the market and that also means that there is no decentralization.

That's right, as a cryptocurrency user I see cryptocurrency and bitcoin as a good and easy to use because you just need an internet in order for you to access your wallet or buy any cryptocurrency like bitcoin and other coins. This probably the means of the volatility in which it is one of best thing here in cryptocurrency because there is no one who are controlling the market and the volatility itself is the one why many people are still patronizing it just because they know how to risk and bet in times but this thing what many people did not get and didn't want the volatility itself.

[Assface16678]

There is a speculative (investment) presence in the current bitcoin discussion scene. Only known and used by a few people.

If bitcoin really wants to become a universal currency payment system, how can we optimize the design for ease of use and make it easy for most people to get started easily and with low risk?

Actually if you will be talking about bitcoin, the one that will comes to your mind is that it is for just investments and gambling nor trading, but your wrong because bitcoin and cryptocurrency is always made for the people for them to be used by the people but as of now still a few people is just known this, to be honest it is known by everyone but still they don't know what the used of it so if there would be really a way on how to make a positive things on how it will be low risk then it will be good for the people.

One of the biggest coin into the market we called as the bitcoin that is related into cryptocurrency or we called as the digital currency many people see the potential of this coin to make profit so they made a lot of investment but not only that because they use bitcoin to make trading and gambling that affects the market of the bitcoin and now many people are using it because they know it is has a faster transaction and at the same time it has a low transaction fee. We can promote the bitcoin with the use of daily usage, making video content, and introduce to other people what are the things bitcoin can do so each of us can contribute to the market even it is volatile.

[fiulpro]

I do think usability is a very difficult thing to improve by yourself but I do think if a person starts accepting bitcoins and buying stuff with bitcoins then it could show a lot of positive remarks for the community.

For example if you own a shop and you are allowing customers to buy using bitcoins then it would advertise bitcoins at the same time even if the person doesn't know anything about Bitcoins he will still go back home and search it on Google.

[bearexin]

There is a speculative (investment) presence in the current bitcoin discussion scene. Only known and used by a few people.

If bitcoin really wants to become a universal currency payment system, how can we optimize the design for ease of use and make it easy for most people to get started easily and with low risk?

I think in the case of Bitcoin the only problem most people are having is with it being volatile. And from what I understood, the volatility of Bitcoin might not stop until the market cap is very high. Some people have claimed that the market cap will have to be around trillions of dollars for it to become a stable currency.

There have been other currencies that were made to be better than Bitcoin, there are stable coins already and they are also fast for transactions and offer what Bitcoin offers, but still the world is not even interested in those altcoins, all they are interested in is Bitcoin.

[TIDOVEE]

Bitcoin usability is so far not what many of us have difficulty in, but looking to the improvement for the general usage, trading at lower price will help. Being a digital currency, educating people on the use of technology to meet up will help, Orientations, seminars and lecturing those who care to know is also important, sensitizing those who does not care is also important. If bitcoin can be brought to a state at which it can be used for daily trading. It will help too.

[kemoglo]

There isn't much physical store that is accepting bitcoin as of now, Merchants don't want to have a transaction that has delays in confirming that's why in my opinion bitcoin transactions aren't suited for a physical transaction but it's good that some merchant is accepting bitcoin into their store or services.

Ultimately, Lightning can provide instant transactions for low value, frequent purchases at brick-and-mortar stores. The costs of merchant integration aren't justified yet until LN adoption is much more widespread. The same was true of credit cards at one point too.

In the meantime, there are apps like SPEDN that merchants can integrate with existing POS terminals. SPEDN uses Gemini to custody cryptocurrency so that merchants can accept it without requiring confirmations.

Flexa co-founder Trevor Filter told CoinDesk the wallet app works at Nordstrom, Barnes & Noble, Express, Lowe’s, GameStop, Office Depot, Regal Cinemas and Jamba Juice, just to name a few.

While I think that lightning has real use, I think it has yet to overcome at least part of its ailments. Bitcoin as a whole has gotten better and better at handling volume, just on the 27th this month we hit 369k transactions which is similar to the usual transactions you'd see daily back in Dec 2017, but without the excessive fees and long wait times to clear.

Although slightly Off Topic, Localbitcoins volume has dropped to lower than it was back in 2013, I guess it says a lot of the emerging platforms that people are jumping over to, all of these platforms in a way alleviate the burden on the mainnet. But maybe I'm just seeing things wrong

[shoreno]

 btc is not only used by a few people but there are so many people use btc   .

 btc is is also a speculative tool and not just its presence  . bitcoin is digital so everything or anyone that can acces the internet can use this btc but still depends on thier countries legality if btc is restricted on them or the access to the btc related site is block on them  . to make it low risk , we need it to be stabilize  . to make it easier we need to create a physical version so that dummies can also use it on any ages  .

[coinfinger]

In my opinion, there is no need for improvement on the usability I think we are the one needs to adjust and not Bitcoin we should gain knowledge on the basics of Bitcoin, and there is no safe trading or investment on Bitcoin there is a sure risk but that risk can be lessened if a person would gain experience from getting involved with the volatile market of Bitcoin and other decentralized cryptocurrencies.

But for bitcoins to be accepted in more and more markets will mean that there will always be some new customers who will use bitcoins for the first time and let me be very honest, even though I am into bitcoins for years now but every week and month I realize something new about it's functioning and working because when I was new I believe someone could have easily scammed me by double spending and/or sending transaction with no fees.

I think if only there is a platform where we can deposit bitcoins and that platform acts as a medium for example we consider a platform like skrill/paypal where we can deposit from there we use it, I guess bitpay is doing a superb job there but then again you have to verify yourself and then if you are verifying yourself at bitpay I would think paypal is far better!

[Swordsoffreedom]

Bitcoin usability is so far not what many of us have difficulty in, but looking to the improvement for the general usage, trading at lower price will help. Being a digital currency, educating people on the use of technology to meet up will help, Orientations, seminars and lecturing those who care to know is also important, sensitizing those who does not care is also important. If bitcoin can be brought to a state at which it can be used for daily trading. It will help too.

Yes, to improve the usability of bitcoins, the best way is to spread the number of sectors where bitcoins could be used. For example, now we can transact money instead of banking’s, if people can use bitcoins to buy offline things including online things and can even recharge one's cellphone, that will be a huge plus point. In this way, the usability of bitcoins can be increased.

[tbterryboy]

Optimizing the usage of Bitcoin, ease of use, would primary mean improvement on its prior features enabling people to grasp and gain understanding on the essence of Bitcoin. Its function as a channel of payment is very beneficial for everyone because of its digital form, yet brought by its nature it is automatically risky due to high volatility. As per the adaptation of it globally, it would take long before it gets massive attention from diverse group of people around the world.

I think that volatility is a massive factor but along with that I believe the confirmation time is one thing that irritates me a lot personally when I am doing bitcoin transactions. I mean yes it hardly takes 30 minutes but would you prefer paying at a coffee cafe and then waiting 30 mins while they confirm your payment? Absolutely not!

Then another problem I see is the buyer's protection because of irreversible nature although being irreversible and decentralized is one of it's biggest advantages too. I think bitcoins would be best suited for e-commerce purpose and gambling market and we all know how dominant bitcoins has gotten in the gambling market already.

[LUCKMCFLY]

~snip~

I think that the same global economic structure is heading to migrate towards Bitcoin technology and not only because of the technology it represents but the value of the money that it brings with it, the fact of making transfers from one place to another without the supervision of a third party It is something very big, in addition to everything that is happening worldwide, the market falls, the effect of the coronavirus, has caused more panic in the markets, at some point these markets such as Bitcoin will begin to see how best alternative, very similar as you see gold, I think it is already happening. In every speculative market there are risks, the important thing is to take them with restraint, as the number of people entering the Bitcoin market increases will be reflected in the price of bitcoin, the safest is to increase.