Just Another Failed Experiment?

[CryptoBry]

Bitcoin is a foretaste of the kind of future we will be having. It has many advantages and positive features which the people are clamoring for especially after the economic near-collapse in 2008-2009. We need a better financial system away from the controlling interest of the greedy and corrupt traditional monetary platform we have right now. However, the road to this better financial system is not an easy one...can be just as bumpy as hell in fact. Change is not something that will happen overnight...it has to be fought and there will be casualties along the way (which can make things and people go sour).

Bitcoin and the technology behind it (the blockchain) since just another man-made is not perfect and nothing will be... but it has the features that can minimize the pull of human nature. Things are hinging on how we the people would appreciate Bitcoin and how we can use it for good and not just another tool for our greedy and corrupt human nature. Right now, we are always experiencing volatility all because of over speculation (partly cased by our desire for more or greed).

We should be hoping that after all the dusts are settled, Bitcoin will not be just another failed experiment...or just another man-made system that fell because we failed to go beyond our shortsighted human weaknesses.

[magneto]

Bitcoin is a foretaste of the kind of future we will be having. It has many advantages and positive features which the people are clamoring for especially after the economic near-collapse in 2008-2009. We need a better financial system away from the controlling interest of the greedy and corrupt traditional monetary platform we have right now. However, the road to this better financial system is not an easy one...can be just as bumpy as hell in fact. Change is not something that will happen overnight...it has to be fought and there will be casualties along the way (which can make things and people go sour).

Bitcoin and the technology behind it (the blockchain) since just another man-made is not perfect and nothing will be... but it has the features that can minimize the pull of human nature. Things are hinging on how we the people would appreciate Bitcoin and how we can use it for good and not just another tool for our greedy and corrupt human nature. Right now, we are always experiencing volatility all because of over speculation (partly cased by our desire for more or greed).

We should be hoping that after all the dusts are settled, Bitcoin will not be just another failed experiment...or just another man-made system that fell because we failed to go beyond our shortsighted human weaknesses.

While I agree that volatility is a huge problem for bitcoin right now, that's what all new financial assets will be. There will be elements of speculation because people are not sure what bitcoin really is and not a lot of people are ready to hold it long term yet.

Regardless of whether mainstream adoption actually happens, there will always be a group of bitcoin enthusiasts that will maintain the project. And as long as people are doing this, bitcoin is not a failed experiment since it's still operating. And that's the beauty of decentralisation. No central entity can close down bitcoin and deem it failed.

Whether mainstream adoption actually happens, right now is way too early to tell. But there are good signs already for sure.

[Kakmakr]

Bitcoin is not a failed experiment, because it forced financial institutions to take a hard look at their own business and then they were forced to change. In fact they changed so much that most of them are working on their own Blockchain based technologies.

Bitcoin also added a alternative payment option for people who were forced to use centralized payment options. It even offered people a payment system, when all other methods failed. < Example : Donations to Wikipedia >

Bitcoin also offered people a cheaper option to move wealth around the planet. <If you have ever used, Western Union or MoneyGram, you would know what I am talking about.>

[jseverson]

The way I see it, Bitcoin is already successful; it was successful in showing the world that a decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system can exist, and it could work. It spawned a cryptocurrency market and started a race for an alternative payment system, which it's currently leading.

That being said, we can't say that Bitcoin has completely succeeded as a currency yet. It is very much still an experiment in this regard, with the scalability problem front and center in the list of issues. It's constantly evolving, though,as proven by Segwit and the upcoming Lightning Network. I personally believe it will succeed, but only time will tell.

[First77]

It is said now China is a "cashless society". Now people from any country can buy gold and silver from bullion dealers website/online stores and store them in vaults in other countries (write to me). So gold and silver has also gone digital/electronic.

Actually, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are not required.

[Hellobx]

I don't think bitcoin is a failed experiment. The blockchain technology behind bitcoin has caused great fluctuations in the world.
If the lightning network addresses the current shortcomings of bitcoin, the price of bitcoin will be stable and can be used for real-world payments.

[NeuroticFish]

We should be hoping that after all the dusts are settled, Bitcoin will not be just another failed experiment...or just another man-made system that fell because we failed to go beyond our shortsighted human weaknesses.

As technology Bitcoin is already a success. With Lightning Network it will be an even bigger one. It may become almost complete (only real privacy will be missing).
But this is not enough. There's still a fight to be won with the banking system. And for that we just have to be resilient.
Phase 1 was to ignore Bitcoin. That's kind of over now.
Phase 2 is to fight it. This happens now. And we have to be stronger than them. Can we?
Phase 3 will be when they join us and maybe try to take it over.

[Ray3z]

Bitcoin is a foretaste of the kind of future we will be having. It has many advantages and positive features which the people are clamoring for especially after the economic near-collapse in 2008-2009. We need a better financial system away from the controlling interest of the greedy and corrupt traditional monetary platform we have right now. However, the road to this better financial system is not an easy one...can be just as bumpy as hell in fact. Change is not something that will happen overnight...it has to be fought and there will be casualties along the way (which can make things and people go sour).

Bitcoin and the technology behind it (the blockchain) since just another man-made is not perfect and nothing will be... but it has the features that can minimize the pull of human nature. Things are hinging on how we the people would appreciate Bitcoin and how we can use it for good and not just another tool for our greedy and corrupt human nature. Right now, we are always experiencing volatility all because of over speculation (partly cased by our desire for more or greed).

We should be hoping that after all the dusts are settled, Bitcoin will not be just another failed experiment...or just another man-made system that fell because we failed to go beyond our shortsighted human weaknesses.

The hope now over in bitcoiner shoulder who should support this technology not become another fail experiment.
I never seen like this before but maybe you do because you said another. It mean there earlier project before bitcoin. What is that?

[kiver]

We should be hoping that after all the dusts are settled, Bitcoin will not be just another failed experiment...or just another man-made system that fell because we failed to go beyond our shortsighted human weaknesses.

Great article explaining the situaion of bitcoin in such an easy way and you are right i hope that it wont be another failed expermint because of humenity shortsightness, people have to understand that the potienal  behind bitcoin still hasn't reached yet some people say that bitcoin failed as a currency which i totally disagree with and i can tell them that bitcoin is an open source project which can be improved.
 i hope that governments have the guts to replace the old financial system with a New and enhanced one that every one will benefit with.

[J_CCreate]

It seems like we need a new monetary system for our world. Cryptos are one of our hopes to make our life easier and better. Rich people took everything from us but we don`t differ from them, we are just the same people as they are, so we deserve to live normal without working slavery.

[munareal]

Bitcoin is not another failed experiment. When you look at the number of people that were into crypto currency when bitcoin was launched and the number of people that are into it today will tell you the direction bitcoin is heading into . Acceptance by mainstream society . People's attitude towards it is changing answer too. Also the value of bitcoin to dollar today says a lot.

[avikz]

Bitcoin is a foretaste of the kind of future we will be having. It has many advantages and positive features which the people are clamoring for especially after the economic near-collapse in 2008-2009. We need a better financial system away from the controlling interest of the greedy and corrupt traditional monetary platform we have right now. However, the road to this better financial system is not an easy one...can be just as bumpy as hell in fact. Change is not something that will happen overnight...it has to be fought and there will be casualties along the way (which can make things and people go sour).

Bitcoin and the technology behind it (the blockchain) since just another man-made is not perfect and nothing will be... but it has the features that can minimize the pull of human nature. Things are hinging on how we the people would appreciate Bitcoin and how we can use it for good and not just another tool for our greedy and corrupt human nature. Right now, we are always experiencing volatility all because of over speculation (partly cased by our desire for more or greed).

I agree to your point. A better financial system out the controlling interest for greedy institutional investors was a priority after the sub-prime crisis in 2008-09. Crypto currency was initially started as a p2p currency with no one actually control the entire game. But with time, we have seen an influx of similar kind of greedy personalities in the crypto space as well whose who have tried to bring down bitcoin for their own interest. Hard fork is another way of doing the same and we have seen a number of hard forks in 2017 and another one is coming shortly. So we can't say that bitcoin has achieved its primary goal here. Instead of being a de-centralized p2p currency, bitcoin and other cryptos are now considered as an investment asset. So we have already diverted from the main goal. But I believe that shift was decided by the open-market rule. So more people wanted it to become an investment asset instead of changing the face of world economy. But with the increased adoption of crypto currency by the countries, is giving us hope that the chance will happen, slowly but surely.

]We should be hoping that after all the dusts are settled, Bitcoin will not be just another failed experiment...or just another man-made system that fell because we failed to go beyond our shortsighted human weaknesses.

Bitcoin is not a failed experiment for sure. We have seen a lot of resistance from the organized banking system and centralized governments but still it has made its way to some countries with progressive government. Now a time has come, where governments are issuing their own crypto currency backed by the real world asset. So blockchain has not failed. Instead countries are opening up research wings to explore the potential of blockchain technology. So bitcoin is not falling in to the parameter of failed experiment in any way. Instead, I believe, we will see a lot more countries to come forward and adopt bitcoin in their economy. It started with Israel and many more to be added in 2018. Fingers crossed!

[Krakenproto]

I feel ya. I hope that won't happen too. Volatility is not a problem if we make a proper system that will cancel the volatility.
The main fear for me is that that system could be corrupted too like one we have today around us.

[alyssa85]

Bitcoin might fail, but cryptocurrency in general won't. Adotion is accelerating for coins like Ethereum, Litecoin and others. The concept is here to stay, the question is just which coin will make it to mass adoption. We need to understand that it might be more than one coin each with different attributes and niches.

[bug.lady]

It is said now China is a "cashless society". Now people from any country can buy gold and silver from bullion dealers website/online stores and store them in vaults in other countries (write to me). So gold and silver has also gone digital/electronic.

Actually, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are not required.

I don't know about China but Sweden is cashless society nowadays. But fiat is present there (it is just locked in payment cards).

However, anybody who instead of holding his own physical gold or silver is happy with some IOU gold certificates as you suggest in your post, is just lunatic: in an attempt to secure against fiat failure they just trusted another paper publisher...

And trading or paying with gold certificates is like moving back in time to 18th century. Do you know that banknotes originated as bank notes (=early gold certificates)?

However, you cannot say the same about bitcoin. Bitcoin is both currency (with some problems, true, but they will be eventually overcome) and an asset and in the future it will prevail.

[mOgliE]

Bitcoin is a foretaste of the kind of future we will be having. It has many advantages and positive features which the people are clamoring for especially after the economic near-collapse in 2008-2009. We need a better financial system away from the controlling interest of the greedy and corrupt traditional monetary platform we have right now. However, the road to this better financial system is not an easy one...can be just as bumpy as hell in fact. Change is not something that will happen overnight...it has to be fought and there will be casualties along the way (which can make things and people go sour).

Bitcoin and the technology behind it (the blockchain) since just another man-made is not perfect and nothing will be... but it has the features that can minimize the pull of human nature. Things are hinging on how we the people would appreciate Bitcoin and how we can use it for good and not just another tool for our greedy and corrupt human nature. Right now, we are always experiencing volatility all because of over speculation (partly cased by our desire for more or greed).

We should be hoping that after all the dusts are settled, Bitcoin will not be just another failed experiment...or just another man-made system that fell because we failed to go beyond our shortsighted human weaknesses.

I completely agree with what you are saying here.

I guess that one good option to avoid greed is avoid communicating about bitcoin through the presentation of crypto as "the best and shortest way to become billionaire". The problem is that this is mainly how mass media present bitcoin. Either this or as a dangerous tool supporting terrorism.

So how can we change this image? Most people are currently using bitcoin for short-term trading and few care about potential societal changes...

[Pan Troglodytes]

Bitcoin is a foretaste of the kind of future we will be having. It has many advantages and positive features which the people are clamoring for especially after the economic near-collapse in 2008-2009. We need a better financial system away from the controlling interest of the greedy and corrupt traditional monetary platform we have right now. However, the road to this better financial system is not an easy one...can be just as bumpy as hell in fact. Change is not something that will happen overnight...it has to be fought and there will be casualties along the way (which can make things and people go sour).

Bitcoin and the technology behind it (the blockchain) since just another man-made is not perfect and nothing will be... but it has the features that can minimize the pull of human nature. Things are hinging on how we the people would appreciate Bitcoin and how we can use it for good and not just another tool for our greedy and corrupt human nature. Right now, we are always experiencing volatility all because of over speculation (partly cased by our desire for more or greed).

We should be hoping that after all the dusts are settled, Bitcoin will not be just another failed experiment...or just another man-made system that fell because we failed to go beyond our shortsighted human weaknesses.

I completely agree with what you are saying here.

I guess that one good option to avoid greed is avoid communicating about bitcoin through the presentation of crypto as "the best and shortest way to become billionaire". The problem is that this is mainly how mass media present bitcoin. Either this or as a dangerous tool supporting terrorism.

So how can we change this image? Most people are currently using bitcoin for short-term trading and few care about potential societal changes...

I like it that you stress societal changes. I can already see the deep impact bitcoin has on the way that people manage their finances: before bitcoin it was "live on credit", "buy things if you have money" etc. Now with bitcoin it is more like "try to save", because bitcoin encourages saving and that phenomenon even received a popular meme-name: "to hodl".

So bitcoin already had a deep impact on societies and it will have an even deeper impact when it is adopted more.

[TeaEgg]

Bitcoin is way too successful as an experiment.

[aintnopassincraze]

How could you even suggest this when the "experiment" itself isn't over? While I agree with you no system is perfect, this seems to be the best system we have had ever in the history of mankind. You need to trust the laws of math and that is all that needs to be done. Also, I don't look at things that effect the whole world as an "experiment". These are systems put into place in order to better peoples lives, we surely aren't taking some random stabs at it and hoping it is correct. We do it with the intent it is correct, and if it isn't we will find out soon enough.