The Bitcoin Adoption Problem

[Ipsum]

People will spend the inflative currency and save the deflative currency, fiat is for spending and bitcoin is for saving, their benefit don't overlap each other. Under a fiat money system, everyone are forced to borrow and spend (savings will lose value quickly), now there is an alternative

What? Under a fiat money system, people invest in an effort to outpace inflation. Who just leaves money sitting in a plain bank account, or under your mattress, doing nothing?

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[Johnny Bitcoinseed]

When you think about it, it was just like that with the Internet of the early to mid 1990's.  I was there.  I'd tell people about the Internet and they would get a quizzical look on their face.  Then they would tell me they would never use the Internet - that they go to the library to get information and read the newspapers.

LOL  Bet they would never admit to saying that now!

When bitcoin goes main stream it could very well be like that - everywhere used as a matter of course, no big deal, easy to use.

[HenryRomp]

When you think about it, it was just like that with the Internet of the early to mid 1990's.  I was there.  I'd tell people about the Internet and they would get a quizzical look on their face.  Then they would tell me they would never use the Internet - that they go to the library to get information and read the newspapers.

LOL  Bet they would never admit to saying that now!

When bitcoin goes main stream it could very well be like that - everywhere used as a matter of course, no big deal, easy to use.

This is spot on. I feel sorry for the folks who can't see it. It seems so obvious. To my eyes, it's the only logical conclusion. When presented with the world, as it is now, and presented with the idea, bitcoin, as soon as you grasp what bitcoin is, how it works, why it works, suddenly it becomes apparent that the world has become infected with this idea and it will rapidly spread until every corner of the earth is infected and all the other competing currencies are wiped out.

[OldGeek]

You may, perhaps, forgive me if I remain somewhat skeptical about the near instant, and universal, adoption of BTC.

Yes, I do remember the earliest days of the modern computer.  I was at a university conference in 1974 when I overheard two electronic engineers talking about a computer project under the wing of DARPA.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET)  You will possibly remember that early adopters were mostly geeks.  The general public didn't get interested until that nifty thing called email came about.  Then Tim Berners-Lee did his thing and the rest is history.  But it was email that made the 'IBM Clone' a household fixture.

I mention that part about the general public intentionally.  It may be that the rest of the world is much different than the populace here in the good old USA.  If so, then you may be right about the rapid adjustment to BTC.  However, my experience with the general public here at home is dismal.  Ignorance and apathy are the norm and it seems to increase every year.

There may well be some facet or off-shoot of Bitcoin that will catch the attention of the general public and cause it to take off.  I don't believe that what we have now will generate enough interest to take the sluggards away from their nightly dose of 'Dancing With the Nearly Real Housewife of Nueva Scotia'.

/Frank

[HenryRomp]

You may, perhaps, forgive me if I remain somewhat skeptical about the near instant, and universal, adoption of BTC.

Yes, I do remember the earliest days of the modern computer.  I was at a university conference in 1974 when I overheard two electronic engineers talking about a computer project under the wing of DARPA.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET)  You will possibly remember that early adopters were mostly geeks.  The general public didn't get interested until that nifty thing called email came about.  Then Tim Berners-Lee did his thing and the rest is history.  But it was email that made the 'IBM Clone' a household fixture.

I mention that part about the general public intentionally.  It may be that the rest of the world is much different than the populace here in the good old USA.  If so, then you may be right about the rapid adjustment to BTC.  However, my experience with the general public here at home is dismal.  Ignorance and apathy are the norm and it seems to increase every year.

There may well be some facet or off-shoot of Bitcoin that will catch the attention of the general public and cause it to take off.  I don't believe that what we have now will generate enough interest to take the sluggards away from their nightly dose of 'Dancing With the Nearly Real Housewife of Nueva Scotia'.

/Frank

Yes, Americans will probably be among the last to adopt bitcoin. As a nation, we have the most to lose, considering that we are the ones currently in control of the world's currency and bitcoin would wrest that control away from us. But beyond that, yes, we're generally ignorant and apathetic. And pathetic.

But even so, even we here in the good ol' US of A will find ourselves quickly learning about bitcoin when we discover that suddenly a can of soda that was a dollar costs five all-of-a-sudden or they start taking the money out of our bank accounts like Cyprus or our government shuts down because we're so broke... oh wait that's starting now! Yay! Grab some popcorn and watch the show, we're in for a wild ride!

[OldGeek]

But even so, even we here in the good ol' US of A will find ourselves quickly learning about bitcoin when we discover that suddenly a can of soda that was a dollar costs five all-of-a-sudden or they start taking the money out of our bank accounts like Cyprus or our government shuts down because we're so broke... oh wait that's starting now! Yay! Grab some popcorn and watch the show, we're in for a wild ride!

Perhaps you're right.  I suspect that when the public finally wakes up it will lead to an armed uprising.  Watching all of those 'Redneck AK-47s' coming out from under the seat in the pickup trucks will be scary.

/Frank

[tvbcof]

I’ve read that BTC should be regarded as a store of value, much like gold.  I partially agree with that.  The early adopters will wholeheartedly agree.  Just exactly what is the value is a good question.  One BTC is valued at one BTC.  But, it isn’t likely that you can take your one-ounce bar of .9999 gold into the local utility office and pay your electric bill. ...

Early adopters should be quite happy if BTC became a successful 'exchange currency' as well.  I'd be fine with that...I just think it is highly unlikely.

Bitcoin has never had much appeal to me as an exchange currency, at least in it's pure form.  The latency, security hassles, privacy issues, development baggage, etc, all conspire to make me believe that it is simply not competitive in that role.  More than anything though, I am convinced that succeeding as an exchange currency would be the death knell for Bitcoin in the form that it originally appealed to  me in.  (As a distributed crypto-currency broadly supported by a dispersed userbase.)  OTOH, it is almost ideal as a backing store or 'reserve currency' for some of these same reasons.

Until then, our everyday life is denominated in some fiat.

That would be (and will be) fine with me.  Fiat works perfectly well as an exchange currency and it offers the ability to leverage the legal system which I pay for with my taxes.

The legal system could very well fail me when trying to use mainstream instruments as a wealth storage medium because the larger corporate institutions have significant control of the legislative and executive branches (and the savings of my class of individual when taken as a group are worth expending the effort to appropriate.)  For that reason I am constantly on the lookout for a reliable and durable method of storing my nest-egg.  As time goes by without a rupture, Bitcoin looks like a more and more like a viable partial solution for this problem.

[OldGeek]

Outstanding!

+5

/Frank

[Johnny Bitcoinseed]

You may, perhaps, forgive me if I remain somewhat skeptical about the near instant, and universal, adoption of BTC.

Well, as with the mass adoption of personal computers and the mass adoption of the Internet by many millions of people, as I recall it was not near instant.

It required computer usage and the Internet, say, ten years or so to start to become mainstream - to reach a tipping point.  A decade. In geological terms that is Instant, perhaps, but in modern terms not so much.

Once that tipping point was reached, the herd moved in and adopted what we had already been using for years.

[edd]

Cheaper processing fees than credit cards.

I see this quite often. Where do u live, guys? In a 3rd world country? Banks have to compete and now it's hard to find any that charges fee for credit card transactions (they earn profit by holding ur money). In my country.

Your bank may not charge you fees for credit card transactions but payment processors sure do.

[HenryRomp]

Cheaper processing fees than credit cards.

I see this quite often. Where do u live, guys? In a 3rd world country? Banks have to compete and now it's hard to find any that charges fee for credit card transactions (they earn profit by holding ur money). In my country.

Your bank may not charge you fees for credit card transactions but payment processors sure do.

Exactly. If you've ever run a small (or large) business and chose to accept credit cards you know all about the fees.... They suck. And all the payment processors have enthusiastic and persistent salespeople who are very clever about concealing hidden fees and surcharges and fine print that goes on for ten pages and .... blah... as you can see I'm not a big fan of payment processors in their current incarnation.

In my area I believe the standard fee is usually advertised at 1.5% and works out to about 4% by the time you've added all the hidden fees.