I really dont think bitcoin is going to be a day2day currency

[nobbynobbynoob]

I'm buying stuff with bitcoin now almost on a daily basis, in cafés, bars, etc. as well as online.

[mikenash100]

We don't need it to be a day-to-day currency. Just an alternative alongside established currencies is good enough. Just like we always say having a choice/options for the customer is good for him/her.

[yenom]

TL;DR but I did read your first point and to be honest that put me off reading the rest, which may or may not have been valid. I am new to bitcoin myself, but I can at least be bothered to read up on how it works before making erroneous comments on a forum. You do not need the full block chain. Read section 7 of Satoshi's whitepaper.

I don't think BTC in its current form is ready or coming to mainstream anytime....

Reasons :
- every transaction increasing the Blockchain size

I'm not sure if in a few years people somewhere people in the city would want to update a 100GB+ Blockchain on their mobile devices just to make a transaction, in case of true mainstream usage devices would have to store or at least access xxx TB just to be synchronized to the network.
Blockchain in its current method will cause Bitcoin a slow and painful death, eventually restricting its use to datacenters that can a) store the blockchain and b) have the network bandwidth available to actually work it and that's not even considering verifications of transactions.
I was surprised to see such an "expires xxxx" function in BTC, linear or exponential growth of working data size = designed for temporary use, short of a redesign its expiration is mathematically inevitable.

- 256bit encryption

Good for now and an unknown number or years into the future. Eventually it will be hacked by design (depends on how many enemies it has [hint : ALOT already] and available technology).
Given sufficient evil intent, unlimited FIAT (state agencies/governments/banks), it is basically already very volunerable to various attacks already. No showstoppers so far, but easily enough to significantly shake the trust in the system - which by design is its main backstop.
Multibit Quantum computers today are scarse and very expensive experimental toys even for big universities. Not sure how many years it would take determined governments to take some of the unlimited central bank FIAT into their hands to build a machine with the needed capabilities - but in terms of time I'm afraid we're not too far away from it.

Expiration empirically inevitable.

- cumbersome and techy/for the geeks only

In its current and forseeable usability state, Joe Sixpack will never ever understand how it works and therefor will not use it.
It's a few years in use now and the Software/Hardware architecture to both mine BTC as well as spend BTC or exchange BTC/FIAT is best compared to linux shell scripting or something similar. Yes, it can be "easily" done after a little research, but it's miles away from the usability of a coke can/screw bottle needed that every kid can handle.
There isn't a single "one size fits all", easy to use yet secure Software package at allows for all its core functions in all aspects.

Just getting everything ready to mine a few and a working wallet felt like browsing SourceForge repositories to find a patchwork of software to get something done I need. Works and is for free, but the folks out there aren't like us in that respect. They're more the kind of people who would contact us to help them with their computer problems.

- every transaction is stored indefinitely in the blockchain

*uhm*... dafuq ? In times of the "great espionage" of governments against their property (citizens) on a scale unseen before in human history (and we barely know the tip of the iceberg), that's not a sign of quality for me and doesn't help trusting the current BTC concept.
If identifyable, that's literally the wet dream of all central bankers & most governments on this planet. These are 100% certified not on my side of the boat so to speak.
We're not quite there yet, but dangerously close - the road there is bright lit and hints the sheeple herds are walking on that very road pop up literally every week.
Going with its own philosophy, I would have expected BTC to go exactly the opposite direction.

- BTC is unregulated digital FIAT

There's nothing backing or supporting BTC conversion value except its potential functions/uses and associated qualities. Those DO have a value, that depends on those needing to utilize them (i.e. use of unregulated transfer of "money" across the globe).
Other than that (especially looking at all those newer alt coins, most of which look like ripoff pyramid scheme restarts), it does have alot of similiarities to a ponzi (a few early adopters got rich [IMHO most rightfully so as they took great risks], while by design a great mass of late-adopters can't. Must be said, however, that this mostly is a mining specific issue.
The BTC conversion value is subject to speculation not much unlike Wall St (again, those that held on their BTC took great risk and won, gotta respect that IMHO).

Although genius from a mathematical point of view, I am extremely wary of this possibility simply due to the design. In it - for my taste - too many indicators mathematically point to and work towards supporting and achieving a near-parabolic price rise. The shiny light at the end, indicating fictional terminal value that too easily puts $$$ into common folks eyes and acts like a street light to a moth. The very design of the entire 24Mio BTC growth system appears (at least to me) to plant the seeds of greed, it acts purely as an attractor with the incresing mining difficulty "labour/work" substitute mimicing value to its best abilities (while in terms of mathematically projected difficulty by far the largest part of BTC will have been mined at relatively miniscule diff -> another well-placed ponzi similarity).

Regulation can easily come from intervening with Providers and ISPs anytime the global banking mafia deems fit, they own most western governments. Those could for sure be worked around at the price of increased efforts, but it would shrink the viable userbase well below critical mass needed to maintain a functional and usable BTC infrastructure.

- BTC in terms of physical valuation (core valuation regardless of time, age, issuer or intended use)

Always remember it's just 0's and 1's somewhere in the digital world made up by someone by design, based only on trust of its community in its future viability (another strikingly similarity to central-bank issued FIAT, and in times of failing trust FIAT "trust" can and has been replaced by the fallback "law/enforcement" anytime).
Not much unlike all those international M2 amounts of central-bank issued debt notes, but these are the holy grail of the world controllers that run the show since centuries (if you want to call 'em that).
When it comes to powerplay and a head-to-head scenario... no competition, it's a somewhat smart guppy vs. all international Carrier Battle groups combined.

So if anyone is looking at a potential "killer switch" for BTC, IMHO look no further than your own governments - what they don't know they can't control -> they can't tax aka steal. Hence, they will either want to know&control and eventually intervene, period. It's their lifeblood and they'd kill and rage wars against anything or anyone without hesitation to ensure or restore it. Count on it, their greed and corruption is by far more secure and deep-nested than the amen in a christian church. Try to circumvent them enough to having their evil eye pointing on you working on their very foundation of power - good luck & god speed... You'll need it.

Similarities to the "Globo" international digital currency concepts also don't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.
Having people actually work whole lifetimes (even steal or kill) for small bunches of printed paper is one thing (native indians received glass marbles for their land, which at that time were in high demand/no supply to them, the modern system slave receives paper & digital bank accounts).
Setting the stage for a NWO where Billions of people work their entire lifes (or steal or even kill) for virtual 0's and 1's is a new level though...

BTC may or may not be a test ballon, the timing of BTC IMHO smells like a test ballon to me. Nothing structurally so fundamental happens by chance in the global financial system, so the "qui bono" question IMHO would point at a result not in favor of BTC.

But still, for as long as you don't bet your life savings on it - it's a great adventure. Just be careful, fearless adventurer, and have a rock solid exit strategy...

PS.
I do support the BTC philosophy 100%, so although my arguments/lines of thought may appear I'm a notorious BTC critic - that is not the case.
I wish that system (its ideas and visions) the best of luck, I'm simply sceptical of its ability to survive against extremely potent enemies and technology in the long run.
Fundamental changes to its infrastructure could render most of my arguments invalid at any time.

[FalconFly]

TL;DR but I did read your first point and to be honest that put me off reading the rest, which may or may not have been valid. I am new to bitcoin myself, but I can at least be bothered to read up on how it works before making erroneous comments on a forum. You do not need the full block chain. Read section 7 of Satoshi's whitepaper.

Good point, I edited my post due to that mistake.

For me there is no such thing as TL;DR, SE;EM (Short Enough, Entertained Me) in my opinion is something for mainstream media.

[Coin_Master]

do you want to use credit card for cars, dollar for tv and JPY for milk?
if the answer is yes, then maybe your way is doable:)

We already do use different forms of payment for different types of purchases.  When was the last time you bought a house with cash?
For purchasing large value items we have created supplementary forms of payment for longer than anyone reading this post has been alive.
Cheques are used everyday to buy cars and large value items that would be difficult to purchase with cash.  Trying to make a "one size fits all" form of payment will never work for many reasons.  Scalability/Speed being the most obvious.

[AlbertKing]

You got it!
Yes different forms, but not different currency:)

And btw we buy houses with cash all the time here in China. Hard to believe huh?

do you want to use credit card for cars, dollar for tv and JPY for milk?
if the answer is yes, then maybe your way is doable:)

We already do use different forms of payment for different types of purchases.  When was the last time you bought a house with cash?
For purchasing large value items we have created supplementary forms of payment for longer than anyone reading this post has been alive.
Cheque's are used everyday to buy cars and large value items that would be difficult to purchase with cash.  Trying to make a "one size fits all" form of payment will never work for many reasons.  Scalability/Speed being the most obvious.

[AlbertKing]

I think he really got some very concrete points, we shouldn't neglect someone's arguments just because one mistake.

And to conclude the technical and politcal risks have always been there, we should really look into them.

TL;DR but I did read your first point and to be honest that put me off reading the rest, which may or may not have been valid. I am new to bitcoin myself, but I can at least be bothered to read up on how it works before making erroneous comments on a forum. You do not need the full block chain. Read section 7 of Satoshi's whitepaper.

I don't think BTC in its current form is ready or coming to mainstream anytime....

Reasons :
...

[Mondy]

hmm, I think they are working on a new update to reduce confirmation times?
Maybe we should accept no confirmations!

[cdog]

Thats why we have Litecoin, the petty cash of the future

Bitcoin will be a store of value, and used only for high value purchases or to settle debts

[davida]

hmm, I think they are working on a new update to reduce confirmation times?
Maybe we should accept no confirmations!

I'm pretty sure that isn't true and if it is, it may have more negative effects than positive... To decrease the confirmation time would mean increasing the frequency of block reward to miners, which in turn would result in more bitcoins becoming available to buy sooner, and this would cause prices to be lower than if this change wasn't made.

Also, it will never be possible to accept with 0 confirmations due to the fact that multiple transactions to different addresses can be announced at the same time using the same outputs.

[holzer]

Thats why we have Litecoin, the petty cash of the future

That's what I'm betting on. Litecoin for the day to day small purchases and Bitcoin for savings and larger transfers.

[Eri]

im amazed people are still so wrong about bitcoin, this stuff has all been gone over so much, you people that see problems are entirely wrong. Bitcoin doesnt need litecoin, the idea that it does is absurd. the only people that say otherwise either dont get it or have money in litecoin so they continue the lie.

[BTCisthefuture]

It seems many people don't realize this and it hasn't gotten much attention in the news but merchant service providers like bitpay  (I believe coinbase as well)  ALREADY allow transactions to go through without a single confirmation.  On the off chance that someone double spends, they cover the loss, it's something they already have planned into their business model.  They are able to offer services like this because of the fee's they charge merchants and the reality that the vast majority of transactions dont get double spent.

This is only going to continue to improve in time.  But recently I've read a lot of posts from people saying waiting for confirmations is a problem when in reality that problem is already currently being dealt with and plenty of places that accept bitcoin don't need to nor do they wait for a single confirmation.

[Kazimir]

The confirmation time is way too long, that's the Achilles' heel.

Imagine you wanna buy a bottle of milk, would you like to wait in the counter for 50mins just to get 5 confirmations? That's ridiculous.

You're mistaken, sir. This is a total and utter non-issue. Waiting for confirmation is only necessary with huge transactions.

Quoting myself from another thread:

Common misconception, but Bitcoin transactions are instant.

It's only the confirmations that take some time. Confirmations is what makes a transaction 100% irreversible. But nowadays, for regular payments of 'normal' amounts (up to a few thousand $) it's completely safe to accept a payment as soon as it appears in the network (and has enough tx fee).

With todays network strength it's pretty much impossible (not to mention way, WAY too expensive) to successfully forge a valid looking transaction (thus it gets propagated through the network) that doesn't get confirmed. Only in order to accept or trust payments for BIG amounts, e.g. when literally sending tons of money around, you better await a few confirmations.

So, in most situations it's perfectly valid to say that Bitcoin payments are already instant. NOT 10-60 minutes!

and

Oh, one more thing. As for the so called 'faster processing' of altcoins with shorter block times: this is a delusion.

In the end, the certainty of a transaction is related to the amount of processing power that would be required to successfully forge it. You may think that for example Litecoin is 'faster' because it finds blocks 4 times as fast, but it would also require 4 times as much blocks to get the same amount of certainty - that is, if the total network power were equal. And the latter is not the case by far, the Bitcoin network harnesses much, MUCH more hashing power than all other altcoins combined.

So, when comparing the speed of processing transactions, not in terms of 'number of confirmations' but in terms of actual certainty and trustworthiness, Bitcoin is a few miles ahead.

[Kazimir]

Why would you buy a bottle of milk with something that costs 1000 USD?

Well, because I'm only paying 0.002 of that something, perhaps?

Also, more and more prices are expressed in mBTC (milliBitcoin) nowaways, rather than BTC. Currently 1 mBTC = roughly about $1 so that seems pretty good to me.

[Ecurb123]

Could be that this is not a problem, maybe bitcoin wont be for buying milk. Perhaps another coin with faster confirmations will take the marker for small transactions.

[AlbertKing]

I'm not sure about this. My recent 2 transactions both take me more then 15 mins to appear in the network.

Common misconception, but Bitcoin transactions are instant.

It's only the confirmations that take some time. Confirmations is what makes a transaction 100% irreversible. But nowadays, for regular payments of 'normal' amounts (up to a few thousand $) it's completely safe to accept a payment as soon as it appears in the network (and has enough tx fee).

[cbeast]

Every state will have their own centralized PoS coin and Bitcoin will be the reserve currency based on the basket of world cryptocurrencies. You will hopefully be able to trade them openly. Free states of course will allow Bitcoin to be traded directly. 

[btcton]

I am not concerned with confirmation times as it is, I am only concerned about the number of transactions that can be processed in a short amount of time. I have heard around that there is a hard limit, but I'm not sure of how much that is.

[AlbertKing]

You got it. I almost forget that, that's really another big deal.

I am not concerned with confirmation times as it is, I am only concerned about the number of transactions that can be processed in a short amount of time. I have heard around that there is a hard limit, but I'm not sure of how much that is.