Why aren't cryptocurrencies successful as a medium of payment

[Don Karnage]

At this stage of development of the cryptomarket, most coins are perceived as assets for investment, rather than as a way to pay for something.

[Yeahnoh]

Maybe because most of the countries have already a currency that they are being used intensively, changing that parameter would be difficult when you have so much time used to dealing with your currency, plus, bitcoin is still really volatile, it can rise in price but it can also drop abruptaly, and that generates losses to the business that could implement it as a medium of payment

[jatoman]

The global economy is nearly 80 trillion USD per year.  Payments using any type of cryptocurrency as a medium of payment is a tiny fraction of this total.

What are some of the reasons preventing cryptocurrency from being more successful as a medium of payment?

Not every country can actually manage to have a good economy and that is the reason why cryptocurrency will not always grow because it also requires a legalization from the government.

I'm not aware of any jurisdiction that has prohibited using cryptocurrency for payments.  Some have banned ICOs and other security related uses cryptocurrency. So, I'm skeptical that prohibition is an obstacle.

I'm also not aware of any jurisdiction that enthusiastically supports a cryptocurrency. Until there is a cryptocurrency that helps governments apply regulations, I doubt there will be such support.

What needs to happen is a collaboration between cryptocurrency designers and regulators.

[BTalarmus]

Cryptocurrencies appeared only few years ago. Fiat money exists few thousand years. But I believe that in 5-6 years fiat money will be replaced by crypto in developed countries.

[teeshe]

The global economy is nearly 80 trillion USD per year.  Payments using any type of cryptocurrency as a medium of payment is a tiny fraction of this total.

What are some of the reasons preventing cryptocurrency from being more successful as a medium of payment?

As far as i am concerned, a limited/lack of understanding of how cryptocurrency works is one of the factors hindering it from gaining much acceptance in addition to the fact that it will put people in control and may challenge the status quo of financial institutions. Overcoming these two factors, then it is certain that the acceptance of cryptocurrencies as a medium of payment will soar.

[rapidgoog]

Cryptocurrency is very volatile and is not insured by anything. The price is not stable yet..imagine someone buys a $ 100 product and an hour later it fell to $ 90.

[ESnowdan]

Well first of all they are somewhat too volatile.. You can make a payment now and within a few mins it could change up to 5% which is not a good thing if it drops..

[Ooppss5]

Because there are great powers here that don't want you, me and all the people to take control in our hands and so they are constantly making some kind of FUD king

[jatoman]

Lets assume bitcoin has a larger community and the oldest blockchain,and never prepared for such a large population, so which might have struggled for this reason. What can we say for those that opted for coin for online payment even for their online shopping mall like SGGCOIN, INS that never succeeded? Another factor for bitcoin medium of payment is its volatility. Tether should be an option of payment with its stable value, I hope it can be adopted.

Without question, extreme price volatility makes a currency undesirable as a medium of exchange (MoE).  At times BTC has been more stable than the USD.  Of course, there have been times of extreme price volatility.

The best tactic to allow a cryptocurrency to be used as a MoE is to design it such that a buyer and/or a seller can quickly convert from fiat or to fiat currency in moments such that there is no exposure to price volatility.

Consider if at time of purchase the buyer can upload from their bank account or credit card a sum of fiat currency and the wallet immediate converts this into this cryptocurrency, and then transfers this cryptocurrency to the seller's point of sale system, where the POS system converts the cryptocurrency into a fiat currency (let's a different currency than the one the buyer loaded into the wallet).  This sequence could happen in a span of a few seconds.

[ivanleon]

Do not rush to add as a means of payment, as the volatility of the assets is too large, yet there are problems with high fees, failures in the blockchain, etc.

[jatoman]

The global economy is nearly 80 trillion USD per year.  Payments using any type of cryptocurrency as a medium of payment is a tiny fraction of this total.

What are some of the reasons preventing cryptocurrency from being more successful as a medium of payment?

first of all cryptocurrencies are not enough fast for payments. it takes time for approvement. especially for bitcoin. second volatility is very high so there is a risk for both buyers and sellers. third it is still not easy to cash out from cryptocurrencies because of some regulations.

Cryptocurrency can move any amount of money from anywhere to anywhere in moments for essentially no cost.  So, I'm skeptical that speed is an obstacle to widespread use.

Now, some cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether are too slow for payments as both have a low transaction rate (less than 10 transactions per minute) and long confirmation times (bitcoin takes nearly an hour).  Other cryptocurrencies are better suited for payment because they have higher transaction rate and shorted confirmation times.

And, perhaps there will be a new cryptocurrency designed to have extremely high transaction rates... much higher than card interchanges such as Visa International, and where confirmation happens within a few seconds.

[modmalaney]

Crypto is indeed still far from the word success in media payments. There are still many obstacles for this to be done properly. still, the number of rejection for crypto certainly become the most tangible obstacle occurs. not to mention the technology there is also judged to have not been too good and facilitate to make it as a medium of payment is good and perfect.

[jatoman]

Crypto is indeed still far from the word success in media payments. There are still many obstacles for this to be done properly. still, the number of rejection for crypto certainly become the most tangible obstacle occurs. not to mention the technology there is also judged to have not been too good and facilitate to make it as a medium of payment is good and perfect.

Yes, this thread his highlighted several obstacles.

I agree to be done properly, there is still a lot of innovation required.

[X-Infinity]

The global economy is nearly 80 trillion USD per year.  Payments using any type of cryptocurrency as a medium of payment is a tiny fraction of this total.

What are some of the reasons preventing cryptocurrency from being more successful as a medium of payment?

It is too volatile. Merchants would not want to accept crypto because the currency itself is not stable and they would much rather opt for fiat. However, mass adoption of cryptocurrencies can stabilize the value of cryptocurrencies to an extent. X-Infinity is an ICO that actually has the power to promote mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. X-Infinity aims to create a unified cryptocurrency wallet that allows consumers and merchants the ability to transact as easily using ANY blockchain asset as a currency. Check it out http://www.xinfinity.io

[jatoman]

First of all, the cryptocurrency must be known to more people. Secondly, the national government needs to be recognized, which will speed up the promotion and growth of cryptocurrency. I hope to arrive sooner.

It needs to be regulated by the government first before it becomes a legal tender of payment. As a medium of payment, some people are already using it including me when I wanted to pay my bills because we have a platform wherein we can pay our bills using cryptocurrencies so it makes it easier for the crypto users in our country to do such thing. The scope of being a successful medium of payment may be small for now but later on, it would become larger.

I doubt any government will make a cryptocurrency their legal tender, as they will insist this be their national currency.

Some governments may create a digital currency, not based on blockchain technology, they will designate as legal tender to augment their traditional currency (banknotes and coins).

And, for certain cryptocurrency is being used as a medium of payment.  That's not the question.

Instead, the question is what are some of the obstacles preventing widespread use.  Crypto payments represent less than 1/100 of one percent of payments in global commerce.  I don't consider this "widespread use".

I agree that gaining support from governments for using a cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange is essential to achieving widespread use.  To gain such support, there needs to be a collaboration between regulators and cryptocurrency designers so that the design of a cryptocurrency makes it more efficient and effective for regulators to apply their regulations.

[localcrypto]

nt all cryptocurrencies are successful in terms of payments recently we have seen Verge and Tron  are used by porn hub as the form of payments and Pundix is creating a merchant gateway for payments

[aldrin6697]

It is successful bitcoins are being used in markets to trade around the globe. It is just waiting for the acceptance of the public and government to hype its usefulness.

[markgayamo]

Crypto currency is needed to be legally by the government so that we can use it as a medium payment just like paper money, I think crypto will be our digital currency in the next 10 years, I'm sure that they will use crypto just like paper money and the transaction is easy and faster and crypto currency requires legalization around the world as an alternative to how to transact valid payments in the market.

[jatoman]

First of all, the cryptocurrency must be known to more people. Secondly, the national government needs to be recognized, which will speed up the promotion and growth of cryptocurrency. I hope to arrive sooner.

It needs to be regulated by the government first before it becomes a legal tender of payment. As a medium of payment, some people are already using it including me when I wanted to pay my bills because we have a platform wherein we can pay our bills using cryptocurrencies so it makes it easier for the crypto users in our country to do such thing. The scope of being a successful medium of payment may be small for now but later on, it would become larger.

most governments agree with this technology and some disagree because the reasons are so vulnerable to misuse by irresponsible people. therefore cryptocurrency requires legalization around the world as an alternative to how to transact valid payments, so that its function can be used by all people around the world.

Some governments are concerned about ICOs because these are securities offerings and therefore should be regulated by Securities Law.  Many ICOs evade Securities Law and this is why some governments have prohibited ICOs.  This isn't the same as prohibiting the use of cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange.

I'm not aware of any government that has prohibited the use of cryptocurrency as a medium of payment.  So, that means that no cryptocurrency is illegal to use as a medium of payment.

I agree that governments enthusiastically supporting a cryptocurrency as a medium of payment will help in people trusting using this cryptocurrency.

[chidiarua]

We must understand that crypto, though a huge chunk of people are into the market, is still very much in its early stage. And we're is still early adopters. In the future, with wider adopters, crypto will surely be a means of payment for goods and services(it has already begun).