Could negative articles be the ultimate failure of Bitcoin mass adoption?

[Teka]

I understand that a negative post might be looked down upon here but the community has to wake up and act. The attention around Bitcoin has mainly been negative over the last few months especially during February.

The argument that many people put forward when a point such as mine is raised is that all PR is good but that's only true to a degree. When Bitcoin was getting massacred by the press another cryptocurrency was only getting praise. I'm obviously talking about DOGE, the only reason why they grew so quickly is because their community is great at pr. While we were getting articles about the theft of Gox, they were getting articles about sending people to the Olympics.

In order to gain influence you have to get the people on your side and with publicity such as "Bitcoin Hacked" you can't gain mass adoption. There is a reason why politicians spend millions on tv campaigns, to get the majority on their side.

You might believe that fiat will fail and that's the reason why Bitcoin will be successful but I don't think that in order for Bitcoin to succeed we need fiat currencies to fail.

We need to fight against the negative articles and fight for great PR. We need to get rid of amateurs exchanges. We need to spread the word about Bitcoin. We need positive advertisements on high profile news networks, magazines etc. I don't believe that the world press is against bitcoin, they are uneducated and that's different. We need to educate the press.


What do you guy's think?

[Teka]

If people are so easily influenced and refuse to do their own research, they will get everything that they deserve.

I agree but we live in age were people are extremely busy which leads to most people only reading the headlines.

[Dafar]

No it's gonna be the complexity and lack of security... it's still too early for mass adoption, and still in need of new developments and platforms that make bitcoin easy as pie to use and store. Right now it's not so easy for the public, not even that easy to understand.


The articles are like a double edged sword, half of them are negative.. but they slowly increase awareness. By now a lot of people have at least heard about bitcoin, even if they don't know what it is beyond it being some 'internet currency'. The FUD from media causes short term price effects, a lot of things do because this is a highly emotional market, but bitcoin seems to overcome all that stuff when it reaches new milestones.

[miketonic]

Of course we could use some more positive news about bitcoin. However I don't think bad news are enough to send btc to failure.

[RWatts]

Negative articles are one thing, but a bigger issue is simply that Bitcoin is less convenient than current payment systems. Consumers want convenience. For example, it shocks a lot of people to learn that the iPhone wasn't the first smart phone, not by a long shot. Palm had a whole line of smart phones, such as the Palm Trio, so did a number of other manufacturers. These phones all had custom apps and did much the same thing today's smart phones do. iPhone revolutionized everything by making the devices more accessible to the main stream markets. More user friendly, better interfaces, more versatile. Bitcoin needs some way to make that same leap. Until it happens, the success of Bitcoin will be limited.

[cdog]

No, but it could be the ultimate source of cheap coins before BTC goes ballistic

[_Miracle]

Mass adoption will come when the masses can use bitcoin with just a little more stability, ease and security.

I say bravo to those who don't understand and are staying out but I highly admire those who don't understand and are making the effort.

I expect growing pains and when you watch/read news on bitcoin it is apparent that they don't get it..... "Educated" "worldly" reporters don't get it. How is Joe Shmo and Jane Doe going to?
It's apparent to those using bitcoin that they don't get it but the rest of the audience thinks it's getting "facts" (remember this when you are watching any news program and think you're "learning" something by getting well researched "facts").

How things evolve over this time is going to be interesting, because we're already observing the tendency to fall back on old habits (centralization/regulation).
As bitcoin becomes more mainstream: Collectively the original ideals may become more diluted.
Leaders and speakers are beginning to shine through more and more often...we need more people to bridge the knowledge gap or more software to buffer a users technical lack.

It is the wild west(ish) I don't mind...I don't trust anyone. Not just because of potential shady dealings but because you never know when someone's out of their depth?


Good PR is continued use...really good PR would be major non-profits adopting (smoothly) or new ones springing straight out of bitcoin.


That's funny RWatts I had a Treo and could talk on that thing 14 hours straight without a charge (leave it on standby for almost a month), my Galaxy doesn't get through a day with light use *I love tech ;-)

[BittBurger]

OP:  Absolutely not.

You need to focus on the Bitcoin podcasts.  The conferences.  The attendance numbers.  Set up a bookmark or icon on your phone for Coindesk.com. You will start to see that the idiots in the peanut gallery don't amount to a hill of beans.  Adoption is going gangbusters.  Propogation is increasing very quickly.  Did you see the picture of people standing in line at the new Singapore Bitcoin ATM?

As Holliday said above (sort of) ... let them talk trash and scoff.  This is why your investment in Bitcoin will be worth that much more in the future.  Bitcoin isn't going anywhere but up.  That means the more people mock it, the more rare your investment in it, will be in 5 years.  By the time the idiot masses realize what this thing is ... it will be far too expensive for them to make much of a return on investment.  

-B-

[bananas]

Most people who have read the news over the last months, specially the last days will never even bother to get informed about bitcoins. They just read it is bad and move on.

[bitvestor]

I understand that a negative post might be looked down upon here but the community has to wake up and act. The attention around Bitcoin has mainly been negative over the last few months especially during February.

The argument that many people put forward when a point such as mine is raised is that all PR is good but that's only true to a degree. When Bitcoin was getting massacred by the press another cryptocurrency was only getting praise. I'm obviously talking about DOGE, the only reason why they grew so quickly is because their community is great at pr. While we were getting articles about the theft of Gox, they were getting articles about sending people to the Olympics.

In order to gain influence you have to get the people on your side and with publicity such as "Bitcoin Hacked" you can't gain mass adoption. There is a reason why politicians spend millions on tv campaigns, to get the majority on their side.

You might believe that fiat will fail and that's the reason why Bitcoin will be successful but I don't think that in order for Bitcoin to succeed we need fiat currencies to fail.

We need to fight against the negative articles and fight for great PR. We need to get rid of amateurs exchanges. We need to spread the word about Bitcoin. We need positive advertisements on high profile news networks, magazines etc. I don't believe that the world press is against bitcoin, they are uneducated and that's different. We need to educate the press.


What do you guy's think?

Well the truth we all know is that negative posts makes bitcoin grow bigger, but negative post like Mt Gox kills bitcoin because people lose bitcoins.

Example Silk road gave btc the boost, Mt Gox killed it..

[Dissonance]

In light of all the recent hackings , I'd say the biggest issue to mass adoption is not the negative news or the protocol but they infrastructure surrounding the protocol.  We need more responsible and more organized actor to put out software that makes bitcoin more secure and user friendly.  Your average user isn't going to trust a payments system that requires them to keep their coins offline in order to be secure.  Until we get more vc funded organizations like coinbase mass adoption won't happen.

[justusranvier]

http://themisescircle.org/blog/2014/02/25/bitcoin-has-no-image-problem/