Bitcoin usage and misaligned expectations

[Kakmakr]

If we just think at the fact that bitcoin can be used to send transactions worldwide and almost instant then this fees wouldn't seem so high. Think about what fees do banks charge for a worldwide transfer. Most of them around $15-$25 but it could go up to $50. Besides that you also have to wait at least a few hours in best case because usually it takes a few days to be processed. Now compare that with bitcoin. It's enough to pay a maximum of $5 in fees and your transactions will surely receive 6+ confirmations in less than 2-3 hours. And this is just one advantage because there are others more.

Paid $3 for a transaction recently and confirmed within <10 minutes although the fee varies depending on how crowded the blockchain but it's quite affordable if we take into an account the fact that the fee will stays that much if the transaction size is not too big regardless the amount of money we send. With bank, well be ready to be charged so much.

What Bank are you using that are charging $3 per transaction?    Just remember that $3 per transaction might not sound like a lot of money to people living in 3rd world countries, but $3 per transaction for people in 3rd world countries are VERY expensive. 

A lot of Banks give you X amount of transactions for FREE and once those are completed you start paying for individual fees. In my opinion most Bitcoin transactions must cost between $0.25 to $0.50 to be affordable for most people and below $0.10 for micro transactions. 

[joseafonso123az]

Bitcoin can only misalign expectations because it is not stable yet. And this is also why the price keeps fluctuating, but that doesnt mean that Bitcoin usage is not good. It is something that exists now for a long time, it is restoring power of price slowly, while people keep talking and being afraid of going to cryptos. The transaction fees are something that should come down, but it is not that linear becaus this is money, everyone is greedy  and wants to earn something. But if BTC get stable, that would also reduce.

[maldini]

If we just think at the fact that bitcoin can be used to send transactions worldwide and almost instant then this fees wouldn't seem so high. Think about what fees do banks charge for a worldwide transfer. Most of them around $15-$25 but it could go up to $50. Besides that you also have to wait at least a few hours in best case because usually it takes a few days to be processed. Now compare that with bitcoin. It's enough to pay a maximum of $5 in fees and your transactions will surely receive 6+ confirmations in less than 2-3 hours. And this is just one advantage because there are others more.

Paid $3 for a transaction recently and confirmed within <10 minutes although the fee varies depending on how crowded the blockchain but it's quite affordable if we take into an account the fact that the fee will stays that much if the transaction size is not too big regardless the amount of money we send. With bank, well be ready to be charged so much.

That's right, I think at a cost of no more than $ 5 with the number of transactions being already cheap enough. I also don't think that bitcoin will replace fiat, so you can still buy coffee with fiat. Bitcoin was not created to replace any currency, bitcoin was created as a p2p transaction innovation.

[partysaurus]

I believe there are some people in the community who are in the standpoint that "Bitcoin isn't successful" unless they can use it for "almost-zero fee" coffee transactions. But is it truly a failure?

bitcoin as a store of value is great, like art and stocks , but i would not use it for transactions since its not very fast compare to the compitition,

[sngwinner]

This reason alone cannot be enough to say btc has failed. Sometimes we wish btc is more scalable but that does not mean we should despise all the other functions and say byc is a failure.
Moreover, failure to me is individually defined and so such individuals can keep on riding on the fact that btc is a failure and refuse to jump in

[superscommessebitcoin]

Negative reviews will always be. And they will certainly find something to argue their opinion. Those nuances that are not considered critical for many, for the haters of crypto will be very significant. Everyone chooses for himself what he likes crypto for or not to love. Just stick to your opinion and do not pay attention to those who want to impose their own.

[miropp]

I don't think there's a big problem with bitcoin. Perhaps when that is in the future it will become a stable currency and its transaction fees will not be so large. We don't know what he's capable of or what the future holds.

[squatter]

Pokemon Go reached 1 billion downloads in two years, Facebook, which is only 4 years older than Bitcoin, has 2.4 billion active users, Twitter, which is the same age as Bitcoin has 330 million active users.

Those platforms are free. Bitcoin has financial barriers to entry -- that should be expected to hamper its adoption by orders of magnitude vs. free platforms. Those platforms also didn't exactly need to bootstrap a network from scratch like Bitcoin. They were built on exponentially growing technology trends (smartphone and social media adoption) that tapped into already existing gamers and social media users.

Bitcoin needs to have exponential user growth to get on par with those mass products, which it actually might do at some point.

The adoption rate of any given technology only goes vertical one time. It hasn't happened yet for Bitcoin, but looking at the ongoing trend and changing popular attitudes over the past ten years, I'd say we're approaching that point.

[Searing]

This reason alone cannot be enough to say btc has failed. Sometimes we wish BTC is more scalable but that does not mean we should despise all the other functions and say byc is a failure.
Moreover, failure to me is individually defined and so such individuals can keep on riding on the fact that BTC is a failure and refuse to jump in

This article's take on Libra, the Facebook coin is kinda bleak. This is just the first step in the war against, open protocol electronic currency.

The catch is with Libra, the fast transactions and that speed advantage and the user base of Facebook will make for interesting times indeed!

I myself, am wondering, IF, BTC will continue to be a 'store of value' under such a shadow. I mean how hard can it be for Facebook to say, keep so much Libra

and you will get a % interest paid out on Libra and/or staking? The $10 million dollar node setup for Libra (see article link below) means ALL transaction fees, etc goes to the operator of the

$10 million dollar nodes. Like Visa and Mastercard.

So, we knew this was coming, but I wonder if anyone in the crypto world and/or the bitcoin devs or altcoin devs (of any flavor) really can compete and/or compensate

promoting BTC or whatever against this juggernaut?

https://hackernoon.com/libra-a-cyberpunk-nightmare-in-the-midst-of-crypto-spring-5543b6f6e34b

[figmentofmyass]

The catch is with Libra, the fast transactions and that speed advantage and the user base of Facebook will make for interesting times indeed!

I myself, am wondering, IF, BTC will continue to be a 'store of value' under such a shadow. I mean how hard can it be for Facebook to say, keep so much Libra

and you will get a % interest paid out on Libra and/or staking? The $10 million dollar node setup for Libra (see article link below) means ALL transaction fees, etc goes to the operator of the $10 million dollar nodes. Like Visa and Mastercard.

well that was the point. facebook isn't creating libra in the interests of users and libra isn't decentralized. it's a centralized ploy so a few huge financial service companies can tap the global remittance market and reap profits.

So, we knew this was coming, but I wonder if anyone in the crypto world and/or the bitcoin devs or altcoin devs (of any flavor) really can compete and/or compensate promoting BTC or whatever against this juggernaut?

i see no competition. libra is just a centralized stablecoin. it's tether 2.0. it doesn't compete with bitcoin's store-of-value, censorship resistance, speculative investment, etc use cases.

[killat]

Adoption is coming.
After Facebook entering these grounds, before that Samsung & Huawei implementing crypto wallets on their phones, everything started to change and Bitcoin started to receive the attention which he deserves, other cryptocurrencies also.

Whole Australia makes a move to add bitcoin ATM's, payment systems and it is suiting them well for now.
People are starting to understand the decentralization and moving toward it.

[DooMAD]

Pokemon Go reached 1 billion downloads in two years, Facebook, which is only 4 years older than Bitcoin, has 2.4 billion active users, Twitter, which is the same age as Bitcoin has 330 million active users.

Those platforms are free. Bitcoin has financial barriers to entry -- that should be expected to hamper its adoption by orders of magnitude vs. free platforms. Those platforms also didn't exactly need to bootstrap a network from scratch like Bitcoin. They were built on exponentially growing technology trends (smartphone and social media adoption) that tapped into already existing gamers and social media users.

I'd say it goes beyond the financial barrier.  It seems like many people aren't ready to overcome the mental barriers they've spent a lifetime building up.  Even when some do take an interest in Bitcoin, they don't use it in the way it was intended.  Many of them go straight for a webwallet or exchange to store their funds because they can't begin to comprehend a world where they are responsible for the security of their wealth.  And the vast majority of the world's population haven't even made it that far yet.  It's like as a species, generally speaking, we don't know how to function without a middleman holding our hand. 

True adoption on a large scale is going to take time.  People have a lot to learn, or unlearn, as it were.  Bad habits aren't broken easily.

[Irvinn]

In any case, in order to fully use cryptocurrency in everyday life, you need not only knowledge and access to resources for all of humanity, but also you need to think about the appropriate infrastructure.  I understand that it is very difficult to break bad habits, but I think that everyone noticed the fact that humanity is very quickly learn everything that makes life easier for him.  All High Technologies that became available over the last fifty years were perceived very quickly.  I hope that the same situation will be with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

[TheUltraElite]

I don't think there's a big problem with bitcoin. Perhaps when that is in the future it will become a stable currency and its transaction fees will not be so large. We don't know what he's capable of or what the future holds.

I dont get it why you think that transaction fees are going to become smaller. If more people start using bitcoin there will also be more people mining bitcoin. This will increase the competition among miners and they will fight for hashpower. This will not decrease the miner fees but increase in my opinion because people will try to squeeze in money as small as possible to get their transaction done.

Truely speaking bitcoin is not a failure. It has done something that traditional monetary system could not do and thus it stands out. We should try to contribute to its constructive criticism more than making FUD on it.

[DooMAD]

Truely speaking bitcoin is not a failure. It has done something that traditional monetary system could not do and thus it stands out. We should try to contribute to its constructive criticism more than making FUD on it.

Exactly.  The only thing Bitcoin fails at is fitting neatly into people's preconceived notions about how it should work.  And rightly so.  It challenges their existing views, so they attempt to judge it by metrics it will never conform to and they willfully declare it a failure because it doesn't match up with their limited understanding.

[jake zyrus]

Bitcoin isn't a failure. If it really is, bitcoin wouldn't survive this long.

[ityandsyn]

I believe there are some people in the community who are in the standpoint that "Bitcoin isn't successful" unless they can use it for "almost-zero fee" coffee transactions. But is it truly a failure?

      Everyone has have different perspective about bitcoin and some people are already criticise bitcoin because they think this is not successful since this have not been use for payment like coffee with free transaction fee , and I think this is not the  only way of determining factor of the success of bitcoin.

[Wind_FURY]

Truely speaking bitcoin is not a failure. It has done something that traditional monetary system could not do and thus it stands out. We should try to contribute to its constructive criticism more than making FUD on it.

Exactly.  The only thing Bitcoin fails at is fitting neatly into people's preconceived notions about how it should work.  And rightly so.  It challenges their existing views, so they attempt to judge it by metrics it will never conform to and they willfully declare it a failure because it doesn't match up with their limited understanding.

Because the "white paper", the Roger Ver, and the big blocker propaganda. They fraudulently make newbies believe that the solution is simply to increase the block size, but without pointing out that it centralizes the network. It also requires a hard fork, which is another problem.

[DooMAD]

They fraudulently make newbies believe that the solution is simply to increase the block size, but without pointing out that it centralizes the network. It also requires a hard fork, which is another problem.

A problem for them, anyway.   

What I don't get is that it should be the easiest concept in the world to grasp.  If those securing the chain agree, it happens.  If those securing the chain don't agree, it doesn't happen.  But somehow they can't comprehend it.  There apparently has to be someone to blame for the simple fact they want something those securing the chain don't.  Why are some people incapable of understanding that their view isn't necessarily of interest to all the other people on this chain?  And why can't they be content with their own chain that the rest of us aren't a part of?  Then they could entertain whatever insanity they like.

If their ideas were really as good as they claimed, it would have happened by now.  But no, it's definitely a conspiracy of devs controlling the network.   

They'll never learn.

[Wallflower28]

I believe there are some people in the community who are in the standpoint that "Bitcoin isn't successful" unless they can use it for "almost-zero fee" coffee transactions. But is it truly a failure?

Based upon your description in bitcoin`s failure. My premises are:

If bitcoin is not successful because it is not a "almost-zero fee" coffee transactions;
Ethreum and other altcoins are also a failure,
Exchanges are not also success.
Cryptocurrency is nothing.

Well, that is a kind of misaligned expectations. Many people think that the primary concern of bitcoin is to have zero fee transaction. We never meet that because bitcoin was created in order to be mined. Eventually, miners make some fees in order for them to be compensated. Bitcoin is successful because it created an industry wherein there is a equilibrium.