I am waiting not for changes to how Bitcoin works, but tools to make it accessible to 99.999999% of the world population. We need very easy ways to transport Bitcoin offline (i.e. public/private key systems) and allow someone without a highschool education to redeem them on a smartphone without opening multiple online accounts with financial institutions. I think this will attract more banks to accept the idea of bitcoin when they can feel they can dupe Aunt May to then 'deposit' her Bitcoin in their bank. I know this may sound stupid, but evolution is about adaptability, not superiority.
+1
I agree with this 100%. To me Bitcoin is great from both technical and economic standpoint. I don't mind it if someone comes up with something even better and manages to create a clearly superior cryptocurrency, but that's not the main issue. Bitcoin is fine, what isn't fine is that it's still unknown to most people, it's difficult to understand, it's not easy enough for regular people and it doesn't have a good image/reputation. What also matters is the price development it has had for the last few months.
And most importantly, it is not offered as a payment method almost anywhere. Only very rare merchants accept Bitcoins. It's very hard to accidentally run into Bitcoin. That needs to change. This is not because early adopters are holding coins, they are holding because it is like this. There are limited possibilities of what you can do with coins so most people either hold, buy, sell or actively trade them. Spending them is a small part of the economy.
I'm hopeful that once we have more Bitcoin merchants and (much) more importantly, known merchants adding Bitcoin as a payment option, we will see those Bitcoins move much more actively that are not in circulation at the moment.
And again, technically and economically Bitcoin is quite fine. The model has a fixed money supply which means there will be no inherent inflation involved (eventually) and no deflation either with the exception of lost coins. This allows for a much saner economy which does not artificially pressure people to spend money instead of saving it. Which means that people will be more inclined to buy what they need and save more. That will not only save our planet but it will also help individuals to become more self-sufficient in their personal economies, leading to people thinking less about getting more money to spend (via loans) and thinking more about saving money for future needs.
You can argue that this will lead to a massive decline in investments because it's more attractive to just hold money, but that's actually not the case. Holding is fairly smart if Bitcoin has a massively growing userbase, because the value of Bitcoins will predictably rise significantly. But if you imagine Bitcoin in year 2030 with basically all of the money supply generated and a relatively stable userbase, then the value of one Bitcoin should be very stable. You neither lose nor gain money by holding Bitcoins. I can imagine a lot of investment options that are more lucrative than holding coins at that point. So people would still invest massively. The only difference is that right now you're basically forced to invest unless you want to lose money. With Bitcoin you don't have to invest to avoid losing money, but you will still want to if you want profit.
This is a bit off-topic and I don't even have a clue what kind of "radical changes" Revalin is proposing to Bitcoin, I'm just saying that if it has something to do with the model Bitcoin uses for the money supply, I can say in advance that I don't care of it. But if it's something else I'm interested and would like a link to a more appropriate thread.
