Bitcoin will NOT surpass traditional methods of payment. Convince me.

[joinfree]

That's right, until we are able to increase the speed of Bitcoin network as well as improving it's scalability it can never outweigh the performance of making Fiat payments. Right now Bitcoin is better  seen as a store of value more than a currency.

[imstillthebest]

That's right, until we are able to increase the speed of Bitcoin network as well as improving it's scalability it can never outweigh the performance of making Fiat payments. Right now Bitcoin is better  seen as a store of value more than a currency.

i thought the latest fix for btc improves its scalabillity issues   ? but the speed ,  speed depends on the fees you put because the higher the fee the more your transaction will be priotize by the miners   . 

small fees results to slower transfer too  . it still depend on the user if what is his prefer usage for his btc  . there are people treats thier btc as a payment tool while others love to hodl and make it as a investment  for profit purposes   .

[Aikidoka]

Sadly, I am one of those who strongly believe that "Bitcoin will NOT surpass traditional methods of payment." It's commonsense to note that the tech behind Bitcoin or cryptocurrency is embedded in the internet, electricity and knowledge of the tech world. More than half of the world's population is still illiterate and can't have a handle on this Bitcoin tech.

You can be right for now, I mean bitcoin isn't well known in some part of the world like mostly in the 3rd world countries, but there's always some evolution over the years. Bitcoin can't surpass now the traditional methods of payment, but it could surpass it in some time in the future, when everyone around the world are able to use internet everywhere.

[target]

It will not surpass when countries are going to be developing their own digital fiat but the use of crypto will increase over time.

If its worth attacking using the 51%, they've probably done so already. But they did not. I'm sure with the number of businesses going to be affected by BTC, they'd do all they got to bring it down. The problem with this one is that they will have to bring down every coins that is brought to their attention.  

[moviebuff777]

It may not pass traditional methods of payment but it doesn’t need to. It can be a valid method of payment along with cash, credit cards, PayPal, etc. and still be successful.

[X-ray]

Those are indeed problems that need to be resolved by bitcoin and I could say that any centralised currency or method of payment that are non-blockchain benefits from the speed simply because the entire system is controlled by them and doesn't require hash power. That's where the weakness of decentralized platform lies. I also think that bitcoin is still inferior in many aspect compared centralised method of payment, maybe in the future we'll get it resolved.

[Twinkledoe]

It may not pass traditional methods of payment but it doesn’t need to. It can be a valid method of payment along with cash, credit cards, PayPal, etc. and still be successful.

Yes, it may not surpass but it can compete with the current payment methods. And actually, it is already being utilized already. There are known merchants that already integrated bitcoin as means of payment method. Like in my country, I didn't know that Grab is already accepting bitcoin to top up your account. So I guess that's one good example that bitcoin adoption is going mainstream.

[Easteregg69]

First of Payal is a scam! They will ruin your business on first given chance. Those people are so corrupted by money that they don't give a fuck if you go down.

About the BTC payments. Most shopping CMS's comes with additional BTC payments plugin.Often for free. So try it out. It is very easy to set up.

Get rich!

[FlightyPouch]

That's right, until we are able to increase the speed of Bitcoin network as well as improving it's scalability it can never outweigh the performance of making Fiat payments. Right now Bitcoin is better  seen as a store of value more than a currency.

Lightning network is the solution for this problem. With this network, the transactions will be able to faster than its normal transaction speed. So I don't think that will be a problem. The problem right now is that if bitcoin will be a payment method, it is so volatile. As price changes, that means the value of that thing will always be changing too.

[d.kevin29]

The answer to this thread is subjective. Depends on what you mean by "surpass".

Are we talkin' about utility? Again, this depends. Bitcoin will never surpass traditional payment systems. LN is trying to give that a try but I've never studied LN before so I have no idea what to say about it. Putting it aside though, the block confirmation part of Bitcoin makes it lose in favor of fiat & cards.

If we think about advanced payments and bank transfers though, Bitcoin is way more useful. With a <1$ you can basically send as much money as you'd like. The recipient will see their funds instantly and they can be used within the first confirmations of the tx. This, compared to how bank transfers work, puts Bitcoin in favor.

Changes Bitcoin might have to go through may take some weight off Bitcoin on its balance vs Fiat/Cards, but I don't think it'll ever surpass them. Controlled assets will always be, one way or another, more convenient to attract people.

If we're talking about the total number of transactions and total volume per day, it could surpass it at any time. As soon as Bitcoin's maturity approaches, the number of txs/day will increase due to a higher number of Bitcoin users coming in and we don't have just a few countries people are joining from. It's worldwide. But although it could surpass the two numbers, that would become a big threat to world leaders and it needs utility. We need to have something to spend Bitcoin on so the number of transaction and total volume rises. But will they let it get to that point knowing there are probably a lot of tax evasions going on through the txs?

It's hard. Bitcoin could become a very largely traded asset but it's hard to say whether it'll surpass traditional payment systems, especially when you have for example PayPal which transfers money in a matter of seconds and is very convenient. In order to add utility to Bitcoin, we need more ways we can spend it. In Europe there isn't very much you can do with it.

[Artemis3]

I've been for cryptocurrencies from when I first heard about it and got involved back in 2013. There are some pros to having Bitcoin as the future method of payment however there are some cons too.

It would be interesting to see why you think Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies) will surpass traditional methods of payment (Cards, Bank transfers, payment gateways etc.). Or if you think they have no future please share why.

Some of my concerns:

• Ever since a few people have made a fortune from the massive spike in prices, it's attracted a lot of traders and day traders. Not a bad thins but it's clear to me that easily 90% of cryptocurrency users are just traders with no intensions of using the currencies. Hence the rise in a lot of exchanges (a lot of which look the same).
• All it takes is 51%. Although for a coin such as BTC would be very expensive to attack the network it's still possible.
  
  Here's my insane scenario:
  
  100 top banks from across the world don't like the threat BTC has on their business so they all join together to buy compute power, take over the network and cause havoc. I estimate it would cost around $2,000,000,000 (2 Billion USD). This is very expensive but what's $20,000,000 (20 million USD) to a top bank? That's an investment to help protect their business.
• Speed: BTC is known to be slow to confirm a single transaction (approx 10 mins). ETH is faster (approx 15 seconds). I believe (correct me if i'm wrong) that if you cut down block times it slowly starts to make a decentralised system more centralised.

Food for thought..

And where will you get all that asic gear? Magic? You could also argue the same thing by saying they could band together to buy "all bitcoin", and the exact same thing occurs: Price will go up faster than all the money they could pool, EVEN if govs joined and started printing to foolishly attempt this.

Every 10 minutes a new block is found. You can broadcast when there is only 1 minute left or 9. Fast transactions should not be the aim for someone using Bitcoin, you should stick to transactions that can wait, such as something you would buy online and can wait one day or so for confirmation. The "instant" thing is a specific situation than most people can simply avoid, or perhaps use LN but this is something extraordinary, very uncommon. ETH is a very poor example, its blockchain is also clogged with all the non ETH traffic (gazillion tokens and random contracts) and worst thing is they can undo transactions on a whim, as they already did. No one has the power to do that to Bitcoin, not even Satoshi. ETH re-created the worst characteristic of fiat money.

Anything that is not instant payment, such as wire transfer, can be done with Bitcoin perfectly fine and cheaply. There is only one tx fee you should ever use: 1 sat/B. Its true you can pay more to have more priority, but this should only be done in rare circumstances. It is wrong when wallets try to guess the network and change tx fees on their own, it projects the wrong image of Bitcoin. It is NOT Bitcoin's fault that most wallets do the wrong thing, just don't let the wallet decide for you when you want to speed things up which should only be done rarely, and perhaps never once LN becomes a thing.

Bitcoin is in the hands of too many people for it to be attacked successfully. Some of the smaller altcoins do have this problem. Neither the banks nor the govs even banding together can destroy Bitcoin. People know this and that is why it has its current value after 11 years of its creation. It is safe money you can use or keep without any artificial restrictions imposed by law or politics.

[Maslate]

That's right, until we are able to increase the speed of Bitcoin network as well as improving it's scalability it can never outweigh the performance of making Fiat payments. Right now Bitcoin is better  seen as a store of value more than a currency.

Lightning network is the solution for this problem. With this network, the transactions will be able to faster than its normal transaction speed. So I don't think that will be a problem. The problem right now is that if bitcoin will be a payment method, it is so volatile. As price changes, that means the value of that thing will always be changing too.

Volatility has always been the unique characteristic of bitcoin ever since. But i believe this will given a solution once the government will come to support bitcoin and end up mass adoption. And even if bitcoin will not end up surpassing the fiat system, it's not really a failure knowing it has become a good alternate payment system.

[FlightyPouch]

That's right, until we are able to increase the speed of Bitcoin network as well as improving it's scalability it can never outweigh the performance of making Fiat payments. Right now Bitcoin is better  seen as a store of value more than a currency.

Lightning network is the solution for this problem. With this network, the transactions will be able to faster than its normal transaction speed. So I don't think that will be a problem. The problem right now is that if bitcoin will be a payment method, it is so volatile. As price changes, that means the value of that thing will always be changing too.

Volatility has always been the unique characteristic of bitcoin ever since. But i believe this will given a solution once the government will come to support bitcoin and end up mass adoption. And even if bitcoin will not end up surpassing the fiat system, it's not really a failure knowing it has become a good alternate payment system.

No, why would I want volatility to die becauae of the government? That just means decentralization will die too, the governments will be controlling the price too. I don't want that, the reason I use this price despite the profit I am getting is also to get out of that zone where the government control and take advantage of their power. It may not surpass other payment method, that is fine as long as it is the bitcoin I am used to know

[tbterryboy]

Hello ,
I completely agree with you , as for me the traditional methods of payment have more options , are more easily accessible , doesn't need the internet and overall are the most dominant form of payment .
But there are some places where they do lack and where the Bitcoins can come into play .
Like you can consider payment made internationally, when you pay in bitcoins , you have to ultimately pay very less 1/3 as the fee , considering a large amount .
Also at the same time we can also use the lightning network for a number of transaction that might be considered secret .

Bitcoins would be beneficial in terms of international payments as the traditional methods of payments usually charge a lot hectic fees for sending transactions over the nation boundaries. Bitcoins would help us in that case because borderlines does not affect the fees for the transaction of bitcoins. We need to same transaction fees for sending bitcoins to the next door and even the same amount of fees for sending over nations.

This makes it easier for people who transact globally to adopt bitcoins but for the remaining who transact within their nation would never feel bitcoins are a convenient mean for payment. Transacting with traditional methods like cash, card, etc would be suitable for those people.

[tz]

It will be hard to get 100 of the top banks to all put in 20 million in order to set up a new mining station/purchase already running ones. Some of them may have interests in crypto-currency (when crypto gets huge, there is going still to be a need for centralized services, and some banks are definitely looking towards creating a business on that, we've seen some exchanges from banks.

Sure, you've listed 10 or so banks that lose a shit ton of money. Can you do that with the other 90 or so banks? Do you think that every single bank will be able to reach a single conclusion, they all are extremely powerful and it's similar to how world-wide trading discussions fail. A crowd of people with huge amounts of power, means it's very, very hard to reach a single decision (even though it might be good for them all).

Just take a look at the DOHA round as a decent example.

Interesting thread, however.

[pakhitheboss]

I've been for cryptocurrencies from when I first heard about it and got involved back in 2013. There are some pros to having Bitcoin as the future method of payment however there are some cons too.

It would be interesting to see why you think Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies) will surpass traditional methods of payment (Cards, Bank transfers, payment gateways etc.). Or if you think they have no future please share why.

Some of my concerns:

• Ever since a few people have made a fortune from the massive spike in prices, it's attracted a lot of traders and day traders. Not a bad thins but it's clear to me that easily 90% of cryptocurrency users are just traders with no intensions of using the currencies. Hence the rise in a lot of exchanges (a lot of which look the same).
• All it takes is 51%. Although for a coin such as BTC would be very expensive to attack the network it's still possible.
  
  Here's my insane scenario:
  
  100 top banks from across the world don't like the threat BTC has on their business so they all join together to buy compute power, take over the network and cause havoc. I estimate it would cost around $2,000,000,000 (2 Billion USD). This is very expensive but what's $20,000,000 (20 million USD) to a top bank? That's an investment to help protect their business.
• Speed: BTC is known to be slow to confirm a single transaction (approx 10 mins). ETH is faster (approx 15 seconds). I believe (correct me if i'm wrong) that if you cut down block times it slowly starts to make a decentralised system more centralised.

Food for thought..

It is too early to come into any conclusions now. At the moment you cannot compare Bitcoin with big payment processors like banks. Still a lot of development have been going on. With the recent development of lightning network you can now send a small amount like 1 Satoshi. Earlier it was not possible.

Banking system did not evolve within a decade it took time to create such a massive infrastructure. By the way you still cannot send small amount through banking payment system but, you can now by using Bitcoin lightning network.

[TheGreatPython]

It would actually be a lot strenuous for bitcoins to surpass the traditional methods of payments.
Traditional methods of payments are been made to ease the transactions in between people of the same country.

There have been a lot of methods implied for oversea transactions so people do not really assume to use bitcoins as a payment method because they are already meant as an currency for investment and to multiply our profits with. Traditional ways are been easily available for a lot of people who are not tech driven and I think this would never allow bitcoins to overtake that position. Bitcoins are doing great but they are not assumed to get legalized soon which would never allow them to surpass the traditional means of payment.

[yslyv]

Only 10 years ago, not more; there were people saying that credit cards and debit cards will not surpass cash for shopping. In my country, 90% pays by cards for shopping nowadays. So better solutions will always surpass the previous ones.

[supercanada1]

I've been for cryptocurrencies from when I first heard about it and got involved back in 2013. There are some pros to having Bitcoin as the future method of payment however there are some cons too.

It would be interesting to see why you think Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies) will surpass traditional methods of payment (Cards, Bank transfers, payment gateways etc.). Or if you think they have no future please share why.

Some of my concerns:

• Ever since a few people have made a fortune from the massive spike in prices, it's attracted a lot of traders and day traders. Not a bad thins but it's clear to me that easily 90% of cryptocurrency users are just traders with no intensions of using the currencies. Hence the rise in a lot of exchanges (a lot of which look the same).
• All it takes is 51%. Although for a coin such as BTC would be very expensive to attack the network it's still possible.
  
  Here's my insane scenario:
  
  100 top banks from across the world don't like the threat BTC has on their business so they all join together to buy compute power, take over the network and cause havoc. I estimate it would cost around $2,000,000,000 (2 Billion USD). This is very expensive but what's $20,000,000 (20 million USD) to a top bank? That's an investment to help protect their business.
• Speed: BTC is known to be slow to confirm a single transaction (approx 10 mins). ETH is faster (approx 15 seconds). I believe (correct me if i'm wrong) that if you cut down block times it slowly starts to make a decentralised system more centralised.

Food for thought..

It is too early to come into any conclusions now. At the moment you cannot compare Bitcoin with big payment processors like banks. Still a lot of development have been going on. With the recent development of lightning network you can now send a small amount like 1 Satoshi. Earlier it was not possible.

Banking system did not evolve within a decade it took time to create such a massive infrastructure. By the way you still cannot send small amount through banking payment system but, you can now by using Bitcoin lightning network.

These features make Bitcoin system more reliable over traditional ways of payments. As you said that it can be used for making even smaller payments, it is more secure, easily used and highly benefited. The present banking systems are not liked by the nations because of the taxes also, their working and the centralized nature of them , this involve third parties in their payments.

[iamsheikhadil]

You are right on saying that. However, I think that although crypto might not be a good alternative to fiat and such payment methods, the decentralization is very much needed in the modern world as institutions and businesses are making the wealthy wealthier and poor poorer by their manipulative techniques. Every pros come with cons, it's just how we manage to milk out from it.