Coinbase CEO Says Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Must Evolve to Reach Mass Adoption

[20kevin20]

Evolution means, for guys such as Brian, destroying it. The mass adoption some people imagine will never be a thing imo as soon as BTC will keep on being the decentralized crypto it currently is. Considering the way his exchange has "evolved" over time, his words are worth nothing right now for me, so is his supposed solution to the mass adoption. I'm currently fine without a company that is selling its own customers to the government and helping dissolve privacy day by day.

[Eugenar]

The question here is how bitcoin can evolve? Mass adoption is really good, it would make the community bigger which can result in bitcoin inflation, bitcoin will become more prominent all over the world when this thing happens. Bitcoin is already good for some online transactions because we can use it for payment purposes which makes our lives easier. Mass adoption is good but they should learn things about crypto first.

[Tipstar]

We must realize that there's no definite use case of the world cryptocurrency and any blockchain based coin could be considered crypto if they prefer to call themselves. And we cannot force anyone to create anything. The market itself would decide what they want to see and what not. But some external factors like ease of trading and legality too would effect the adoptivness of coins.

[jpnl0006]

Coinbase CEO Says Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Must Evolve to Reach Mass Adoption & other BTC news

Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgm7-E3hrHg&feature=youtu.be

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong thinks Bitcoin and crypto must evolve and become easier to use before widespread adoption can take place.

In a new interview with Peter McCormack, the host of the What Bitcoin Did podcast, Armstrong, who co-founded the leading US crypto exchange, says BTC needs to follow the internet’s lead in terms of usability.

“We have not taken any unnecessary risks with [Bitcoin], and we have ensured that it is going to probably survive the test of time as the gold standard, and we may find other solutions with scalability with layer two. I guess the other way to look at it is, ‘What would have happened if we had found a way to safely scale it?’ Maybe we would not have had a need for some of these other chains that have come up and divided focus.

The Cryptocurrency Portal
https://www.thecryptocurrencyportal.com

Its the consciouness of all crypto enthusiasts at this particular point in time. The efficiency on bitcoin exists only in the blockcjain space and getting people to utilise bitoin will be first educating them on the blockchain space and then bitcoin. so the massive adoption of bitcoin and crypto is neccessary towards dominace of it through the financial industry.

[Yamifoud]

Its the consciouness of all crypto enthusiasts at this particular point in time. The efficiency on bitcoin exists only in the blockcjain space and getting people to utilise bitoin will be first educating them on the blockchain space and then bitcoin. so the massive adoption of bitcoin and crypto is neccessary towards dominace of it through the financial industry.

Less hopes that people will likely utilize their brain learning how Blockchain space will do a favor with them/us. Those who are willing to learn will actually do it himself without any push from the others, the same thing that it happens to massive crypto adoption.

yeah, I'm not looking that way (EVOLVE) just is a need for the people to adopt crypto because it was their intent to do so in the first place. Besides, we can't drag them to hell as Coinbase CEO says because of its high-risk and its volatility feature. But I'd never disclosed a thing to think that mass adoption will come soon even without such evolution takes place.

[Pamadar]

We must realize that there's no definite use case of the world cryptocurrency and any blockchain based coin could be considered crypto if they prefer to call themselves. And we cannot force anyone to create anything.

There's nothing that can do to whatever  the developers or creators wants to do or called with the projects that they've created, it's them to pursue the purposes of their projects.

The market itself would decide what they want to see and what's not. But some external factors like ease of trading and legality too would affect the adaptiveness of coins.

The market or the people around would define if how they understand and how they will support any project around this market.

[DarkDays]

It's true.

Not only is Bitcoin too difficult for the average layman to use, but it's also too complicated to understand.

Do you really think the older generation are going to sit down and take the time to understand about transaction confirmations, decentralized consensus, inputs and outputs etc? This is the same generation that barely knows how to use the internet.

I think we're going to need, at the very minimum:

1. An actual fool-proof wallet that take all the difficulties out of the equation—something like BRD wallet is good for this.
2. A scalability solution that brings the transaction confirmation time to practically instant—similar to DASH's instant spend or something like the lightning network.
3. A human readable address system, similar to ENS.

Until we get these, Bitcoin is only going to grow among the computer literate.

[Leonardo7]

My major issue has always been scaling of bitcoin, as more and more users are carrying out large transactions at same time. I understand we have off-chain transaction too. I wish the lightening network is fully functional and availalabe to all, this will send many altcoin that pride themselves on large TPS as their only underlining technology.

[Carlton Banks]

Bitcoin's USP is not (and never was) "easy to use"


All the people who started using Bitcoin from 2009-2014 were in it because it gave them better money, the banking industry was already making their type of money easier and easier to use, there wasn't much point in trying to outcompete them on UX (it can only be so easy anyway, what's next? money for people who can't count?).

To make that happen, Bitcoin necessitated an innovative & sophisticated design. So at the beginning, it was never going to be easy to use.


Despite this, programmers are making easy to use wallet software (Lightning wallets like Zap or Blue Wallet focus on ease of use, and really that's all that's needed to make increased adoption possible)

But even the basics require some learning. If you don't want to (or cannot) learn about how even the simplest Bitcoin wallets work, it's not for you (or at least not yet).

[Slow death]

Coinbase CEO Says Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Must Evolve to Reach Mass Adoption & other BTC news

the problem is not on the bitcoin side, the problem is on the side of governments that even today still do not know which way they will go (if create favorable laws are created for bitcoin and its entire ecosystem).

I will give an example:

Someone has a girlfriend and tells the girlfriend about bitcoin, but that person cannot withdraw bitcoin using your country's bank and also has no way to ask for the Bitcoin debit card, what the girlfriend will think:

the girlfriend will think that bitcoin is illegal and since she can't use bitcoin in the real world she will hardly want to know about bitcoin

[rollingdice]

That's true, but I want to add that cryptocurrency is easy in use for educated ones. I think mass adoption is impossible when most people have no idea about Bitcoin and how it works.   

[DougM]

That's true, but I want to add that cryptocurrency is easy in use for educated ones. I think mass adoption is impossible when most people have no idea about Bitcoin and how it works.   

Personally I am less concerned about scaling (you can use off chain for micro purchases), ease of use (it could easily be as easy as using Apple/Google Pay via your phone if their was market demand), or comprehension (I don't really understand how Google Pay works, but I use it anyway...maybe not a fair analogy since Paypal, google pay, and apply pay aren't as much of a leap than a bitcoin wallet use). 

I think the biggest barrier to mass adoption in USA is that the IRS considers bitcoins as assets, rather than currency. Therefore US taxpayers must report ALL bitcoin transactions for tax purposes which would be beyond annoying for micro (or even larger) purchases so I don't bother using it.     https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/040515/are-there-taxes-bitcoins.asp

Plus I like my credit card miles so really I suspect the primary target audience would be debit card/cash users right?

[Wind_FURY]

Coinbase CEO Says Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Must Evolve to Reach Mass Adoption & other BTC news

the problem is not on the bitcoin side, the problem is on the side of governments that even today still do not know which way they will go (if create favorable laws are created for bitcoin and its entire ecosystem).

I will give an example:

Someone has a girlfriend and tells the girlfriend about bitcoin, but that person cannot withdraw bitcoin using your country's bank and also has no way to ask for the Bitcoin debit card, what the girlfriend will think:

the girlfriend will think that bitcoin is illegal and since she can't use bitcoin in the real world she will hardly want to know about bitcoin

Is the girlfriend "using" Bitcoin, or trading Bitcoin? Because Bitcoin is censorship-resistant if someone's girlfriend is actually using it.

Does Coinbase use Segwit, and batching to help the network? Help develop Lightning? Liquid?

[Jet Cash]

In my opinion Bitcoin was not created for mass adoption. Its 10 minute block generation time, and 21 million cap will stop that. It is far better if it takes its place alongside gold and silver, and the mass  adoption is left to alternative coins, or even government tokens.

[Wind_FURY]

In my opinion Bitcoin was not created for mass adoption. Its 10 minute block generation time, and 21 million cap will stop that. It is far better if it takes its place alongside gold and silver, and the mass  adoption is left to alternative coins, or even government tokens.

I believe Satoshi, did believe it, but decentralized, censorship-resistant, blockchain on-chain transactions cannot accomodate billions of transactions per day without centralization. Centralizing the network would only turn Bitcoin into an expensive database.

Off-chain transactions layer on top of Bitcoin?

[Jet Cash]

Well I believe that Satoshi was a small tram working for the central banks, and Bitcoin was an experimental project to explore the possible successors to the failing fiat system. Keeping Bitcoin as a store of wealth is a great option, and they probably own more than half of the coins anyway. The next stage will be to own a few of the mining farms. All that is good news for us if you think about it.

[davis196]

The Coinbase CEO isn't relevant anymore.I don't understand what he is trying to say.
Does he mean that the off-chain solutions like Lightning Network are a mistake and a bad thing for the Bitcoin community?
What does he mean by "scaling"?Is he saying that Bitcoin Core has to increase the block size?
This guy is just talking lots of BS and he fails to suggest anything specific that would help for the "evolution"
and mass adoption of Bitcoin.

[20kevin20]

All that is good news for us if you think about it.

How so? If evolving means trying to centralize mining power and wealth distribution, I personally don't think it's good news at all. I am here for the exact opposite of what this so-called "evolution" would be: I'm here to support financial freedom and decentralization.

One might argue that even with a centralized mining power, besides rolling back blocks and censoring some addresses, they can't do much. The thing is, if they'd be controlling all (or the largest part of) the newly mined supply, it would be not much different from what most ICOs and XRP is currently doing. If Satoshi is/was a central bank experimenting on us, then it means we're probably going to see the fundamental ideas of BTC get destroyed, all in a matter of time.

[Leviathan.007]

Certainly evolution is a part of adaption when we are talking about a new technology and currency like Bitcoin. However, Bitcoin is progressing everyday and making it easier to use for people how are interested with it, in the other hand altcoins and other crypto projects are starting to do the same. By rising the price of gold and rise of inflation rate in all over the world, many investors are joining bitcoin project and of curse by doing so bitcoin will need too progress the evolution to answer all these new demands and needs, incoming to it.

[Carlton Banks]

In my opinion Bitcoin was not created for mass adoption.

why not take Satoshi's opinion? he referred to both "goldbugs" and "libertarians", two groups which taken together are quite popular, but certainly not a majority of people

Its 10 minute block generation time, and 21 million cap will stop that.

what possible reason do you have to say that

Well I believe that Satoshi was a small tram working for the central banks, and Bitcoin was an experimental project to explore the possible successors to the failing fiat system.

what possible reason do you have to say that