What's preventing bitcoin from worldwide adoption?

[Xal0lex]

1. Government policies: Most government and financial institutions round the world seem not to want bitcoin cause of the financial freedom it gives to its users. They would want to control and tax the flow of finances of individuals and they probably fear the anonymous nature of its transactions. Some policies even go as far as criminalizing its use.

It is more profitable for most country to regulate bitcoin and create a regulatory and tax framework for it. But it is possible that many countries will start to create crypto-zones, separate localities where bitcoin works as a means of payment.

2. Scammers and fraudulent practices: Scammers have found bitcoin as a safe haven cause of its transactions being anonymous. Also, terrorist groups among other sources get funded by bitcoin also cause of its anonymous nature. Fraudulent practices and transactions are made with ease wth the use of bitcoin.

Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous, with scammers transactions monitored by special agencies and, if possible, pretsupniks. The last major case involved bitcoins stolen from the Bitfinex exchange.

3. Fluctuating value: The value of bitcoin isn't steady as it rises and falls. The uncertainty in the price and value greatly hinders the general adoption worldwide.

Bitcoin is not a stablecoin, it has no task to always be consistently evaluated. Historically, it is always growing.

5. Information hoarding: You could get lots of information about anything on the internet including bitcoin. But the internet can be misleading to newbies cause you could get right and wrong and also misleading information on the internet. It puzzles me that people with an in depth knowledge of bitcoin would purposefully hoard and keep information to themselves. You may think people don't hoard information but in reality, people do. It irksome just thinking about it. If people could share information, newbies won't readily fall prey to scammers.

There is a huge amount of information on the Internet about how to properly dispose of bitcoin. The problem is not that people don't share information, the problem is that many people don't want to learn. They're just driven by the lust for profit. They don't care about the technology itself.

[Mauser]

Your 1. Point is the only real reason in my opinion why governments will not make bitcoins a legal tender all around the world. Politicians are usually in office 3-5 years and maybe get reelected afterwards. During that time politicians rely heavily on the control of money supply. In good economic times the budget is usually balanced and the country spends the same it generates through taxes. But there is usually no real surplus because why would the government reduce debt levels, just to help out future governments? It's better for them to make some tax cuts or give reliefs to some groups and guarante their votes for the next ejection. In bad economic times the government relies of printing new money, issuing new debt to cover any shortfalls. With bitcoins as the new legal tender all that wouldn't be possible again. There would be the need for a government to act much more financial prudent and long term orientated. For the people it would be a good thing, just not for the politicians. That's why they are trying so hard to limit and regulate crypto currencies heavily.

[hatshepsut93]

"Adoption" is a broad term, because there are many potential uses, and Bitcoin might not be used for them for separate reasons. Merchants don't adopt it because there not a lot of demand from their customers, because there's no clear legal framework, because fees can get high at certain times. 10 minute confirmation time can also be pretty annoying, so Lightning Network is needed, but it's not officially released yet. Private citizens or organizations don't adopt it as a store of value because it's very unpredictable in short term. Also it's a purely speculative asset, and many investors aren't comfortable with such assets. Black markets don't adopt Bitcoin because it's traceable.

[DanWalker]

Bitcoin remains to be adopted by every country in the world for various reasons. Here are my thoughts on why..

1. Government policies: Most government and financial institutions round the world seem not to want bitcoin cause of the financial freedom it gives to its users. They would want to control and tax the flow of finances of individuals and they probably fear the anonymous nature of its transactions. Some policies even go as far as criminalizing its use.

Government is the root cause, they never accept something they cannot control. Fiat will remain their favorite tool and will do whatever it takes to stop the growth of bitcoin, if they cannot stop bitcoin their power will be lost.

Once the government accepts bitcoin, I think other problems will be solved soon. If the government recognizes bitcoin and encourages people to use BTC, people will be more interested in it, fraudulent acts will be strictly controlled by the government and the bad news about bitcoin will be gone if the government accepts it.

[franky1]

now i got my rant over and done with. here is my experience from speaking to loads of people around the world and their reasons.

1. fee
its more then their hourly salary, they prefer to us m-pesa and other cheap/free payment transfers

2.chicken and egg
consumers have no local merchants to buy things so see no use-case.. merchants have no consumers asking for it so they see no use-case

3.altcoins are their prefered go to crypto because the onramp (cost to obtain(fee) and cost per unit of medium of exchange seems reachable)

4.hardly any care/talk about government involvement because they all know they can trade offline(face to face) and because they know government cant control bitcoin itself. only the exchanges.
yes people in india/africa(the two biggest population bases) dont care about the government law. people in india/africa still use CRYPTO.. its legal there, infact the CRYPTO market in india/africa is growing super fast.. but the bitcoin growth within that crypto is not growing as fast/same scale.
their main gripe is not the government. but instead that bitcoin fee's price them out of using it compared to using altcoins.

yep ill emphasise this.
governments have not banned crypto or bitcoin in the two largest population zones.. so that is not the reason those populations are avoiding bitcoin. the big reason people avoid bitcoin is because they prefer to use altcoins/altnets due to the fee

5. average joe does not see or read or care about the government stuff. yes MSB(money service businesses/providers) EG exchanges do care somewhat, but they see the crypto laws are the same as the standard fiat laws for MSB's so they dont see much of a problem because they know what to do already and are already setup to AML/KYC their customer because they are already providing their customers with fiat services as part of the exchange so are already doing it

as for mining:
6. heat and asic unit cost
its too hot in places like africa and india (too biggest world population bases) but they dont mine bitcoin because of the average climate temperature is not good for asics. and the cost of an asic unit is not within their wealth to spend to 'hobby mine' bitcoin.
and the electricity reliance is a factor. not all towns/villages have reliable continual electric

[GreatArkansas]

2. Scammers and fraudulent practices:
(....)

I believe this is the main reason also for me why Bitcoin is having difficulty for the world to adopt.
Especially in government, which there are some countries that are very strict when it comes to cryptocurrency, you will notice it in some countries, especially U.S, that's why also most of the cryptocurrency exchanges now are very strict, most of exchanges now got KYC verifications/AML verifications.

[franky1]

2. Scammers and fraudulent practices:
(....)

I believe this is the main reason also for me why Bitcoin is having difficulty for the world to adopt.
Especially in government, which there are some countries that are very strict when it comes to cryptocurrency, you will notice it in some countries, especially U.S, that's why also most of the cryptocurrency exchanges now are very strict, most of exchanges now got KYC verifications/AML verifications.

exchanges offering swaps for FIAT have always had AML/KYC
their business model has not changed or been hindered or altered at all. they have already had compliance officers and data mining analysts/algorithms from day one even before any crypto laws came into play

whats not said or thought about is years ago, hobbyists(no professional experience being an exchange prior) tried running 'boiler-room' scams. (black market exchanges) where they pretended(non-sense thought process) because part of a USD-BTC exchange involved BTC it absolved them of their fiat obligations/responsibilities. and so they didnt KYC thinking they were immune.
those silly exchanges either got shutdown or went legit, not due to any crypto laws. but because governments chased them for their fiat handling, using fiat laws set up decades ago

in 2014-2017 i seen alot of 'localbitcoin' operators either stop operating or start asking for KYC.. not due to any crypto laws but because the fiat laws they were ignoring were suddenly hitting them

[DooMAD]

im not the one ACK/Nacking commits on bitcoin cores github

Exactly.  And for some reason you're proud of your complete and total disregard of the process others choose to follow.  You don't even see how much your approach to this is holding you back and isolating you.  Despite how many times we've spelled it out for you.  But while you're just ranting from your soapbox and screaming into the void while no one listens to you, everyone else is actually working and being productive together.  

I'd bet "Doesn't play well with others" probably appeared on your old school reports a few times when you were a kid.  And you're clearly no better now.  "Collaborate" isn't in your vocabulary.  You think you can be part of a group whilst at the same time believing you can completely ignore the thoughts and opinions of every other person in that group.  Because only your thoughts matter.

You will always get left out.  Every time.  And you only have yourself to blame.  But you'll continue to lash out at others because you've convinced yourself it's their fault for not recognising your genius.

I think the main thing preventing adoption is that people are set in their ways and Bitcoin is new and scary.  A lot of people don't want the responsibility of having to safeguard their own coins, or even learn about the process.  

This rings true.  People are slow to change unless necessity compels them to.  The path of least resistance is to keep following old habits.  And those old habits have always centred around the conventional wisdom that you can trust banks to look after your money.  Yet, even when the global financial crisis gives the world undeniable evidence that they can't be trusted, people keep doing it anyway.  Because it's easier than taking personal responsibility and changing the way they do things.

[franky1]

the same idiots.. doomad oeleo blackhatcoiner. .. boring
all they want to do is say bitcoin is broke, too complicated, restricted, overreached by government. blah blah blah

all so that they can say their altnet is friendly, inviting and useful, sociable, blah blah blah..
yes i dont play with altnetters. and yes i do not fear calling out their crap and their propaganda

you may not like me. but i dont care. i am not trying to be your buddy.
i do not want to be in your group.
me being anti-social to your group is more about your groups motive. not my personality

i know you want some social hug of a certain group i know you want to recruit more people into your cult. i know you care more about collecting people up into a cultish altnet and never letting them escape. but thats your problem.

i already knew for years now you want to play the gold standard.. offer people IOU's with promises they can exit the IOU back to gold. ..but then make it too expensive to get the gold back and make it unattractive to use gold. its not an original idea you altnetters are playing

other people want BITCOIN to scale and grow.. not your altnet
so you play your little social games with your chums and happily hug and kiss them in your blissful ignorance.

meanwhile others will want to talk about BITCOIN adoption
yes go take your dozen altnet centric topics. to the altcoin category. while the rest of us where there are thousands of topics about BITCOIN continue talking about BITCOIN

you think only i want bitcoin to scale.. you are wrong i am not alone. i just dont fear your silly comments. i do not fear calling you out on your adverts

..
your the type of person that would happily kill someone if it benefitted you. and if someone else then tried to stop you or punched and handcuffed you for your actions. you would cry out that they are a socialpath for calling you out and trying to stop you. not even acknowledging that its your actions they are trying to stop because your the one doing more harm to the community

[BlackHatCoiner]

<Misleading nonsense>

Search my history, go ahead, I wonder where will that get you. Yeah, I've said that Bitcoin won't establish a global adoption, but there are reasons other than the block size, such as:

A lot of people don't want the responsibility of having to safeguard their own coins, or even learn about the process.

However, the block size is, indeed, another reason. Maybe increasing it a little bit won't harm, but it'll only blunt the scalability issue. It won't fix the problem entirely unless there's great percentage of decentralization sacrificed, which is why I propose second layer solutions. No need to start this debate, we all know how obnoxious you become when you talk to Lightning "fangirls".

I'd bet "Doesn't play well with others" probably appeared on your old school reports a few times when you were a kid.

Clearly their fault. He was willing to play with everyone, but they weren't eager to follow his rules.

you think only i want bitcoin to scale.. you are wrong i am not alone. i just dont fear your silly comments. i do not fear calling you out on your adverts

Dude, you're definitely not alone. But, there's this thing you've probably misunderstood called "consensus". Support Bitcoin Cash if you want big blocks, no problem. That's the beauty of forks after all. But, please, leave this community alone as the overwhelming majority doesn't agree with you. Dictating does not work in these systems.

[uneng]

Only one reason prevent people from adopting bitcoin: lack of curiosity and interest from average citizens for it.

Bitcoin is accessible to anyone since they have a mobile or desktop device with internet connection. Consequently, there aren't excuses to avoid bitcoin.

There are challenges, risks and dangers in crypto environment, like everywhere else. People just need to be careful and take care themselves on this universe, like they do on the streets, on their jobs, at the bank and so on... Scammers, regulations, volatility, misleading informations are part of our daily life and traditional fiat system. Still, you don't see people stopping dealing with fiat for these reasons, so why would they avoid bitcoin for the same reasons?

[Woodie]

I believe the first two of Government Policies and fraudulent practices are major contributors that discourage many users around the world from getting to use bitcoin. We have too many dishonest players that prey on other people's lack of knowledge on genuine cryptocurrencies that they scam them with fake bitcoins and investment scams promising to pay extra. But with time world adoption will be possible once this knowledge is out there.

[BitcoinMoses]

now i got my rant over and done with. here is my experience from speaking to loads of people around the world and their reasons.

1. fee
its more then their hourly salary, they prefer to us m-pesa and other cheap/free payment transfers

2.chicken and egg
consumers have no local merchants to buy things so see no use-case.. merchants have no consumers asking for it so they see no use-case

3.altcoins are their prefered go to crypto because the onramp (cost to obtain(fee) and cost per unit of medium of exchange seems reachable)

4.hardly any care/talk about government involvement because they all know they can trade offline(face to face) and because they know government cant control bitcoin itself. only the exchanges.
yes people in india/africa(the two biggest population bases) dont care about the government law. people in india/africa still use CRYPTO.. its legal there, infact the CRYPTO market in india/africa is growing super fast.. but the bitcoin growth within that crypto is not growing as fast/same scale.
their main gripe is not the government. but instead that bitcoin fee's price them out of using it compared to using altcoins.

yep ill emphasise this.
governments have not banned crypto or bitcoin in the two largest population zones.. so that is not the reason those populations are avoiding bitcoin. the big reason people avoid bitcoin is because they prefer to use altcoins/altnets due to the fee

5. average joe does not see or read or care about the government stuff. yes MSB(money service businesses/providers) EG exchanges do care somewhat, but they see the crypto laws are the same as the standard fiat laws for MSB's so they dont see much of a problem because they know what to do already and are already setup to AML/KYC their customer because they are already providing their customers with fiat services as part of the exchange so are already doing it

as for mining:
6. heat and asic unit cost
its too hot in places like africa and india (too biggest world population bases) but they dont mine bitcoin because of the average climate temperature is not good for asics. and the cost of an asic unit is not within their wealth to spend to 'hobby mine' bitcoin.
and the electricity reliance is a factor. not all towns/villages have reliable continual electric

Yes, I agree.

On top of that, Bitcoin is running by the Bitcoin profit mongers. Bitcoin supposed to more socially accesable and more beneficially to people. but at the moment only some big rich people buying some bitcoin and hoarding fot future profits.

Bitcoin need a good captain. Bitcoin is like big ship in the middle of a ocean where there are too many bitcoin shark trying to only profit themselves. This was not vision of the Bitcoin invention on the first place. Bitcoin price supposed to be $1 milllion after one decade. But I think, I must recite a magic spell to pust the Bitcoin Bull run faster. If some one can understand my point and join me to plan a strategical plan for bitcoin next stage then definitely it will enlarge the Bitcoin market and many unbanked people will start to invest in bitcoin and use it for making remitance transaction.


 

[freakerbythespeaker]

the three main things that are hindering world wide adoption are:

1. over 50% of the world are on low income. meaning their minimum wage is less than half of the minimum wage of developed countries

this is important because if the transaction fee is ~$1.60 (lows over $1 highs over $3 at time of post)
https://api.blockchain.info/charts/preview/fees-usd-per-transaction.png?timespan=30days&h=405&w=720

where for instance people do not want to be paying an hours labour just to make a transaction.
nor do they want to be paying 10% fee just to spend say $16 funds. ..  meaning they wont use it to buy things for $2-$15 which could be a few days worth of wages or a whole weeks worth of groceries for millions of people
..
there are many corporate/political aligned people in the community that do not want bitcoin to be used by the poorest nations. do not want bitcoin to be used for daily use. they make many silly excuses that are meaningless in the 21st century, but they really try hard to dissuade people from using bitcoin and instead try to off-ramp people into other networks

they want expensive fee's and other things that make it less useful. all to advertise their other networks as the replacement/upgrade people should move over to.

2. aside from the fee cost.. lets take the 'blockchain size'
ethereum is younger yet it is 1tb blockchain, yet no one is crying about their utility causing problems. many many developers have done alot of things to add features to ethereum and make it useful for many things. yet certain people dont want people using bitcoin that is much older but under half the size. they dont want daily use, they dont even want majority to be full node network backbone nodes. they try to mis-inform people to be leacher nodes pretending to be seeder nodes of block data.  they want value locks and then playing around with other networks that dont have the same security as bitcoin

3. aside from the silly excuses of why certain people think bitcoin should not be used by the masses
lets take the altnet argument
there are multiple networks all trying to steal the user-base of bitcoin by calling their network bitcoin[something] whether its pegged networks/forked networks/ or just name fame stealing networks. this dilutes the userbase over multiple networks and makes less people use the actual bitcoin network.
many then lose faith in the actual bitcoin network due to issues with the pretend 'bitcoin' networks. giving the real bitcoin network a bad name,
yep certain people pretend to adore bitcoin while trying to say that bitcoin is broke and people should use something else.

if over 50% of the world cant see value in using bitcoin because the fee is over an hours labour, and the bitcoin developers dont want to actually make it cheaper but do false advertising like making older transaction formats 4x more expensive and then call their new feature a 3x discount(end result is overal fee is higher then before) then those developers have not made improvements to make it useful for the 'unbanked' populations.
if the overal only feature benefit of the same new feature is just to create a format that allows offramping to other networks. you start to see that certain people in the community dont want mass adoption of bitcoin.

[pakhitheboss]

I would say government policies are the main reason. I am from India and recently the government of Indian has passes a bill wherein 30% tax will be claimed by the government for every cryptocurrency transaction. This law came into existence from 1st of April and already local exchanges are reporting a steep decline in volume.

How harsh this tax law is for the community can be explained with this example. If a person buys $100 dollar worth of Bitcoin, the user then has to pay $30 as tax. If the user incurrs a lost of $10 over the  invested amount still taxable amount is $30.

[DooMAD]

the same idiots.. doomad oeleo blackhatcoiner. .. boring
all they want to do is say bitcoin is broke, too complicated,

Nope.  We're saying the fictional version of Bitcoin that only exists in your fractured mind would be far more broken than the entirely real and working Bitcoin we have now.  Your version will never exist, because even if you paid someone to code it for you, they'd get sick of you and your obnoxious, ego-maniacal bullshit in about five minutes and abandon the project.  And even if by some miracle you did somehow get it made, it would be shit and you'd be forked off.  So the only option left open to you is to spout nonsense from your soapbox and accuse everyone else of social drama because you are wholly impotent to enact change.

We like what's being made.  You don't.  We don't need to change course because we are getting what we want.  You claim you don't like where we're heading, but you won't change course.  Yet you keep talking like we are the crazy ones. 

now i got my rant over and done with. here is my experience from speaking to loads of people around the world and their reasons.

But you don't speak with people.  You speak at them.  And if we're talking about things that might be putting the public off, maybe we should consider the chance that one of those things is you.

It wouldn't surprise me if you approach these people and, without even being prompted, you just start blurting out all your delusions about "evil developers", "sinister cults" and your warped notions of what constitutes scaling and they politely stood there and listened, so you just naturally took it for granted that they agreed with you.  I bet the moment the conversation ended, they were just left thinking "I'm glad that fucking headcase is gone".  And then you report back here claiming you've championed the cause, when all you've probably done is made people think Bitcoin users are a bunch of raving wingnuts.  You're probably doing more harm to adoption than good.  If there is a chance you're scaring potential users away, maybe do us all a favour and don't speak to anyone else.  After all, totalitarians make for a poor ambassador for a project offering freedom.

[qwertyup23]

One of the biggest factors on what hinders BTC from worldwide adoption is the technology for it. Majority of the countries are below the poverty threshold, with third-world countries lacking the economic need for them to live. If BTC were to be adopted worldwide, then these people need the technology to transact, which is having at least a mobile phone for them.

Another thing that you mentioned are government policies and prohibitions. The government is obsessed with control- they need to at least know what we are doing and they also have to partake in their own regulations to see if something goes out of hand. That is why, some countries prohibit the utilization of cryptocurrencies due to the latter's freedom in transactions.

[franky1]

boring cries from the altnetter trying too hard to defend his altnet by pretending everyone wants it.
if they really wanted it. everyone would have been using it after 5 years of its existance. but instead there are more topics asking about bitcon adoption and bitcoin scaling not your sily altnet brand

your altnet does not even have a blockchain. it doesnt even use asics it does not have al the security features and audit trails that bitconi does several times an hour
it is nothing like bitcoin
bitcoin never leaves the bitcoin network. so what you are playing with are empty promises of millisats pretending to be bitcoin

understand how your network is different and stop pretending your network is bitcoin.

oh and before you highlight the non-privay nodes that are advertised.. yep your altnet doesnt offer privacy.
take a look at all them chaneels you are preparing to display as your evidence of your altnet adoption. and realise that there are businesses running upto 40+ nodes and within those nodes they are running loads of channels of their own balance
LNBIG(0-43+others)
bitrefill

your altnet is not full of millions of diverse independant people. its full of centralised sybil nodes running lots of channels to pretend they are busy, just playing pass the parcel to rebalance their quickly dropping liquidity. in a snowball affect

this topic is about bitcoin adoptiion. so please take your altnet rhetoric to another category.

[DooMAD]

altnetter
altnet
altnet brand
your altnet
your altnet
altnet adoption
your altnet

You're the only one who sees an altnet.  You are the one who needs to take your delusions elsewhere.  Preferably to a therapist so they can do a psych evaluation.

this topic is about bitcoin adoptiion. so please take your altnet rhetoric to another category.

My reply is on-topic.  Toxic elements claiming to represent the community might put new people off from joining.  Take this encounter for example:

I remember meeting this total loser once, who tried to tell me that he knew who satoshi was because he'd met him.  You know the type.  The really pathetic, socially inept ones who are so desperate for people to notice them that they can't help but make up what they believe to be a cool-sounding story just to get a little attention.  I certainly didn't bother wasting my time asking for proof.  I just mocked him relentlessly for a while until he finally snapped at me.  At which point I told them "Don't be such a lying sack of shit, then".  The best part was, he even tried getting the only friend he had in the room to ask me to leave.  But his friend just completely blanked him, because even they could tell what a lost cause he was.  It was glorious.  He soon went quiet after that.

 
That same guy also tried telling me the Bitcoin developers were tyrants and that elements of the community were some sort of dangerous cult who wanted corporate entities to take over.  If I hadn't already been an experienced user who could see right through their lies, it's possible I might have been fooled into thinking it would be better off to avoid getting involved.  I'd hate to think someone like that is travelling around the world trying to brainwash the unsuspecting masses.  What an absolute lunatic he was.

[Fortify]

Bitcoin remains to be adopted by every country in the world for various reasons. Here are my thoughts on why..

1. Government policies: Most government and financial institutions round the world seem not to want bitcoin cause of the financial freedom it gives to its users. They would want to control and tax the flow of finances of individuals and they probably fear the anonymous nature of its transactions. Some policies even go as far as criminalizing its use.

2. Scammers and fraudulent practices: Scammers have found bitcoin as a safe haven cause of its transactions being anonymous. Also, terrorist groups among other sources get funded by bitcoin also cause of its anonymous nature. Fraudulent practices and transactions are made with ease wth the use of bitcoin.

3. Fluctuating value: The value of bitcoin isn't steady as it rises and falls. The uncertainty in the price and value greatly hinders the general adoption worldwide.

4. Awareness: Nearly not enough effort on creating and spreading positive awareness on it as some government and individuals alike is hell bent on spreading negativity around and poisoning the minds of prospective users. People need to be aware and understand what bitcoin is really about and be awake to its uses.

5. Information hoarding: You could get lots of information about anything on the internet including bitcoin. But the internet can be misleading to newbies cause you could get right and wrong and also misleading information on the internet. It puzzles me that people with an in depth knowledge of bitcoin would purposefully hoard and keep information to themselves. You may think people don't hoard information but in reality, people do. It irksome just thinking about it. If people could share information, newbies won't readily fall prey to scammers.

These are my thoughts on what's preventing bitcoin from being adapted worldwide.

I think you're missing one key element to all of this: the capacity of the network to process transactions at a reasonable speed. There have been vast improvements since Bitcoin was first created but all cryptocurrencies are competing with traditional payment networks like Visa or even Paypal - who are able to process transactions instantly. On top of that, it seems that the higher the popularity of Bitcoin at any particular time, the longer it takes for transactions to go through because the miner processing has limited resources which do not grow or contract quickly to meet demand. This will always be a limiting factor in a proof of work environment.