April 2014 - what is the biggest threat to Bitcoin to prevent going mainstream?

[porcupine87]

By mainstream I mean not that Bitcoin replaces the dollar. I mean that Bitcoin can be used as payment for most of the internet companies like ebay, amazon and so on. And a two digit percentage of online buyer use Bitcoin as means of payment.
By "bitcoin is dead" I mean that Bitcoin will never gain in volume significantly. Yes, you can buy stuff with Bitcoin right now, too. But let's face it. At this stage it is small. Really small. If you are no idealist or tester you don't really buy stuff with Bitcoin today...

[redwhite037]

I'm surprised that most people have voted "people don't see an advantage to using it", because that is one of the selling points of bitcoin, that there is a huge advantage to use it over fiat currencies: near instant transactions and international transactions that are equally near instant. Right now it takes weeks to wire money internationally, but with bitcoin, it can be done in minutes to hours. When I talk to skeptics who are hesitant to buy (like my friend at google), the reason they don't want to buy is volatility.

[Nerazzura]

i vote Goverments don't want it/regulate it to death
biggest threat is that, when any country banned BTC, the price drop significantly (especially "big" country like china and russia)
after that, many people are afraid to have BTC. it will prevent BTC going mainstream

for option : People don't see an advantage using it, they just nedd education/deep information about advantage using BTC

is Volatility means not stable in price?

[porcupine87]

I think at this point goverments are one of the biggest threats. Businesses avoid to accept it (investment) because they see other countries banning it.

[ElectricMucus]

Bitcoiners

[TERA]

yup average person is in love with fiat and sees banks and mastercard as far superior store of value and payment system. only technocrats and libertarians see the advantage of bitcoin, which is a minority of people -not mainstream.

[porcupine87]

yup average person is in love with fiat and sees banks and mastercard as far superior store of value and payment system. only technocrats and libertarians see the advantage of bitcoin, which is a minority of people -not mainstream.

It depends. Certainly you will not hold all your money in Bitcoin. For the next time Bitcoin is an investment. 95% buy it because they hope it will increase in value rather than to pay with it. But it might be possible that many people want to hold something like 1000-2000$ in Bitcoin. Just in case. For example if you need to move quick your money. Or to buy stuff conveniantly (maybe cheaper) online etc.

[TERA]

Another thing - When the average person uses their Mastercard, they are paying with credit, using borrowed money. Bitcoin does not facilitate any kind of debt or lending, which supporters will say is an advantage, but the average person wont understand this. The average person is a debt-slave and does not actually have cash on hand to put into something like bitcoin. I keep hearing the argument that more and more usd is printed which means that that USD should flow into bitcoin and raise the price. The problem is, that this USD does not go into the hands of the average person - it ends up only in the hands of wealthy elites! The average person simply gets poorer and poorer (relatively) and starved out due to inflation. Look at the minimum wage and the annual salaries for workers since the nation started ballooning its debt. How much have they increased?

[porcupine87]

Another thing - When the average person uses their Mastercard, they are paying with credit, using borrowed money. Bitcoin does not facilitate any kind of debt or lending, which supporters will say is an advantage, but the average person wont understand this. The average person is a debt-slave and does not actually have cash on hand to put into something like bitcoin.

Are you from the US? I know that the US people spend their money more dept based but why? I am from Germany and I think none of my friends or family members ever bought something credit based (credit cards are not really popular here). Ok, when you buy a house you use a credit. Or I know people who buy a car on credit buy friends talk about that like "How can she/he do that? Spend money you don't have". On the other hand this means that there are no high transaction fees. You pay cash or with your EC card (money on a bank account you acutally have). So the fees are low and I think many people don't know what fees are there, when I buy something on Amazon.com. But it should be 1% or less. So the low transaction fees with Bitcoin are not that big deal. Ok, but Paypal is popular, too and theier fees (2.9%) are well known...

I keep hearing the argument that more and more usd is printed which means that that USD should flow into bitcoin and raise the price. The problem is, that this USD does not go into the hands of the average person - it ends up only in the hands of wealthy elites! The average person simply gets poorer and poorer (relatively) and starved out due to inflation. Look at the minimum wage and the annual salaries for workers since the nation started ballooning its debt. How much have they increased?

But people think that the goverment lends money and pays social gifts with that money which is true. But rich people hold assets and this assets get adjusted immediately. Wages do not. On the other hand there are still pretty low inflation rates. Today there was a big headline that Spain slipped into deflation and how bad deflation is. This might lead to new money printing by the ECB.  

[BitCoinsLOL]

 I voted other. Banks are the biggest threat of all they want our money right where it is. 

[porcupine87]

I voted other. Banks are the biggest threat of all they want our money right where it is. 

But banks can't ban or forbide people or business to use it. They cannot regulate it. If banks want that they have to get goverments to do that!