Bitcoin as a Mainstream payment method

[Bananington]

and some of the people there dislike the idea of bitcoin and crypto. So, I was wondering why, but didn't bother to ask them since it's their own preference, and so it cross into my mind that "What does BTCitcoin needed in order to become a mainstream payment system? "

You see some of the people you met on you social media platform that disliked the idea of bitcoin and crypto will be influenced to have a change of opinion when everybody around them, people that they have close relationship with begin to accept and use bitcoins. Many of them will have a change of opinion and not be able to tell you because they will know how myopic they were to not just like bitcoins then without ever using it. Before bitcoin will become a mainstream payment method, there has to be mass acceptance first.

[michellee]

I'm just thinking about the wider adoption bitcoin can achieve so that more people will use it. Even though the government has not approved the use of bitcoins in their country, people can use bitcoins on the internet freely as we do today.

The second is acceptance from the government, which finally allows using bitcoin, even from an investment perspective. It will open up opportunities for bitcoin to be accepted by even more people because they will see what bitcoin can give them. And they will try to own more bitcoins. But it's probably government acceptance that bitcoin needs most because if the government doesn't allow it, people can only use bitcoins clandestinely.

[avikz]

As the title implies, we all know that, almost the whole world knows about the existence of bitcoin and cryptocurrency, the problem is although more and more people are becoming aware of it, there're still barriers preventing them on using crypto. I have been into this social app called MEEFF(recommended by a friend of mine), and some of the people there dislike the idea of bitcoin and crypto. So, I was wondering why, but didn't bother to ask them since it's their own preference, and so it cross into my mind that "What does BTCitcoin needed in order to become a mainstream payment system? "


I know some of you would say improvements of Security, Scalability, and User Experience, but aside from that, What is the most needed for BTCitcoin right now?

Legal framework by the government. This is the only thing needed for bitcoin to become the mainstream payment method. Otherwise no matter whatever innovation is happening around bitcoin, it won't become a mainstream payment method, ever!

People still trust the governments and their backing. So unless it is in place, nothing would happen and bitcoin will remain as a parallel economy.

[ShowOff]

Government regulation is the main barrier most likely to make bitcoin a mainstream currency as a means of payment. But how is this possible, that's because the government has not legalized bitcoin as a means of payment in many countries. You may have noticed it already, but there is good hope for the future if the superpowers and western countries adopt it.

I do not expect fiat to be replace by crypto, and instead these two payment systems will be used where fiat will remain the main means of payment and bitcoin as an alternative. I tend to think that someone will use bitcoin more for investment than as a means of payment, I think that is the majority at this point.

[stompix]

I know some of you would say improvements of Security, Scalability, and User Experience, but aside from that, What is the most needed for BTCitcoin right now?

Mainstream as in every average Joe using it daily? It needs:
- less volatility
- way cheaper transaction fees (than now), yeah, including opening a channel in LN, 30 cents might now be much but make that 2 times a day each month and you have 10% of minimum wage on nearly two continents.
- a ton of education that the average Joe is not going to get this decade
- a ton of knowledge on how to keep your funds safe the average Joe will not get either.
- the average Joe to stop hoarding it believing it will get 100x by December and actually using it

Cards are considered mainstream but from what you can see in Nigeria happening now even these have problems getting used by the majority of the population, Bitcoin is one step further away as you need more than just swiping a card at an PoS.

But the biggest problem which has obviously no solution other than entrusting your funds to a 3rd party is that a lot of people really don't like to be in charge of their funds and love to have a guy they can call when a problem arises. Despite how much we love self-custody here and considered it one of the key points in the strength of BTC one also must admit not everybody sees it this way. And simply there will be always some that they will not touch it because of that.

 

[tjtonmoy]

It just needs the right push. How do you become pro? By gaining experience and skills. So if all the people can get a hold of Bitcoin, then they will have to use it. They will learn the way to use it by themselves. It's just the matter of availability and the person to guide them. Also not to mention massive adoption in countries all over the world. If people are introduced to new things, it seems hard to get used to it. But when they do, it becomes fun and easy.

[serjent05]

Aside from the given strong feature by the @op, I believe Bitcoin needs stability to become a Mainstream payment method. The high volatility of Bitcoin discourages merchant from accepting it since they are afraid of the risk of losing value if they accept Bitcoin.  Regulation is another factor.  If many countries accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment then the market can easily transact with Bitcoin and many merchants will possibly take advantage of this to get more customers and sales.

[famososMuertos]

It is a means of payment, and that is happening, there is no drama with that, and it is not the main one, but, in fact the sacrifice or the drive to achieve that is in the hands of the users.

Everything starts from the individual plane, so, people have to try it, take risks, Bitcoin is there, th the Txs flowing.

[Gyfts]

You mean half of the world doesn't have proper access to internet?

It's not literally half, but according to data for 2023, even around 35% of the world's population does not have access to the internet at all, while it is questionable how many people have a permanent and high-quality connection to the internet. Many members of this forum from some African countries have exactly this problem, their internet actually depends on whether they have electricity, and this makes their activities much more difficult - although this is not something specific only to Africa.

But even if we take the 2/3 who have access to the internet, looking at it as a whole, all researchers say that less than 5% of the world's population is in some way involved in cryptocurrencies, and of that number there are certainly many who have invested only in altcoins.

When you draw a line under all that information, then your question cannot get any kind of positive answer, regardless of which aspect of the problem you are talking about (if the problem exists at all).

You're exactly correct. People need to realize that access to internet isn't the only hurdle. Even if people have access to internet, poverty levels within the immediate area are what matters. If internet serves as a luxury and food/water/shelter take priority, it isn't reasonable to expect these people to adopt a digital currency that has volatility in its value.

Crypto is mostly designed for the first world. Trying to make Bitcoin palatable to under developed countries is a challenge.

[KennyR]

Bitcoin to be used as a form of payment is just simple. We can see this happening with more businesses, just a wallet created and the address being shared to receive the transaction. How to make this to be a mainstream payment method needs good support from the government. Adding bitcoin acceptance to every business doesn't looks difficult. Whether people use it or not just have it. In the past people doesn't prioritise wallet payment, now everything is happening out of it. So, it is good to lay the foundation and slowly we can experience better progress.

[Funeral Wreaths]

As the title implies, we all know that, almost the whole world knows about the existence of bitcoin and cryptocurrency, the problem is although more and more people are becoming aware of it, there're still barriers preventing them on using crypto.

Do you think that's true? Well, half of the people in the world don't even have access to the Internet, and even if they heard about Bitcoin, how should they use it if they don't have the basics for it? The barriers you are talking about are primarily infrastructural, although of course there are also those mental barriers for most people who understand economics and finance only to the extent that they know what a bank card and a 4-digit PIN are for.

"What does BTCitcoin needed in order to become a mainstream payment system? "
---
I know some of you would say improvements of Security, Scalability, and User Experience, but aside from that, What is the most needed for BTCitcoin right now?

Forget any mainstream payment method in the sense that you will be able to pay with Bitcoin in every store and for every service, because that will probably never be achievable, especially in countries that strictly control their financial system, and besides, they are among the most populous countries in the world. Bitcoin will always be an alternative, and by no means some kind of coercion that should be imposed by any state or individual.

You mean half of the world doesn't have proper access to internet? It's true that there're people who chose to rely on the traditional system we already have and it is also their choice to believe or use what they want as long as it benefits them. I do get your point coz personally the main reason for me  why it's never unachievable is because of its volatility. That reason alone is enough for people to be hesitant/against on using or implementing it as a mainstream payment system.

forget making it a mainstream payment method, the internet access alone is already a huge problem. aside from internet problems, people also needs to be educated about cryptocurrency, and if there is no sufficient internet making them aware and teaching them about crypto will be a huge challenge. the country which I lived in is one example amongst so many 3rd world countries that are suffering from internet problems. i could say that we have a decent amount of internet in different regions to access social medias and other stuffs, but do you think that's enough?.. no it's not. you should also be aware that crypto relies mostly on modern technologies, and as the technology keeps improving, do you think those countries can keep up? let's just say they could but it'll all end up that those who can invest or use crypto are only those who can afford.

[soramon]

One of the most important requirements for Bitcoin to become a commonplace payment method, aside from advancements in security, scalability, and user experience, is widespread acceptance. As a result, more shops and companies must accept Bitcoin as payment, and more people must use Bitcoin in regular transactions. Increasing acceptance would result in better market stability and liquidity, which would make Bitcoin a more alluring payment alternative for both consumers and businesses. More legal acceptance and regulatory clarity would also assist to legitimate Bitcoin and promote wider usage.

[thecodebear]

For mainstream payment method it needs a few things:



1. Merchants need to accept it
    - Right now in most parts of the world it's very hard to find anywhere that accepts Bitcoin.

2. More users, and users wanting to use bitcoin for payments
    - The reason merchants don't accept bitcoin is because there aren't enough users, and when merchants do accept it sometimes they eventually stop accepting it just because they barely get any customers using Bitcoin. Specifically not just more bitcoin owners but a lot more of those owners want to use bitcoin as payment rather than just investment/savings/store of value.

3. Tax law changes
    - Right now in the US and probably in most countries, when you sell or pay in Bitcoin you pay capital gains taxes on this. This effectively prevents anyone from paying with Bitcoin because it would be a huge tax hassle to keep track of the taxes you owe. And also generally you don't want to spend money and then have to pay taxes on that money later on, it would make more sense to sell the bitcoin, put aside what you owe for the taxes on that, and then have the left over money to buy things. There needs to be tax laws that exempt any bitcoin payments with less than a few hundred dollars in profits from taxes so that people can spend bitcoin for everyday purchases without worrying about being taxed on it.

4. Lightning Network needs to get better and grow much much larger
    - Obviously payments for everyday purchases won't be done on-chain because nobody is going to want to pay a $1 to $10 fee on a small purchase, though of course on-chain can be done for large payments, but >99% of payments would be done through LN. LN works but it is still early on and is still very small and needs improvements in both how it works and in the wallet software so that the average person can use it no problem and the wallet handles stuff like inbound/outbound imbalances, rebalancing, channel closings, etc in a way that makes Lightning usage easily understood by anyone and easily handled by anyone. And the network needs to grow immensely because as said above bitcoin needs a lot more people who want to pay with bitcoin so there needs to be millions or tens of millions of Lightning users. Also as the network grows and more larger channels get opened the network effect takes place so failed transactions will be few and far between. Basically LN just needs more time to improve and more time to add many times the number of users that are on there today. But of course there is no reason to be on LN if you're aren't making payment in Bitcoin so this will gradually grow hand in hand with greater bitcoin adoption, greater merchant adoption, and tax law changes to allow payments to be done without tax hassles.

Bonus: Bitcoin education
    - The biggest thing holding Bitcoin back is lack of education, misinformation, and bad public optics because of those two things. Most people don't know what Bitcoin is, and most of the people who have a little understanding of what Bitcoin is have probably seen a lot more misinformation on it than anything else, so they usually have a dim view of Bitcoin and think it is something bad because all the information they have is from negative headlines that they then repeat to others. Bitcoin growth in general relies on combating the massive misinformation out there and also helping to educate those who simply don't know anything at all about it.



I'd say those are the basic things that need to happen for Bitcoin payments to go mainstream. It'll happen gradually and it'll take YEARS! Nobody should be expecting bitcoin payments to be a normal thing this decade. Hopefully this decade lays the groundwork for this, ie getting Bitcoin owners well into the hundreds of millions, getting many of those owners though one market cycle so they are well in profit and don't mind spending their money if given the opportunity, many merchants and most large mainstream merchants providing pay by bitcoin options, tax law change to allow bitcoin payments without hassle, lots of improvements and growth in the LN, and bitcoin becoming a bit more normalized to the general public and not viewed through the lens of misinformation so that when people hear about bitcoin they don't think "oh that scammy wasteful thing that I hear is going to zero" but instead think the truth: "humanity's hard money for the digital age". If the groundwork for all that can be laid this decade then perhaps over the course of the 2030s we'll start to see bitcoin payments become mainstream and perhaps there will be tens of millions of people using bitcoin on a fairly regular basis.

[samcoin]

I know some of you would say improvements of Security, Scalability, and User Experience, but aside from that, What is the most needed for BTCitcoin right now?

I think Bitcoin can succeed as a store of value more than a payment system. One of the most obvious reasons is the price volatility, which could cause some problems for business owners if they decide to accept Bitcoin. In addition, there is a person who holds 1 million Bitcoin, that can crash the market at anytime it moves. Moreover, the transaction fee might not be suitable for small value transactions.

[GreatArkansas]

(....)

I know some of you would say improvements of Security, Scalability, and User Experience, but aside from that, What is the most needed for BTCitcoin right now?

For me, since we have a lot of issues with regulations or some government policies regarding Bitcoin, so urgently requires regulatory clarity as several countries are struggling to establish Bitcoin or cryptocurrency regulations, leading to uncertainty for investors and businesses. Creating clear and consistent rules for how Bitcoin should be regulated could make it more stable and help it grow better.

[JayTrain]

It's true that despite the growing awareness of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, there are still many barriers preventing their widespread adoption as a mainstream payment system. In addition to improvements in security, scalability, and user experience, I believe that widespread education and awareness about the benefits and potential of cryptocurrencies is essential. Many people still don't fully understand what Bitcoin is or how it works, which can lead to misconceptions and skepticism.

[Artem Sereda]

Aside from the given strong feature by the @op, I believe Bitcoin needs stability to become a Mainstream payment method. The high volatility of Bitcoin discourages merchant from accepting it since they are afraid of the risk of losing value if they accept Bitcoin.  Regulation is another factor.  If many countries accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment then the market can easily transact with Bitcoin and many merchants will possibly take advantage of this to get more customers and sales.

Stability will increase bitcoin's rating among users, and more companies will accept it as payment. At the moment, bitcoin's reputation as an unstable currency is only making it worse.

[thecodebear]

I know some of you would say improvements of Security, Scalability, and User Experience, but aside from that, What is the most needed for BTCitcoin right now?

Mainstream as in every average Joe using it daily? It needs:
- less volatility
- way cheaper transaction fees (than now), yeah, including opening a channel in LN, 30 cents might now be much but make that 2 times a day each month and you have 10% of minimum wage on nearly two continents.
- a ton of education that the average Joe is not going to get this decade
- a ton of knowledge on how to keep your funds safe the average Joe will not get either.
- the average Joe to stop hoarding it believing it will get 100x by December and actually using it

Cards are considered mainstream but from what you can see in Nigeria happening now even these have problems getting used by the majority of the population, Bitcoin is one step further away as you need more than just swiping a card at an PoS.

But the biggest problem which has obviously no solution other than entrusting your funds to a 3rd party is that a lot of people really don't like to be in charge of their funds and love to have a guy they can call when a problem arises. Despite how much we love self-custody here and considered it one of the key points in the strength of BTC one also must admit not everybody sees it this way. And simply there will be always some that they will not touch it because of that.

Less volatility for sure. Being needs to be much further in its adoption, which will mean it is less volatile until people feel better about using it. But also, once you've owned Bitcoin through on market cycle, and are therefore in profit, volatility doesn't matter so much for using it for spending, because you've made money. The volatility is really only a worry if you might lose money by spending. Once you're in profit it doesn't matter so much. Like someone isn't gonna say oh I'm not gonna spend bitcoin because this thing last week cost 30,000 satoshis but today it costs 28000 or 32000 satoshis. If any of those numbers are in profit for you you're not gonna really care.

I don't think you know how the LN works. You don't open a new channel every time you use it...then you'd just be doing on-chain payments. You'd like say start up a node and open up several channels once, and hopefully not have to open or close any channels for months. You're certainly not opening up a channel twice a day. Twice a month would be a lot. Once a month would be a lot. Opening/closing a channel should be a rare event and you should be doing dozens or hundreds (or more) of payments for every channel open/close.  To make this happen of course you need to be both paying and receiving bitcoin on the lightning network, in which case paying on-chain fees for Lightning operations would be a very rare event indeed.

Education, yes, absolutely. It's gonna take many years for the general public to be educated on Bitcoin. Right now probably like 99% of the public actually thinks Bitcoin is a bad thing! lol. It's gonna take a lot of years to remove the misinformation and the stigma of thinking Bitcoin is a bad thing from a significant part of the public. Hopefully in the 2030s there is a decent amount of the public that are educated not only on the fact that bitcoin is good, and bitcoin mining is good, but also in how to use bitcoin. But yea, Bitcoin payments are definitely not a 2020s thing haha, except for early adopters.

Keeping funds safe goes with education yeah. For cold storage it is simple enough, but for payments its harder. Though honestly the vast majority of the public will be fine using custodial services on LN just because its gonna be wayyyyy more convenient and would be more like trusting a bank, which people are used to, but you get the benefit of bitcoin payments efficiency and of course you can always add more bitcoin to your payment LN account with your long term on-chain appreciating bitcoin. For most people to get to the point of using the LN for payments, they first need to be educated on Bitcoin and get into it as a long term store of value, then once they've been holding for a while and their Bitcoin has appreciated they'll want to use it for spending, and that's where the LN (or potentially other future L2s) comes in, but the LN usage is gonna have to be as simple as using a credit card of Apple/Google play, which means its gonna be a custodial use of LN. If its not as dead simple as using current means of payment people won't use bitcoin for payments but just as a store of value / long term savings on-chain.

The biggest problem you mention, is solved as I already stated, by using custodial services on LN. On-chain cold storage for long term savings, LN custodial wallet for payments. Bitcoin purists will groan at this but 99% of people will groan at running their own LN operation so this is the only way its gonna happen. It's still a huge improvement over the banking system because you've got savings in bitcoin and stored in a sovereign way, and you have LN with same convenience of fiat fintech apps or credit card but more efficient than those.

[kamvreto]

What bitcoin needs now is clarity about regulation, because in some countries Bitcoin regulation is still in a gray area, so Bitcoin adoption cannot be carried out. For those who don't like the idea of ​​bitcoin it is everyone's preference, but it also affects how bitcoin will develop in the future. People who do not like or are against bitcoin will give negative statements about bitcoin, but conversely, for those who like and support Bitcoin they will find Bitcoin as an alternative option for payment and as a more profitable commodity asset. The current government is a huge wall that still blocks bitcoin.

[bosede1]

Firstly, I will say general acceptability like money which is issued as a legal tender in every economy. Secondly, government acceptability for trade also is very important thanks to Binance and other means by which one can trade.