Bitcoin has a bad reputation (we should fix it)

[raidarksword]

Likely bad people making bad names on bitcoin because they were using it for bad intentions and is the disadvantage of bitcoin. Still there are lots of good things that bitcoin brings to the people who has good intentions to bitcoin's usage. More good usage of bitcoin and less bad about it

[Wexnident]

Hello everyone!
I've been thinking a lot about Bitcoin adoption lately and I think that adoption is still pretty slow partly because of the Bitcoin reputation. Despite it being a progressive technology of the future, a lot of people still think that it's a joke.

I'd personally think I'm the joke if I fuck up my entry by buying high and selling low, but hey, it's a lot easier to blame something else instead of yourself.

I think it would be good if we can convince these people that they are wrong. I know that an obvious way to do it would be an education, which will help A LOT. But as for now, do you think there are other ways to change these people's opinions?
Like would it be good if we could create a system that somehow will make the life of criminals who use Bitcoin harder?

I don't think we need to do anything with regards to criminals, the government is doing its stuff about that (and is affecting also other regular uses unfortunately), and even then, they aren't exactly wrong that it's being used for criminal activity, I mean, if it was biased about that then it wouldn't be decentralized anymore. It's just that the first notion people see Bitcoin as is for "criminal usage", so we should change that to "anyone without being controlled" instead. Sadly with a bit of looking up this can easily be clarified, but well, idk. The internet was supposed to make looking up info a lot easier but it seems like a lot of people regressed in that regard instead.

[BVeyron]

Hello everyone!
I've been thinking a lot about Bitcoin adoption lately and I think that adoption is still pretty slow partly because of the Bitcoin reputation. Despite it being a progressive technology of the future, a lot of people still think that it's a joke.

So there is different opinion among people about Bitcoin. Some people consider Bitcoin as "criminal money" because it's often used on the dark web and helps criminals to get away with selling drugs and stuff.
There are also people who think that Bitcoin is a bubble that will explode and lose its value, so they don't trust it. It's probably because these people don't know how Bitcoin and blockchain work.
And there is a third group of people who think that Bitcoin is used just for gambling so they don't want to buy it.

I think it would be good if we can convince these people that they are wrong. I know that an obvious way to do it would be an education, which will help A LOT. But as for now, do you think there are other ways to change these people's opinions?
Like would it be good if we could create a system that somehow will make the life of criminals who use Bitcoin harder?

The actual problem of BTC is, in my opinion, weak psychological perception, while fiat money have adorable effect. Most people got used to fiat money just because they believe in its reliability (though the reliability of a y fiat currency is far not that strong), and one more thing for psychological acceptance is good infrastructure: for fiag money there are ATMs, branches, all the shops/banks/employers are in favor of working with fiat, and there is no such infrastructure for BTC: none of financial structures are ready to work directly with bitcoin. While the system remains the same, BTC will remain no more than a way to earn fiat.

[cryptosize]

Bitcoin is like cash: it's for everyone.

If you're going to punish criminals, chances are you're going to punish good people too...

[justdimin]

The actual problem of BTC is, in my opinion, weak psychological perception, while fiat money have adorable effect. Most people got used to fiat money just because they believe in its reliability (though the reliability of a y fiat currency is far not that strong), and one more thing for psychological acceptance is good infrastructure: for fiag money there are ATMs, branches, all the shops/banks/employers are in favor of working with fiat, and there is no such infrastructure for BTC: none of financial structures are ready to work directly with bitcoin. While the system remains the same, BTC will remain no more than a way to earn fiat.

I think it is not reliability or anything like that, it is not even "liking" fiat, I think it is just the wide adoption. For example if you live in any nation, the fiat of that nation would be accepted everywhere, doubt it would be possible to go anywhere and not be able to pay with that fiat, whereas we all know crypto is not like that right now and that's an issue. All in all I would expect that the people who end up not really using it would be the people who go towards crypto anyway.

So, when it comes to crypto vs fiat, the biggest difference and the reason why people prefer fiat is the fact that it is already accepted everywhere and can pay anything you want with it. As long as crypto goes up in adoption, we will get there.

[franky1]

Bitcoin is like cash: it's for everyone.

If you're going to punish criminals, chances are you're going to punish good people too...

cash is artwork patented by the government. its their property that they can inflate, seize or take out of circulation. bitcoin is not like cash

bitcoin was better when it was private property(2009-2014).. before it was declared money and financial laws started marginalising bitcoins utility with services.

but even classed as money, bitcoin is better then cash.

but just keep in mind, now its declared as money it means financial laws DO apply. so research that
its not government property but it is in government jurisdiction(regulations)

[Hispo]

Bitcoin is growing very fast, if you try to compare which asset class in the past has achieved similar achievements as bitcoin? Almost no asset can grow as fast as bitcoin. Bitcoin is only 14 years old, too young for the world economy to be in a hurry. For a revolution to be successful, it takes a lot of time and effort to get there.

And bitcoin still needs more time to be able to get support from people out there and be able to accept bitcoin as we have done. There is no doubt that the existence of bitcoin has reached its current level and will continue to grow.

But we all believe that more people will accept bitcoin because they will see the potential of bitcoin for their lives. And when those people have proven it, they certainly don't want to leave bitcoin.

I would personally never like to go back into centralized payment processors like Paypal after I have discovered the way to store my money in a cold wallet and how to sell just what I need through P2P.

The terms of service of Paypal are just very bad and if you take a look a their subreddit, you will find a lot of people having problems with seized funds and frozen accounts for whatever reason.

It can get worse for people which live outside of USA or Europe and do not have a easy way to legally reach out to Paypal and get answers.  

Once you learnt how to operate with BTC and altcoins, it makes several FIAT processors to look like shitcoin wallets.

[michellee]

Bitcoin is growing very fast, if you try to compare which asset class in the past has achieved similar achievements as bitcoin? Almost no asset can grow as fast as bitcoin. Bitcoin is only 14 years old, too young for the world economy to be in a hurry. For a revolution to be successful, it takes a lot of time and effort to get there.

And bitcoin still needs more time to be able to get support from people out there and be able to accept bitcoin as we have done. There is no doubt that the existence of bitcoin has reached its current level and will continue to grow.

But we all believe that more people will accept bitcoin because they will see the potential of bitcoin for their lives. And when those people have proven it, they certainly don't want to leave bitcoin.

I would personally never like to go back into centralized payment processors like Paypal after I have discovered the way to store my money in a cold wallet and how to sell just what I need through P2P.

The terms of service of Paypal are just very bad and if you take a look a their subreddit, you will find a lot of people having problems with seized funds and frozen accounts for whatever reason.

It can get worse for people which live outside of USA or Europe and do not have a easy way to legally reach out to Paypal and get answers.  

Once you learnt how to operate with BTC and altcoins, it makes several FIAT processors to look like shitcoin wallets.

I've rarely used Paypal since I got to know crypto. I don't like Paypal's rules that are too complicated or strict where if there is even the slightest discrepancy, our account can be locked and take days to be unlocked.

But I believe that even though bitcoin gets a bad name because of irresponsible investment programs that have deceived many people or because of using bitcoin for criminal things, bitcoin will come back with a good name. People will see bitcoin as something that can give them hope.

[Gallar]

Actually, if it leads to the realm of crime, it's not just bitcoin that is misused for crimes, in my opinion the number of crimes caused by misuse of bitcoin is very low, compared to the number of crimes caused by other things, such as money or gold jewelry.
So actually what makes people dislike bitcoin is caused by slanted news about bitcoin, maybe it's fake news, or real news, but it's exaggerated by certain parties.

And to create a good image for bitcoin, I think bitcoin already has a positive image among crypto investors. But if in ordinary society, it seems that there are still many who think neutral and do not find out or analyze bitcoin, especially in my country, there are still many people who are foreign to bitcoin.

In conclusion
according to my view and judging from the situation where I live,
Bitcoin already has a good image among crypto investors, but it doesn't yet have a good image among people who are half-assed in bitcoin, and is still neutral among people who know, but don't want to know more.

[tbterryboy]

I am not sure that if you know this or not, but these things have been happening right from when Bitcoin first started going up. People used to call it a bubble, a criminal's currency that they used for illegal activities, they even called it useless and something that isn't worth any attention, but did that really make a difference for Bitcoin and its growth? The answer to that is in front of us.

Even if the adoption rate is slow, it will still not stop Bitcoin at all, and we all know that it cannot continuously keep going up since we know there are cycles of growth and drop, so whenever it starts dropping, people will start talking negatively about it, but at the end of the day, it won't stop Bitcoin from being what it is.

[avikz]

Hello everyone!
I've been thinking a lot about Bitcoin adoption lately and I think that adoption is still pretty slow partly because of the Bitcoin reputation. Despite it being a progressive technology of the future, a lot of people still think that it's a joke.

So there is different opinion among people about Bitcoin. Some people consider Bitcoin as "criminal money" because it's often used on the dark web and helps criminals to get away with selling drugs and stuff.
There are also people who think that Bitcoin is a bubble that will explode and lose its value, so they don't trust it. It's probably because these people don't know how Bitcoin and blockchain work.
And there is a third group of people who think that Bitcoin is used just for gambling so they don't want to buy it.

I think it would be good if we can convince these people that they are wrong. I know that an obvious way to do it would be an education, which will help A LOT. But as for now, do you think there are other ways to change these people's opinions?
Like would it be good if we could create a system that somehow will make the life of criminals who use Bitcoin harder?

Bitcoin has bad reputation because the organized financial sector promotes it under bad light. Whenever they found some involvement of bitcoin with some criminal activities, they promote it in a way as if bitcoin has done it. That's not going to change anytime soon.

Don't convince people, that will bring more trouble. Rather start some philanthropic work with bitcoin and promote it in the best way you can. That's one of the major ways to slowly change the mind of the people about bitcoin.

[kizlod]

I am not sure that if you know this or not, but these things have been happening right from when Bitcoin first started going up. People used to call it a bubble, a criminal's currency that they used for illegal activities, they even called it useless and something that isn't worth any attention, but did that really make a difference for Bitcoin and its growth? The answer to that is in front of us.

Even if the adoption rate is slow, it will still not stop Bitcoin at all, and we all know that it cannot continuously keep going up since we know there are cycles of growth and drop, so whenever it starts dropping, people will start talking negatively about it, but at the end of the day, it won't stop Bitcoin from being what it is.

True, I don't think it will be gone completely. People talk like that only when they don't really understand Bitcoin, but more and more are getting involved with years, so I think it doesn't really matter. New technologies are almost always feared or misunderstood when they appear.

[bakasabo]

The media has already created a bad image for Bitcoin. I think it will extremely hard of not impossible to change majority of peoples opinion on Bitcoin. It is easier to write about Bitcoin in bad color, people desire to get negative news more than positive. Lots of people havent used or have zero knowledge about Bitcoin, yet thanks to media they automatically connect Bitcoin with criminals, terrorist, drugs, scam, ponzy and etc. Frankly speaking, I dont know how to fix Bitcoins bad reputation.

[Alpha Marine]

It would be unnecessary to convince them to believe to Bitcoin if their mindset is fixed to it as a "joke". That's actually just fine for people to intercept Bitcoin since it's too complicated for people who doesn't have prior knowledge about it. If they want to really deepen their understanding to crypto and blockchain technology they would learn if for themselves, you only have to share your experiences without convincing them, for them to have an idea what could Bitcoin benefits and cons its up to people if they'll study it. Criminals are opened to Bitcoin since it is a decentralized system but their addresses could be track for people to be aware on their wrong doings. Doing such system for making people life harder would just complicate things, its just fine the way it is.

Totally unnecessary my bro. I do educate people on Bitcoin but it's only those that have shown an interest. I'm not about to start trying to convince someone who thinks Bitcoin is a bubble or scam that Bitcoin is not either of those things. It will be a total waste of both our time, and I hate wasting people's time just as much as I hate my time being wasted.

If people have been hearing about a particular digital asset for at least 14 years, some 10 years, some 5 years and they've not bothered to really research and find out what this digital asset really is, then it simply means they're not interested and that's totally fine. Everybody can't invest in the same thing.

I get sick of people who always blame Bitcoin for crimes. It's like blaming the gun for gun violence instead of the asshole who shot the gun. It's like blaming the internet for internet fraudsters instead of the actual perpetrators of the crime. It just doesn't make sense to me. Whatever crime they're accusing Bitcoin of has been in existence years before the existence of Bitcoin and they've not been able to categorically show us facts on how Bitcoin has increased these crimes.

[Mpamaegbu]

Like would it be good if we could create a system that somehow will make the life of criminals who use Bitcoin harder?

You've been here almost as long as I've been as we got registered on this forum the same year. As such, I believe you've seen worse days for Bitcoin than we've now. Remember, in 2017 and the years before it we had the tag of Bitcoin being a bubble? Do we still have people think that way today? Of course not. The thing is that no matter how good or bad something is there are going to be people who will take a divergent view on it. If you asked me, I would say Bitcoin is having a better time now that in the past. More people are becoming fans, and many more are going to join as time goes on.

Before the advent of Bitcoin, we had all kinds of criminal activities involving fiat. So, we shouldn't make it look like money laundering and financial criminalities are coming up because of Bitcoin.

[majeed]

...
I think it would be good if we can convince these people that they are wrong. I know that an obvious way to do it would be an education, which will help A LOT. But as for now, do you think there are other ways to change these people's opinions?
Like would it be good if we could create a system that somehow will make the life of criminals who use Bitcoin harder?

It's wild how folks have totally different takes on Bitcoin. While some peeps think it's the way of the future, others straight-up call it a joke or even dirty money. But if you ask me, Bitcoin's got way more potential than folks give it credit for. Yeah, it's been used for some shady business before, but that don't mean it's all bad. In fact, the tech behind Bitcoin, called blockchain, could be a game-changer for lots of industries, making them way more secure and efficient. So let's not get rid of the good stuff just 'cause of a few bad apples, ya feel me?

If we wanna change people's minds about Bitcoin, education is key. We need to teach folks how blockchain works and how it can be used for good. But we also need to address their concerns about Bitcoin's past. Maybe we can create a system that makes it harder for criminals to use Bitcoin without infringing on the rights of law-abiding folks. That way, Bitcoin can be seen as a positive force instead of something shady. Exciting stuff is on the horizon, folks!

[ImThour]

Here are some reasons I think people take Bitcoin as a joke or have a bad reputation in their mind for it:

1. They can't afford it at all. 1 complete BTC is impossible for 90% of people in Crypto. That's why they make a joke out of it and keep buying thousands of doge.
2. Look at gold, people from Crypto Industry make jokes about it and it worked for more than 2000 years as a store of value. Bitcoin is the same, just on the blockchain.
3. Transaction speed - this is what I agree with people, it takes ages to get a confirmation on deposits and withdrawals if you use it on any platform for payments.
4. It was basically used hugely by drug dealers and the black market in the early days, so some stock market investors don't take it seriously, in the end it's their own loss.

I am a proud BTC Investor and will treat it as a piece of brick of gold. 

[MainIbem]

One of the major problems we are facing today with bitcoin is the process of trying convince people to buy the idea of this new technology, probably making investment. The only way it would have been possible is to implement it as course of study across all schools both the Primary, Secondary and Universities, this would allows an inbuilds mentality for the users to have separate and a clearer orientations and how bitcoin is being operated than just thinking of investment. The investments parts of have really made it's current users not to understand what is bitcoin and the purpose of the origin of bitcoin, the investments aspect keeps scaring people away due to the high level of volatility.

[siedemtrzy]

Here are some reasons I think people take Bitcoin as a joke or have a bad reputation in their mind for it:

1. They can't afford it at all. 1 complete BTC is impossible for 90% of people in Crypto. That's why they make a joke out of it and keep buying thousands of doge.
2. Look at gold, people from Crypto Industry make jokes about it and it worked for more than 2000 years as a store of value. Bitcoin is the same, just on the blockchain.
3. Transaction speed - this is what I agree with people, it takes ages to get a confirmation on deposits and withdrawals if you use it on any platform for payments.
4. It was basically used hugely by drug dealers and the black market in the early days, so some stock market investors don't take it seriously, in the end it's their own loss.

I am a proud BTC Investor and will treat it as a piece of brick of gold. 

At first, I thought that you were wrong about BTC price, but regular people don't even know that you can buy a fraction of it. At other things I completely agree, sometimes even I'm scared when I'm buying my Bitcoin and waiting for more than 15 for it to arrive.

[Bpcryptohub]

I think education is the best way to change people's opinions about Bitcoin and blockchain technology. With education, people can learn about the technology, its use cases and the potential benefits it can bring. You can start by creating a website or blog that explains the basics of Bitcoin and blockchain technology and how it can be used in a positive way. You can also create informational videos, tutotrials and other materials that will help people understand the technology better.