What Bitcoin mainstream looks like to me, what's yours?

[icalical]

I see what you're saying, but I'd say Bitcoin's already making strong moves to mainstream adoption, and that we can see from recent events. How huge it was that the SEC just approved spot Bitcoin ETFs, allowing such a wide range of institutional investors like BlackRock and Fidelity to invest-in. That makes Bitcoin so much more accessible to mainstream investors, which is a major leap in its adoption. These ETFs are projected to attract significant institutional capital, potentially driving Bitcoin’s price and solidifying its position in the financial world  .

Also, the rise of Bitcoin-friendly regulations and increasing support from both politicians and businesses shows it’s not just niche anymore. Yes, we aren’t at the point where you can pay with Bitcoin everywhere like you can with fiat, but with more companies warming up to it, we’re moving fast in that direction. This shift isn’t just about Bitcoin being a payment option, it’s becoming a serious investment asset, especially with institutional backing. So, while the true definition of mainstream may vary, Bitcoin is definitely closer to it than ever before.

[Findingnemo]

Bitcoin is going to war with pants down while waving white flag instead of arming itself to fight the government.
And people are cheering it up... we don't want privacy, we have nothing to hide, gov would never allow it, exchanges would delist it, investors would go away... It's pathetic.
Bitcoin would never even come to life if everyone was such a P***Y in the first place.

As of today the biggest problem of Bitcoin is it's community who forgot what this is all about.

I would prefer something over nothing and FYI, rejecting and denial is also the part of becoming inevitable. Bitcoin isn't perfect but it's the close to perfect thing we have in terms of true decentralisation which happened after a long journey in 2008 and now we're evolved to certain range from it's initial pace but we can't change the basic principles that's the basic strength of this whole decentralisation.

So any ideas are welcomed as long it doesn't compromise the decentralisation.

Government can intervene so much but when we stop converting BTC to Fiat they can't do anything serious since we're on our own.

[knowngunman]

Another reason to say that we are early is the price of bitcoin. I think every Bitcoin enthusiast here believes that bitcoin will one day get to thousands of dollars in six figures or even million for one, imagine someone that got bitcoin at the price it is today wouldn’t that be seen as been super early on it? So I think with these we can say we are still early

I have the same belief that starting now is still very early. Of course, it can not be compared to adopters who started as early as it was invented but reading through this thread shows that we are early and there is still a long way to go.

Government can intervene so much but when we stop converting BTC to Fiat they can't do anything serious since we're on our own.

And this is the biggest issue because in one way or another we are going to convert to fiat even if assume that BTC is widely accepted. What Op describe as bitcoin mainstream looks unrealistic to me unless we are not ready to witness it anytime soon.

[Outhue]

There is no accurate data that shows that Bitcoin is less accepted or highly accepted in the world today, don't forget that Bitcoin is decentralized, you have to track using the blockchain to know if one makes a transaction or not, even in countries that banned Bitcoin many are still transacting with Bitcoin, no data online can be very accurate about this.

We have gotten so close to mainstream because now even the so-called politicians sees the need to support Bitcoin, if things go as planned the dollars will be backed by Bitcoin, I think this is very big, if it isn't almost mainstream yet why would a president candidate plan to back the USD with Bitcoin?

I have been around crypto for years now and I've never dreamed that one day will come when a presidential candidate of the United States of America will plan to back a centralized world currency with Bitcoin, this is insane, the exposure is growing rapidly.

[Troytech]

It's obvious these days that people use what they need. There are things we do everyday in our life and man cannot do without having doing them. In the Bitcoin feature transactions is one importance of using Bitcoin as an individual. Most person are very active in transacting using Bitcoin in their everyday life. If 98% of the world population sees the need for seamless transactions with Bitcoin then i believe that is what will cause about massive mainstream of Bitcoin.

There is no accurate data that shows that Bitcoin is less accepted or highly accepted in the world today, don't forget that Bitcoin is decentralized, you have to track using the blockchain to know if one makes a transaction or not, even in countries that banned Bitcoin many are still transacting with Bitcoin, no data online can be very accurate about this.

We have gotten so close to mainstream because now even the so-called politicians sees the need to support Bitcoin, if things go as planned the dollars will be backed by Bitcoin, I think this is very big, if it isn't almost mainstream yet why would a president candidate plan to back the USD with Bitcoin?

I have been around crypto for years now and I've never dreamed that one day will come when a presidential candidate of the United States of America will plan to back a centralized world currency with Bitcoin, this is insane, the exposure is growing rapidly.

Bitcoin is only 14 years old and we have seen much massive adoption within this years. We can't compare it to some traditional financial systems especially the US dollar that has existed for over 200 years and still counting. And i firmly agree with you in one point you mentioned, that if the politicians should fully accept Bitcoin and make it norms to the society with low taxes and allow the decentralization to continue then we would see a wider mainstream of adoption. The problem is will the politicians control their greed and ambitions for bitcoin to remain decentralized?

[Findingnemo]

Government can intervene so much but when we stop converting BTC to Fiat they can't do anything serious since we're on our own.

And this is the biggest issue because in one way or another we are going to convert to fiat even if assume that BTC is widely accepted. What Op describe as bitcoin mainstream looks unrealistic to me unless we are not ready to witness it anytime soon.

Why would we need Fiat if Bitcoin is accepted world wide? If you argue that Bitcoin is not capable of transacting thousands of TXs per second it still leaves us with other cryptos to use that's way better and cheaper than fiat but it will take years to complete the adoption like this cause we are now living in the era in between cash is the king and crypto is the future.

Everything looks unrealistic in the beginning, who would have assumed that Bitcoin will reach $70K in 2020?

[EL MOHA]

Another reason to say that we are early is the price of bitcoin. I think every Bitcoin enthusiast here believes that bitcoin will one day get to thousands of dollars in six figures or even million for one, imagine someone that got bitcoin at the price it is today wouldn’t that be seen as been super early on it? So I think with these we can say we are still early

But we're not, that's the reality.

Time will tell but to me we are certainly early, we might not be too early like those who caught bitcoin at three or four digit figures but at a five digits figure we seems to ba at right in time, many would say I have high speculations but with the rise bitcoin has done in 15 years I see it moving higher even if not with Same volatility, a seven figure digit or more is what I predict for bitcoin

People are setting their expectations too high and in my opinion are somewhat delusional about bitcoin. People want to see bitcoin worth millions of dollars and want bitcoin to become a global means of payment. But I don't think bitcoin can be both, bitcoin can only be one of the two. Imagine if bitcoin was worth millions of dollars, what would the transaction fees be? And how could it become a popular means of payment when the transaction fees are so high?

I would not be greedy and more practical, and I would choose bitcoin as an asset, an investment instead of a means of payment. I think bitcoin is an asset that will bring more benefits to people than just being a means of payment.

I don’t think both the high  price of bitcoin and it’s usage as payment method will hinder each other, rather what will hinder both will be lack of adoption. The bitcoin price can still grow to millions in price and still be used as payment method because it is not a must that you need one bitcoin or huge amounts of money to buy bitcoin. It has its units called the satoshi which can be as low as even some cents and this doesn’t hinder it been used as a payment option, the only strong factor that will stop that will be the lack of scalability.

Bitcoin is not scalable to hand large amount of transactions at the moment and that is the only worry we have about it if the scalability issues are solved it can even be billions and the fees will be minimal because it will be paid in satoshi. It is the congestion on the network that causes higher transaction fees not the price of bitcoin both are totally different from each other

[famososMuertos]

Hello, OP.

I find some ideas in your approach to express myself, however, I think that the last phase, regardless of the number you want to give it in the order of previous steps to reach my choice as the final one, is the individual... one always wants to reach this phase with the adjective of adoption, but in reality it is getting late, and individuals do not react to the determination to take bitcoin as an option of its basic premises.

There is a very popular phrase referenced at the time by a religious leader, who said;

"People! wake up and react"

^{Bis with bitcoin.}

[Smack That Ace]

People are setting their expectations too high and in my opinion are somewhat delusional about bitcoin. People want to see bitcoin worth millions of dollars and want bitcoin to become a global means of payment. But I don't think bitcoin can be both, bitcoin can only be one of the two. Imagine if bitcoin was worth millions of dollars, what would the transaction fees be? And how could it become a popular means of payment when the transaction fees are so high?

I would not be greedy and more practical, and I would choose bitcoin as an asset, an investment instead of a means of payment. I think bitcoin is an asset that will bring more benefits to people than just being a means of payment.

I don’t think both the high  price of bitcoin and it’s usage as payment method will hinder each other, rather what will hinder both will be lack of adoption. The bitcoin price can still grow to millions in price and still be used as payment method because it is not a must that you need one bitcoin or huge amounts of money to buy bitcoin. It has its units called the satoshi which can be as low as even some cents and this doesn’t hinder it been used as a payment option, the only strong factor that will stop that will be the lack of scalability.

Bitcoin is not scalable to hand large amount of transactions at the moment and that is the only worry we have about it if the scalability issues are solved it can even be billions and the fees will be minimal because it will be paid in satoshi. It is the congestion on the network that causes higher transaction fees not the price of bitcoin both are totally different from each other

When the price of bitcoin reaches millions of dollars, the price per satoshi will also be many times higher than it is now, so it would be incorrect to say that the high value of bitcoin will not be a barrier to bitcoin becoming a means of payment.

Since bitcoin lacks scalability and I don't think there is a solution to that problem, I never believed that bitcoin could become a means of payment. While Bitcoin has yet to find a solution to the scaling problem, many other altcoins have. If government intends to use cryptocurrency as a means of payment, bitcoin is almost certainly not their choice.

Also, how many people do you think will use high value assets as a means of payment? Are you using bitcoin as a means of payment or are you trying to hold it as long as possible and eventually take profit?

Bitcoin was originally created as a means of payment, but why after 15 years, is it still not used as a means of payment but is only considered an investment?

[Reatim]

The full-fledged acceptance of Bitcoin everywhere is the true meaning of mainstream.

We should recognize that despite the progress of bitcoin, many still do not know what it is, how it works, and why is it valuable.

Certain groups or classes in a country are still unaware of bitcoin. Maybe it’s due to the lack of internet access or just the lack of people around them using bitcoin. We can consider bitcoin mainstream if even those in the streets can recognize bitcoin and tell you what it is. It may not be as accurate and they may not understand it completely but if they are aware of it then we can say it is already mainstream.

Not all things that are mainstream are understood by everyone. It will not be any different with bitcoin. We would just have to hope that the majority of people who know bitcoin actually understands it.

[Abiky]

I am not sure if the centralized world will accept a decentralized payment method, even if Amazon, eBay and other online marketplaces accept Bitcoin as a payment method as they do with fiat currencies, they will impose KYC and we will lose the luster of decentralization and privacy.

So I see it as difficult for Bitcoin to be accepted as a means of exchange in the centralized world unless it is contained by governments through KYC and anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism regulations which will make Bitcoin lose its distinctive features such as decentralization and privacy.

KYC is the only way Bitcoin can become mainstream. Even if many of us don't like it. Either BTC makes governments happy by complying with KYC/AML laws, or it doesn't. They will try to control the cryptocurrency for their own benefit. If governments can't get ahold of the core Blockchain network itself, they will get ahold of the circulating supply.

For mainstream adoption to grow towards new heights, the Internet must be accessible to anyone worldwide. Otherwise, don't expect the whole world to get "digitized" anytime soon. At least we know BTC is the future of money. We're still early to the game. I wonder what Bitcoin's price will be in the long run?

[fikrett]

I am not sure if the centralized world will accept a decentralized payment method, even if Amazon, eBay and other online marketplaces accept Bitcoin as a payment method as they do with fiat currencies, they will impose KYC and we will lose the luster of decentralization and privacy.

So I see it as difficult for Bitcoin to be accepted as a means of exchange in the centralized world unless it is contained by governments through KYC and anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism regulations which will make Bitcoin lose its distinctive features such as decentralization and privacy.

KYC is the only way Bitcoin can become mainstream. Even if many of us don't like it. Either BTC makes governments happy by complying with KYC/AML laws, or it doesn't. They will try to control the cryptocurrency for their own benefit. If governments can't get ahold of the core Blockchain network itself, they will get ahold of the circulating supply.

For mainstream adoption to grow towards new heights, the Internet must be accessible to anyone worldwide. Otherwise, don't expect the whole world to get "digitized" anytime soon. At least we know BTC is the future of money. We're still early to the game. I wonder what Bitcoin's price will be in the long run?

I think there is no cap for BTC, really.
It will become just bigger and bigger, and it can't be said for sure.
Also, you are right - govs are all in if they have control and the tools to control anything, especially, - crypto.