Can Bitcoin realistically power all online transactions in the near future?

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

Bitcoin could be used for all online transactions, but was that the purpose of its creation? I don't think Satoshi had in mind that bitcoin would replace all local currencies and overtake online transactions worldwide. The government in this case would not pass that law, because it would greatly affect the value and relevance of their local currencies, which would in turn affect the economy as well.

Bitcoin is good where it is right now, serving a purpose being used for online international transactions and the rest, anything more than that is unrealistic.

Satoshi Nakamoto did not vision Bitcoin as completely replacement of all online transactions, all payment methods. You can read his emails to some Cypherpunks and no information that he wanted things like that with Bitcoin.

https://plan99.net/~mike/satoshi-emails/thread1.html
https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/finneynakamotoemails.pdf
https://mmalmi.github.io/satoshi/

Only this email about replace the need of a trusted central server.

Email #198
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:03:50 +0100
From: Satoshi Nakamoto <satoshin@gmx.com>
Subject: 0.3.0 released
To: Martti Malmi <mmalmi@cc.hut.fi>

I uploaded 0.3.0 beta to sourceforge and updated the links on
bitcoin.org.  I still need to post the announcement message on the forum
and mailing list.  Here's what I've prepared:

Announcing version 0.3 of Bitcoin, the P2P cryptocurrency!  Bitcoin is a
digital currency using cryptography and a distributed network to replace
the need for a trusted central server.  Escape the arbitrary inflation
risk of centrally managed currencies!  Bitcoin's total circulation is
limited to 21 million coins.  The coins are gradually being released to
the networks nodes based on the CPU power they contribute.  You can get
a share of them just by installing the software and contributing your
idle CPU time.

[Gost ms]

Bitcoin could be used for all online transactions, but was that the purpose of its creation? I don't think Satoshi had in mind that bitcoin would replace all local currencies and overtake online transactions worldwide. The government in this case would not pass that law, because it would greatly affect the value and relevance of their local currencies, which would in turn affect the economy as well.

Bitcoin is good where it is right now, serving a purpose being used for online international transactions and the rest, anything more than that is unrealistic.

The biggest reason why the government does not recognize transactions through Bitcoin is the control of monetary policy. Because the government controls the economy using the interest rate of the central bank, etc. Once the government recognizes Bitcoin for transactions, they will not have this control, because Bitcoin is not controlled by a central bank or any kind of government.

But yes, most people are not willing to transact through Bitcoin at the moment. Because of the volatility of Bitcoin, transaction fees, etc., many people are not willing to transact through Bitcoin at the moment. No one will ever be willing to pay a fee that is more than the price of the product.

[Miles2006]

Bitcoin purpose namely includes freedom, this has to do with transaction also we might be deviating from the real purpose, which brings us to holding bitcoin as a valuable store of wealth.
Bitcoin can’t cover all online transactions, all in this context includes every payment method associated to the internet while bitcoin serves as a reliable means of payment method but, still not everyone will view bitcoin in such manner when majority of people are more interested in trading, investing etc, group of people hoping for such to happen obviously it’s difficult replacing fiat totally.

[Hamza2424]

Volatility is another problem. Only a few users would want to spend money that can go up/down by 5-10% in a single week, so most of the day-to-day crypto transactions currently utilise stablecoins. Bitcoin will likely keep growing in importance as a store of value and settlement layer and potentially as a payment mechanism as well.

People who see volatility as a barrier, they are financially weak, because there are services accepting BTC for a decade now, they are still running because they have cash flows, they can manage their operations, and they did not have to depend on their Bitcoins.

So build a business in a way that you can manage to make it work without the Bitcoins you receive as payments.

Because bro, it's true, in the short term it can lose value. Also, it can be a loss for services in a bull run. They are selling at the same price, so they are getting fewer coins, and in a bear market, they lose, so what they can do is, they can create a strategy that works for them.

Sell BTC payments they receive in a bull run quickly, hold BTC payments they receive in a bear market. This works.

[Alonso_]

Bitcoin purpose namely includes freedom, this has to do with transaction also we might be deviating from the real purpose, which brings us to holding bitcoin as a valuable store of wealth.
Bitcoin can’t cover all online transactions, all in this context includes every payment method associated to the internet while bitcoin serves as a reliable means of payment method but, still not everyone will view bitcoin in such manner when majority of people are more interested in trading, investing etc, group of people hoping for such to happen obviously it’s difficult replacing fiat totally.

Bitcoin was made for different purposes, not just a single purpose, but the transaction aspect is also very crucial in Bitcoin investment, which is why you can’t exclude the transaction aspect of bitcoin, just like we have seen Bitcoin have been moving waves in the transaction space, bitcoin transactions is very fast which is why going forward you don’t have to neglect the fact that Bitcoin would continue to grow and remain fast enough in transaction, Bitcoin transactions is fast and reliable, but I doubt if Bitcoin can cover for all the online transactions in the World, also we have to consider the aspect of scarcity.

[B-BossMan]

Bitcoin purpose namely includes freedom, this has to do with transaction also we might be deviating from the real purpose, which brings us to holding bitcoin as a valuable store of wealth.
Bitcoin can’t cover all online transactions, all in this context includes every payment method associated to the internet while bitcoin serves as a reliable means of payment method but, still not everyone will view bitcoin in such manner when majority of people are more interested in trading, investing etc, group of people hoping for such to happen obviously it’s difficult replacing fiat totally.

Bitcoin was made for different purposes, not just a single purpose, but the transaction aspect is also very crucial in Bitcoin investment, which is why you can’t exclude the transaction aspect of bitcoin, just like we have seen Bitcoin have been moving waves in the transaction space, bitcoin transactions is very fast which is why going forward you don’t have to neglect the fact that Bitcoin would continue to grow and remain fast enough in transaction, Bitcoin transactions is fast and reliable, but I doubt if Bitcoin can cover for all the online transactions in the World, also we have to consider the aspect of scarcity.

It was actually made for different types of purposes, but the Bitcoin is truly more than just a thing we make use of as our payment, I believe people do talks about transactions aspect or how speedy it is, but aside that bitcoin has many things to consider also, like the security aspects and the freedom it gives us when making our transactions from one place to another, we don't need to wait for everyone's approval or governments orders to perform the transactions. Moreover, in terms of power and any other things, bitcoin has already superseded every coins being in network and others. The scarcity may changes if people keep using it and that's how the demanding keep growing higher and its limited supplies keeps remain constant, that's why many investors prefer holding bitcoin for long-term growths that just spending it on a daily bases, in facts, due to how valuable it is, bitcoin do serve different types of roles at the same time.

[internetional]

I believe in the long run, Bitcoin may be used for all online transactions, but I don't believe so for the next few years. It needs something on top of it since the base layer does only about 7 transactions per second. Lightning seems like the obvious solution, but in my experience the problem of liquidity and routing still makes it unpleasant for daily users and @BlackHatCoiner has a point there.

I see a general view gradually taking shape here that Bitcoin could serve as a base settlement layer, with different payment systems built on top of it. People have been talking about this idea for years, but I cannot find much practical evidence of it happening. Different people and different businesses prefer different base layers: some use Tron, some Solana, some Monero - and Bitcoin is far from being one of the leaders here.

What I do see, though, is the emergence and rapid development of payment protocols within the Bitcoin ecosystem itself, connected by Lightning as a common layer. I can make Lightning payments through the Valet wallet, the Blitz wallet, the Chimera wallet, or the CypherBox wallet. In the first case, the sats will leave my actual Lightning Network channel, while in the others they will come from different payment systems: Spark, Arkade, and Bark.

So Lightning may have a real chance of becoming that common underlying layer that connects different standards for storing and using bitcoin.

[snowpega]

People who see volatility as a barrier, they are financially weak, because there are services accepting BTC for a decade now, they are still running because they have cash flows, they can manage their operations, and they did not have to depend on their Bitcoins.

So build a business in a way that you can manage to make it work without the Bitcoins you receive as payments.

Because bro, it's true, in the short term it can lose value. Also, it can be a loss for services in a bull run. They are selling at the same price, so they are getting fewer coins, and in a bear market, they lose, so what they can do is, they can create a strategy that works for them.

Sell BTC payments they receive in a bull run quickly, hold BTC payments they receive in a bear market. This works.

Sometimes I really fail to understand why people see Bitcoin market volatility as a bad factor. Because I never see it this way. If I have to say something on this. It is a blessing for the long-term holders. Because those who really understand and are the horses of the long-term race know this factor (volatility) can offer them many dip opportunities in the market where they can accumulate more and more using a DCA strategy. This can help them to bring their average buying value to a lower point, which can return them maximum profit at the end of the day.

But yes, you can say that volatility can be a kind of problem for those people who use to trade more in short time frames and are more active in the future or use leverage trading. Because the volatility factor can wash out their portfolios in no time, haha, in case their open position goes against them. Well, this is my point of view. What do you think about this? CMIIW!

[348Judah]

I’m curious to hear how people here view the trade-offs, especially regarding user experience, volatility, and global scalability. Let’s discuss!

The aspect of Bitcoin scalability has been solved already and this is no more longer each alleged because of the layer 2 network, this is also one of the reason why we have the option transactions, bitcoin has the future benefits for everyone that is going to adopt using it over the financial economy, because it has a massive applicable used on diverse areas of necessity as regarding financial economy for both individual and cooperate bodies, including governments.

[HustleZ]

[…]

Even though im all for bitcoin but i think bitcoin will have a hard time replacing fiat online or offline in doing daily life transactions as it will be really hard to convince people. In first world countries most of the people know about bitcoin and most have adapted it in their daily lives but in other countries that are not comparatively more advanced they have people that don’t even have access to use fiat online let alone knowing or investing in bitcoin so i dont think it will be in newr future but i also think that it will eventually replace other currencies

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

The only challenge Bitcoin can have from not being used as a primary currency for daily use for commercial transactions will due to its volatile nature whereby it keeps fluctuating over time. Because apart from that, if users are willing to pay the extra fees to cover up such fluctuation, then I'm sure many small scale businesses won't mind using Bitcoin as their primary currency for transactions. However, last few weeks, I went to an Real Estate company here in my state, and I wasn't surprised to see that they also accept Bitcoin for the selling of their landed properties. And such businesses like this can easily accept it, since the profits made are always huge.

That’s where payment processors could make a big difference. A customer could pay in Bitcoin while the merchant receives fiat or a stable coin almost instantly. In that case, Bitcoin would still be used as the payment network without forcing every merchant to take on the full volatility risk.

So how do you intend to achieve that? Because there is no way a customer can pay in Bitcoin and the merchant receives the asset in another crypto currency, or unless you swap the coin immediately the Bitcoin gets deposited, that's the only way you can achieve that. And moreover, this can only be possible on a centralized exchange and not a non custodial wallet where you own its private keys. Which means without the use of an exchange or a wallet that allows multiple coins like "Unstoppable" wallet, it won't be possible to achieve that. Hence, it's just better if you bargain on a good fee and if the person is willing to pay, you then accept the payment in Bitcoin if you are scared of volatility.

[retreat]

However, if we look ahead to the next few years, do you think Bitcoin can realistically handle a massive chunk of everyday online commerce? Or will it always remain primarily a settlement layer and store of value, leaving day-to-day transactions to stable coins or other networks?

In line with what others say, I agree that Bitcoin is not capable of handling much larger transaction volumes; it wasn't built for that. I believe from the beginning Satoshi built Bitcoin as an alternative to fiat, not to replace it. Therefore, for the purpose of handling more significant transaction volumes, perhaps other more reliable solutions could be used for that. I see that currently there are Layer 2 solutions claiming they can address these scalability issues, but the question remains how well these solutions work in practice because so far LN has been tested, but it is still not feasible.

[Odusko]

One can argue this in different ways, but in the end, we must come to the conclusion that Bitcoin's mainstream adoption as a currency for settlement for day-to-day transactions at the public level, we will have a lot of limitations to that effect as regards to Bitcoin, even with the support of layer 2 networks like the Lightning Network, this we have to deal with because there is no architecture to support free large daily transactions processing and at cheap fees and on decentralized network like Bitcoin blockchain which gives an extra layer of privacy to the parties involved.

[stompix]

People who see volatility as a barrier, they are financially weak, because there are services accepting BTC for a decade now, they are still running because they have cash flows, they can manage their operations, and they did not have to depend on their Bitcoins.

This is overly simplistic and it's not bound in the real world, you're generalizing for services that can easily convert their few earned Bitcoins in a hurry and you think every business could be run like a vpn selling service or a coffee shop that sells 2 coffees, not 1% of their revenue in coins.
Most large businesses run on tiny margins, 5-10%, for them a price swing of 10% could kill a year of business. Take my family business, for example: a 20% drop on our income from BTC to EURO would be catastrophic, if the chain stores we deal with suffer the same, we're out of business. The only solution for this would be to instantly exchange the coins to euros at the moment of payment, good, then why are we using coins at all?

The real-world economy has spoken numerous times: there isn't a single successful business in the real world (not selling vpns services or being a freelancer) that has actually managed to run on crypto only, the moment you have to pay employees and you're tied to a supply chain, you need a stable currency!

At the same time, traditional payment rails (like credit cards, wire transfers, and cross-border processors) still feel clunky, expensive, and heavily gatekept.

Lols have you actually used one of them lately?
I don't know, like the other billions who do pay with CC in seconds?

[Findingnemo]

People who see volatility as a barrier, they are financially weak, because there are services accepting BTC for a decade now, they are still running because they have cash flows, they can manage their operations, and they did not have to depend on their Bitcoins.

This is overly simplistic and it's not bound in the real world, you're generalizing for services that can easily convert their few earned Bitcoins in a hurry and you think every business could be run like a vpn selling service or a coffee shop that sells 2 coffees, not 1% of their revenue in coins.
Most large businesses run on tiny margins, 5-10%, for them a price swing of 10% could kill a year of business. Take my family business, for example: a 20% drop on our income from BTC to EURO would be catastrophic, if the chain stores we deal with suffer the same, we're out of business. The only solution for this would be to instantly exchange the coins to euros at the moment of payment, good, then why are we using coins at all?

The real-world economy has spoken numerous times: there isn't a single successful business in the real world (not selling vpns services or being a freelancer) that has actually managed to run on crypto only, the moment you have to pay employees and you're tied to a supply chain, you need a stable currency!

We have a lot of experts on the internet just like the forum who are giving advices and solutions but they have never run any business or even be a part of it.

Companies and online services accept bitcoin as a payment method, and they simply convert it into fiat for the reasons you said; they can't take the volatility, it might wipe out a quarter's profits. Crypto accepted here itself an advertisement that might attract some new customers but bitcoin is not really meant to handle hundred of thousands of transactions every hour, it will simply end up in chaos, I remember what happened in 2018 and then ordinals, and this would be 1000x worse of ordinals when it comes to fee.

At the same time, traditional payment rails (like credit cards, wire transfers, and cross-border processors) still feel clunky, expensive, and heavily gatekept.

Lols have you actually used one of them lately?
I don't know, like the other billions who do pay with CC in seconds?

Bro just woke up from a coma after 20 years.

[Hamza2424]

This is overly simplistic and it's not bound in the real world, you're generalizing for services that can easily convert their few earned Bitcoins in a hurry and you think every business could be run like a vpn selling service or a coffee shop that sells 2 coffees, not 1% of their revenue in coins.
Most large businesses run on tiny margins, 5-10%, for them a price swing of 10% could kill a year of business. Take my family business, for example: a 20% drop on our income from BTC to EURO would be catastrophic, if the chain stores we deal with suffer the same, we're out of business. The only solution for this would be to instantly exchange the coins to euros at the moment of payment, good, then why are we using coins at all?

The real-world economy has spoken numerous times: there isn't a single successful business in the real world (not selling vpns services or being a freelancer) that has actually managed to run on crypto only, the moment you have to pay employees and you're tied to a supply chain, you need a stable currency!

Yep, I did not mention the type of business, and yes, it can really have a huge impact on a business if BTC drops by 10%, but then you said businesses can convert their coins quickly into fiat, so what's the purpose? Well, the purpose is to give your customers an option that some of them are looking for.

I usually prefer to buy services and subscriptions with BTC. If I find a platform where I have to give my CC information, I try to avoid it and search for one where I can pay with BTC.

No one wants to give their CC information to a new platform just because they want to buy a beautiful coffee cup and then never buy it again. Well, it's not about privacy though, it's about convenience. I know CC has convenience, but I prefer BTC, and I am sure there are thousands who like to pay with BTC.

Emirates Airlines just partnered with Crypto.com and they accept crypto. They don't have to hold crypto at all, they can make a deal with Emirates Airlines that they want conversion instead, that they want their local currency instead.

It's not only about this business, there are many, and they definitely work this way because they are creating demand for their local currency while saving themselves from volatility and getting more clients who like to pay with crypto.

[Dogedegen]

To be honest, I've never used the Lightning Network... Although, of course, I understand that learning it makes sense from a practical Bitcoin use case. 🙋

For example, let's consider a practical problem... In the spring of 2024, many of us faced a big problem. We needed to sell Bitcoin for fiat currency, and Bitcoin network fees were incredibly high (due to the incredible popularity of runes and ordinals). I remember paying 40 percent in fees for a single transaction. It was terrifying!

Bitcoin network fees are low now, but I wouldn't want to face such a critical situation in the future.

As far as I understand, Lightning Network fees are low. However, if I want to save on fees in the future, I need to transfer satoshis to the Lightning network in advance and open a channel.

But why have you not used it? There is nothing special you need to learn at all, modern lightning wallets have made many things abstract or happen in the background. You just need to install such a wallet, put some Bitcoin on it and it does everything on its own for you. So the concerns about liquidity, channel management and other stuff like that don't apply. Users write all kinds of stories from the past but they don't verify, it shows that they are not current users of these technologies so they are repeating false information. Try it, make a payment and then let us know how it was and you will confirm that it is a great experience. It is really hard to stop using LN once you get a good taste of it, that is how amazing it is.  

But as far as I understand, a software glitch could lead to the unexpected closure of the channel.  Furthermore, as far as I understand - correct me if I'm wrong - all Lightning Bitcoin wallets are hot wallets. Therefore, storing Bitcoin in them for long periods of time is less secure than storing it in mainstream cold wallets.

This doesn't happen in practice, don't just listen to what people write in theory who never use this thing. I have many friends that use LN but they all started in recent years with modern wallets, and there has not been any situation that any of them lost money or had an unexpected closure. And for that last point, a lightning wallet is supposed to be a hot wallet that is what it was designed for.

Furthermore, in my opinion, second-layer solutions will always be less secure than first-layer solutions. The number of points of vulnerability increases in any case... The recent Liquid incident confirms this. Although, of course, Lightning and Liquid have different security architectures. 🧑‍💻

This is not relevant to the situation and those things can not be compared at all. At very low values of transaction the security of a layer 2 is not a real concern of the user. If you start getting worried about all kinds of hacks and spying that can happen in theory but in practice have no effect on the user.

Companies and online services accept bitcoin as a payment method, and they simply convert it into fiat for the reasons you said; they can't take the volatility, it might wipe out a quarter's profits.

This is false and is never going to happen in practice. The best case scenario for accepting Bitcoin as a payment method is that a total of 1 to 10% of all revenue comes from Bitcoin, so the volatility can wipe out only a small percentage of the profit and is not a real concern. You are only correct if the business only accepts Bitcoin and nothing else.

[stompix]

~

Yep, I did not mention the type of business, and yes, it can really have a huge impact on a business if BTC drops by 10%, but then you said businesses can convert their coins quickly into fiat, so what's the purpose? Well, the purpose is to give your customers an option that some of them are looking for.

Whom?
Seriously, whom?
I've been around this forum for a decade, you can see the topics about spending Bitcoin on something, from people eager to buy cars, houses, travel with Bitcoins. We're down to 99.9% saying no, don't spend your coins it will be worth 1000x more tommorow. Usage is down the drain, and it's not me saying this, is the blockchain and the mempool, there is no competition whatsoever for fees, you get your tx confirmed with 0.2 sat/vb, because... nobody wants to spend them!

No one wants to give their CC information to a new platform just because they want to buy a beautiful coffee cup and then never buy it again.

Seriously...WAKE UP!
Billions out here don't give a rat's ass about this!

Emirates Airlines just partnered with Crypto.com and they accept crypto.

Customers booking on emirates.com should select Crypto.com Pay™ at the payment step, then scan the QR code displayed on the booking page and approve the payment in their Crypto.com app. Once the payment is approved, the booking confirmation and e-ticket are issued on their screen.

So, how does this have anything to do with the topic?
It's obviously a transaction that doesn't happen on the blockchain at all, nor does it actually involve crypto!

Companies and online services accept bitcoin as a payment method, and they simply convert it into fiat for the reasons you said; they can't take the volatility, it might wipe out a quarter's profits. Crypto accepted here itself an advertisement that might attract some new customers but bitcoin is not really meant to handle hundred of thousands of transactions every hour, it will simply end up in chaos, I remember what happened in 2018 and then ordinals, and this would be 1000x worse of ordinals when it comes to fee.

There is another problem to the payments..
People always forget that with Bitcoin, once you receive a payment, you need to pay to use it.
100 customers doing each one tx, then the shop consolidating 100 inputs, sending them to the exchange, suddenly the capacity drops to half, fees increase, the shop loses $1 in fees for each payment it has received to use that money, the accountant draws the line and says fuck this!

[Dogedegen]

Whom?
Seriously, whom?
I've been around this forum for a decade, you can see the topics about spending Bitcoin on something, from people eager to buy cars, houses, travel with Bitcoins. We're down to 99.9% saying no, don't spend your coins it will be worth 1000x more tommorow. Usage is down the drain, and it's not me saying this, is the blockchain and the mempool, there is no competition whatsoever for fees, you get your tx confirmed with 0.2 sat/vb, because... nobody wants to spend them!

The direction of your post is correct, but I would not make it so simple to claim that ideological reasons for not spending Bitcoin are the primary reason for which current on chain use is low. I think we see these trends across shitcoins too so that indicates that this claimed cause here is not the primary factor that determines the current situation. If it was the primary factor, then we would see high on-chain activity in other places compared to previous periods.

No one wants to give their CC information to a new platform just because they want to buy a beautiful coffee cup and then never buy it again.

Seriously...WAKE UP!
Billions out here don't give a rat's ass about this!

What a weird and obviously false claim that he made. People love to enter their credit card and save it on a platform even sometimes before they even decide to buy something, they just add the card there. 

Companies and online services accept bitcoin as a payment method, and they simply convert it into fiat for the reasons you said; they can't take the volatility, it might wipe out a quarter's profits. Crypto accepted here itself an advertisement that might attract some new customers but bitcoin is not really meant to handle hundred of thousands of transactions every hour, it will simply end up in chaos, I remember what happened in 2018 and then ordinals, and this would be 1000x worse of ordinals when it comes to fee.

There is another problem to the payments..
People always forget that with Bitcoin, once you receive a payment, you need to pay to use it.
100 customers doing each one tx, then the shop consolidating 100 inputs, sending them to the exchange, suddenly the capacity drops to half, fees increase, the shop loses $1 in fees for each payment it has received to use that money, the accountant draws the line and says fuck this!

This problem does not exist with Lightning, which is what makes it even better for smaller merchants and smaller transactions. People that criticize Lightning for many reasons often forget to highlight its advantages or to mention any advantage at all. So the benefit that is gained from this increases the smaller the transactions. I would say that we can easily use Lightning for all payments under $100 or even $1000 these days. Think only about the fees for consolidating 100 000 received small payments and then compare that to the cost savings with Lightning for. If we decide to use an average cost of $0.01 per UTXO it would cost $1000 to consolidate that, and during high fee times it is better not to even think the cost of these scenarios. 

[suzanne5223]

Hey everyone,

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the actual limits and trajectory of Bitcoin adoption. We all know Bitcoin is heavily anchored as digital gold and a macro store of value, but what about its original promise as a medium of exchange?

Looking at the ongoing improvements with Layer 2 scaling solutions like the Lightning Network, transaction speeds and fees have improved dramatically compared to earlier years. At the same time, traditional payment rails (like credit cards, wire transfers, and cross-border processors) still feel clunky, expensive, and heavily gatekept.

However, if we look ahead to the next few years, do you think Bitcoin can realistically handle a massive chunk of everyday online commerce? Or will it always remain primarily a settlement layer and store of value, leaving day-to-day transactions to stable coins or other networks?
I’m curious to hear how people here view the trade-offs, especially regarding user experience, volatility, and global scalability. Let’s discuss!

The one thing I believe is clear is that Bitcoin technically fulfill its purpose as a store of value and as a medium of exchange.
Which make it qualify as an asset and currency that can power all online transactions in the near future. But if we look into the actual limit and the trajectory of BTC future adoption to serve as medium of exchange and store of value I believe the real question you ought to ask is whether the secondary layers (Lightning, potentially Ark, channel factories, or future soft-fork enabled constructions) can deliver a good enough user experience for everyday online commerce at scale.