Today, the Austrian National Bank held a lecture on Bitcoin - well..

[Freefallr]

..we should listen to them.

Today, the Austrian National Bank gave a lecture on Bitcoin, together with The Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, with an open discussion possibility afterwards. I also participated in this lecture as I am from Austria and I was very interested in what our economists, bankers and other people who participated in the lecture think of Bitcoin.

They all were pretty sceptical. They adressed a lot of issues that come with the usage of Bitcoin as a currency. Here are the main issues they adressed:

• Many people buy Bitcoin to hoard them for future capital gains instead of using it as a currency (they often compared it to gold), which is, in their opinion, normal rational thinking of people ("Why should I use them if there is a good chance they will be worth a lot more in the future?").
• Volatility - of course. For companies that sell goods or services for Bitcoin there are great workarounds to reduce the volatility risk (Bitpay, Coinbase). But the users have huge risks when using Bitcoin as a currency to pay for things they want to buy.
• Shady exchanges: With the recent MtGox disaster, people can't be sure if their funds are safe on exchanges. (But I personally think that this is getting better and better with things like prove of solvency and cryptographic audits)
• Complexity: I think 95% of the people sitting in this hall today still don't understand how to use Bitcoin in practise. The guy who talked most of the time had a too complicated and technical explaination for Bitcoin. It would have been MUCH better if he would have shown an example on stage or at least use an easy explaination with good, clear graphics or something similar. His explainiation was way too much for the average Joe.

Are these issues something new? No, not really.
Are they important for Bitcoin's success? YES!

Guys.. we really need to think of these issues even more than we do now if we want Bitcoin to succeed. Although there were a few guys who really had a positive feeling about Bitcoin and its great opportunities, the majority was pretty sceptical about Bitcoin.

We need even simpler walltes. We need even safer exchanges. We need much more people who actually USE Bitcoin and not only buy and hold it. And we need to face the volatility issue which is in my opinion the biggest problem of Bitcoin (something that may stabilize in the future when Bitcoin gets a bigger and bigger userbase).

What can we do against all this? Let's have an open discussion.

By the way.. I tried to record everything with my phone microphone, but the quality is pretty miserable. However, here's the download link: Google Drive

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Sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes that may occur, as I am not a native English speaker.

[roslinpl]

I agree with

"Are these issues something new? No, not really.
Are they important for Bitcoin's success? YES!"

but to make those issues less harmful we just need time. And a lot of support!
Anyway.

it was great to read.
regards

[Freefallr]

That's the point, yes. We need a lot more support. Also, time will tell if and how we will address these issues and how this huge experiment turns out.

[Lauda]

Thank you for sharing this with us. One of the main issues is that many people (including governments) don't really understand how the protocol works. Mt.Gox incident is the companys' fault, not Bitcoins.
It will take time for them to understand.

[Freefallr]

Thank you for sharing this with us. One of the main issues is that many people (including governments) don't really understand how the protocol works. Mt.Gox incident is the companys' fault, not Bitcoins.
It will take time for them to understand.

Totally true.

[leopard2]

Weird, holding does not mean you cannot use them!

You can hold 10 BTC and if you need to buy something, just buy some extra coin for that purchase.

The idea that mortal humans hoard money forever just because of "deflation" is Keynesian rubbish. Sad that Austrian economists believe that :-( they should be into Austrian school 

ALSO it would be up to the banks to act as BTC intermediarys instead of blaming fishy exchanges. Banks sell gold & silver & forex - if they didn't do that I am sure there would be enough fishy forex dealers instead. Duh!

Getting BTC from your bank should be as normal as getting USD EUR JPY GBP or any other currency. The BTC wallet should be a normal function in our online banking. 

[nakaone]

bitcoins killer app regarding volatility and usability would be if you could use them as collateral to lend something into existence. the incentive for non-hoarding would be given by merchants who would offer a discount due to missing or almost missing transaction costs.

daniel larimer is trying this with his bitshares - it would be MUCH easier with bitcoins

[jonald_fyookball]

I use electrum and it seems pretty simple to me.  But maybe even simpler is possible. Could be a fun project.

[nuff]

Just like before GUI existed, or before companies like Apple that made computers user-friendly, Bitcoin now is like the first few years of personal computing where everything was run in command line. You NEEDED to be technically savvy to use computers, but today even grandmas and toddlers can use a computer, but in a form today that is unrecognizable from when they first came out. It will happen to Bitoin as well, given time. The problem is, we can't force people to understand how bitcoin works if they just don't get it. Majority of normal everyday people don't even know how to setup the internet, let alone understanding how a peer-to-peer trustless encryption-based system which can and does have value to be used as money, works. And sometimes, people don't need to know all the underlying technical mumbo-jumbo how a thing works, they just need to be taught how to use it.

You know, from my personal experience, the more enthusiastic I am when talking about Bitcoin, explaining why it so revolutionary and all that, the more people are skeptical of Bitcoin, or maybe just of me. I think we shouldn't be too concerned with getting people on board but instead keep pushing the agenda of Bitcoin in our own capacity, those who can do the infrastructure, build it, those who can provide services or goods for bitcoins, do it. We need to cater to Bitcoiners first, then, the masses will slowly follow.  

[Bit_Happy]

Thank you for sharing this with us. One of the main issues is that many people (including governments) don't really understand how the protocol works. Mt.Gox incident is the companys' fault, not Bitcoins.
It will take time for them to understand.

One way to explain that clearly is something like this:
The network and code that BTC uses is extremely secure;
The thefts/hacks/scandals have been at the "human level" not Bitcoin itself.

[lira]

Here is a proof link http://www.oenb.at/Termine/Terminarchiv/2014/Geld-ohne-Banken-Der-Fall-Bitcoin.html

[lira]

Thank you for sharing this with us. One of the main issues is that many people (including governments) don't really understand how the protocol works. Mt.Gox incident is the companys' fault, not Bitcoins.
It will take time for them to understand.

MTGox incident has brought many points to Anti-Bitcoin Community.I think now it needs a lot of time to change people opinion to positive after that incident.

[Lauda]

Thank you for sharing this with us. One of the main issues is that many people (including governments) don't really understand how the protocol works. Mt.Gox incident is the companys' fault, not Bitcoins.
It will take time for them to understand.

MTGox incident has brought many points to Anti-Bitcoin Community.I think now it needs a lot of time to change people opinion to positive after that incident.

That's a problem of the people. MTGox has zero impact on my view of Bitcoin.

[Freefallr]

Thank you for sharing this with us. One of the main issues is that many people (including governments) don't really understand how the protocol works. Mt.Gox incident is the companys' fault, not Bitcoins.
It will take time for them to understand.

MTGox incident has brought many points to Anti-Bitcoin Community.I think now it needs a lot of time to change people opinion to positive after that incident.

That's a problem of the people. MTGox has zero impact on my view of Bitcoin.

On your view - yes. But I think the average joe that just heard about Bitcoin in the media has a negative feeling when he hears the word Bitcoin, especially because of the MtGox incident and the very negative media coverage on this topic.

[Lauda]

On your view - yes. But I think the average joe that just heard about Bitcoin in the media has a negative feeling when he hears the word Bitcoin, especially because of the MtGox incident and the very negative media coverage on this topic.

The problem is bigger than Bitcoin. The Average Joe is ignorant, and dumb. Quite a big portion of our population have become sheep.

[dafqok]

Thx a lot for your account on the meeting and sharing!

I wonder what the stance towards future regulatory measures was. If there was any (FMA guys). Did you get any feel for that? Also, who was more on the positive side, meaning able to see possibilities instead of drowning everything with precaution and pessimism? I'm especially wondering about private banks, if they'd participated. Any highlights much welcome.
(will listen to your recs in addition).

[dafqok]

On your view - yes. But I think the average joe that just heard about Bitcoin in the media has a negative feeling when he hears the word Bitcoin, especially because of the MtGox incident and the very negative media coverage on this topic.

The problem is bigger than Bitcoin. The Average Joe is ignorant, and dumb. Quite a big portion of our population have become sheep.

True that, class division is a vicious circle. Elitists, even or especially if they are benevolent try to protect the sheep and in effect curb innovation. One only has to look at regulatory induced entry barriers of entry in capital markets.

[Freefallr]

Thx a lot for your account on the meeting and sharing!

I wonder what the stance towards future regulatory measures was. If there was any (FMA guys). Did you get any feel for that? Also, who was more on the positive side, meaning able to see possibilities instead of drowning everything with precaution and pessimism? I'm especially wondering about private banks, if they'd participated. Any highlights much welcome.
(will listen to your recs in addition).

Unfortunately, they didn't even talk about future regulatory things. Also, I think all in all there were more sceptic people then optimistic. However, one thing I especially noticed was this guy from the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber who was really Pro-Bitcoin and tried to debunk myths from more sceptical people. But this does not speak for the whole Austrian Federal Economic Chamber.

[Lauda]

On your view - yes. But I think the average joe that just heard about Bitcoin in the media has a negative feeling when he hears the word Bitcoin, especially because of the MtGox incident and the very negative media coverage on this topic.

The problem is bigger than Bitcoin. The Average Joe is ignorant, and dumb. Quite a big portion of our population have become sheep.

True that, class division is a vicious circle. Elitists, even or especially if they are benevolent try to protect the sheep and in effect curb innovation. One only has to look at regulatory induced entry barriers of entry in capital markets.

Now if someone were to spread really positive news the price of Bitcoin would reach insane highs. Only because the average joe listens to media, not reason.

[Abdussamad]

I think the Austrians should start by changing their country's name to something more unique. I read it like Australian National Bank.