Is bitcoin ready for the mainstream?

[darkphantom934]

Whenever I try to explain bitcoin to my friends, I always get a rather negative response, somewhere along the lines of "That sounds dangerous" or "Sounds like it enables money laundering..."

With the negative press caused by recent hacks and "transaction malleability", bitcoin is developing an increasingly negative public image. Also, some people don't really enjoy the fact that we have to wait 10 minutes to get at least 1 confirmation, and these people go on to think of bitcoin as "criminal money".

My final question is, do you think bitcoin is ready for the mainstream, or should we focus more effort on improving public image?

[Elwar]

You need new friends.

[Ron~Popeil]

We have some issues to overcome. Transaction speed is one. I am not a fan of off the chain transactions for obvious reasons so maybe some sort of high speed side chain can be implemented.

Ease of use is another. Most people don't want to take the time to learn how to protect and use their funds. The current system sacrifices security for ease of use so that will take some time as well.

[Cranky4u]

An 'all in one' wallet would go a long way to helping smooth out integration of different coins.

Ideas;
1. Split the wallet into a few sections with each area being used for their particular 'benefit'.  e.g. a set of tabs for each crypto-coin, a 'home tab' summary' and another tab that provides a 'Joe public' dot point guide on advantages for each coin
2. Provide direct link of wallet to users choice of exchanges for conversion between wallet compartments e.g. BTC > LTC via a user defined exchange which operates an immediate BUY<> SELL


Anymore thoughts? Lets make a brainstorming session and punch it up for development consideration...

[Light]

We have some issues to overcome. Transaction speed is one. I am not a fan of off the chain transactions for obvious reasons so maybe some sort of high speed side chain can be implemented.

What exactly is bad about off-chain transactions? They avoid bloating the blockchain with a crap ton of midget transactions and helps save those users fees anyway.

Ease of use is another. Most people don't want to take the time to learn how to protect and use their funds. The current system sacrifices security for ease of use so that will take some time as well.

Ease of use implementations will come as the userbase becomes bigger and a significant percentage of it is laymen. Currently, most of the people using Bitcoin are tech savvy enough to figure out how to secure their coins.

[Ron~Popeil]

We have some issues to overcome. Transaction speed is one. I am not a fan of off the chain transactions for obvious reasons so maybe some sort of high speed side chain can be implemented.

What exactly is bad about off-chain transactions? They avoid bloating the blockchain with a crap ton of midget transactions and helps save those users fees anyway.

Ease of use is another. Most people don't want to take the time to learn how to protect and use their funds. The current system sacrifices security for ease of use so that will take some time as well.

Ease of use implementations will come as the userbase becomes bigger and a significant percentage of it is laymen. Currently, most of the people using Bitcoin are tech savvy enough to figure out how to secure their coins.

I don't think off the chain is a bad thing overall, I just try to avoid having to trust anyone. The trustless servers will resolve that fairly soon.

The ease of use is just an infrastructure issue and will also be resolved.

Once these two major ones are solved I do think bit coin is ready for main stream use. There are some smaller things like transaction fees when the volume goes up but those are small issues that the core developers can address. 

[Light]

I don't think off the chain is a bad thing overall, I just try to avoid having to trust anyone. The trustless servers will resolve that fairly soon.

The ease of use is just an infrastructure issue and will also be resolved.

Once these two major ones are solved I do think bit coin is ready for main stream use. There are some smaller things like transaction fees when the volume goes up but those are small issues that the core developers can address. 

Well it isn't worth the effort and the bloat of the blockchain to implement an alternate chain simply for midget transactions. I mean most of those are under $50 and if you can't trust an entity not to steal your $50 why the hell are you using it in the first place?

Transaction fees are denominated in BTC and not in fiat, so I'd doubt tx fees would need much changing unless the fiat value of BTC sky rocketed to ridiculous proportions and miners were still interested in BTC to sell for fiat rather than BTC for hoarding BTC.

[knight22]

Not before better infrastructures are in place and when the protocol will scale enough.

[Ron~Popeil]

I don't think off the chain is a bad thing overall, I just try to avoid having to trust anyone. The trustless servers will resolve that fairly soon.

The ease of use is just an infrastructure issue and will also be resolved.

Once these two major ones are solved I do think bit coin is ready for main stream use. There are some smaller things like transaction fees when the volume goes up but those are small issues that the core developers can address. 

Well it isn't worth the effort and the bloat of the blockchain to implement an alternate chain simply for midget transactions. I mean most of those are under $50 and if you can't trust an entity not to steal your $50 why the hell are you using it in the first place?

Transaction fees are denominated in BTC and not in fiat, so I'd doubt tx fees would need much changing unless the fiat value of BTC sky rocketed to ridiculous proportions and miners were still interested in BTC to sell for fiat rather than BTC for hoarding BTC.

Hey man 50 bucks is 50 bucks. If you lose 50 bucks enough times it gets painful.

If BTC goes mainstream it will skyrocket in value compared to fiat. 

[RenegadeMind]

Is Bitcoin ready? Yes. Is the mainstream ready for Bitcoin? No.

[beetcoin]

i don't know if it can ever be ready for mainstream.. if by mainstream you mean almost everyone will have to know how to use it. problem is that there are people who are such luddites that they barely know how to turn on a computer.. if it were to go mainstream, the scammers would come out in droves.

[Ron~Popeil]

i don't know if it can ever be ready for mainstream.. if by mainstream you mean almost everyone will have to know how to use it. problem is that there are people who are such luddites that they barely know how to turn on a computer.. if it were to go mainstream, the scammers would come out in droves.

I think at this point going mainstream is inevitable. You would be hard pressed to find more than a few people that can't turn on a computer and even less that can use a cell phone. I see elderly people all the time with iPads or iPhones. With some apps to make it easy to use it will become widespread just as the internet did.

Who would have thought grandmother would be poking you on facebook or sending you a text message?   

[ABitNut]

The question isn't "Is Bitcoin ready for the mainstream?". The question is: "Is the mainstream ready for Bitcoin?"

When it does start taking off many companies will jump on the bandwagon to profit from the rush. This year might be that year. Things are moving faster and faster.

[Nawaytes]

Is Bitcoin ready for the mainstream? NO, it's goes up again after many down activity for bitcoin markets

[Ron~Popeil]

The question isn't "Is Bitcoin ready for the mainstream?". The question is: "Is the mainstream ready for Bitcoin?"

When it does start taking off many companies will jump on the bandwagon to profit from the rush. This year might be that year. Things are moving faster and faster.

Yep. Much faster than I expected.

[blatchcorn]

The question isn't "Is Bitcoin ready for the mainstream?". The question is: "Is the mainstream ready for Bitcoin?"

When it does start taking off many companies will jump on the bandwagon to profit from the rush. This year might be that year. Things are moving faster and faster.

Yep. Much faster than I expected.

The way I see it is eBay will accept it first.  Amazon will make a surprise announcement 1 moth later saying that they are accepting it, then companies all over the world will accept it in a huge rush like falling dominoes

[DannyHamilton]

I can't answer your poll.  My answer isn't in your list of choices.

I don't think additional lobbying or "official support is necessary for it to be mainstream".  I expect that to happen, but it could go mainstream without it.

I don't think the image is a problem.  It has the image problem because it isn't mainstream (not the other way around).  People fear what they don't understand, and they don't understand what they don't use.  Much like people feared the automobile when it first came out.  Look at old images of very early automobiles, you'll find they look like horse drawn carriages without the horses.  This is all they understood at the time.  Initially people try to fit new technologies into the boxes they understand. Eventually the technology develops into its own best uses.  The image will improve on its own as adoption increases.

I don't think there are major "flaws" that need to be fixed before it can go mainstream.  There are adjustments that will increase throughput that can be made as the needs arise, and there are usability features that need to improve.  But these are enhancements and new layers of feature additions, not "flaws".

I certainly wouldn't just say, "No way!", but I also can't say that it is "Completely ready to go." There is work to be done to make the network more robust.  There is a need for additional open source wallets.  There are usability and security features that need to be added.  There are mining pool enhancements that need to be implemented.

Add an option for, "Not until Bitcoin gets additional features for security, robustness, and usability."  Then I'll vote in your poll.

[blatchcorn]

I can't answer your poll.  My answer isn't in your list of choices.

I don't think additional lobbying or "official support is necessary for it to be mainstream".  I expect that to happen, but it could go mainstream without it.

I don't think the image is a problem.  It has the image problem because it isn't mainstream (not the other way around).  People fear what they don't understand, and they don't understand what they don't use.  Much like people feared the automobile when it first came out.  Look at old images of very early automobiles, you'll find they look like horse drawn carriages without the horses.  This is all they understood at the time.  Initially people try to fit new technologies into the boxes they understand. Eventually the technology develops into its own best uses.  The image will improve on its own as adoption increases.

I don't think there are major "flaws" that need to be fixed before it can go mainstream.  There are adjustments that will increase throughput that can be made as the needs arise, and there are usability features that need to improve.  But these are enhancements and new layers of feature additions, not "flaws".

I certainly wouldn't just say, "No way!", but I also can't say that it is "Completely ready to go." There is work to be done to make the network more robust.  There is a need for additional open source wallets.  There are usability and security features that need to be added.  There are mining pool enhancements that need to be implemented.

Add an option for, "Not until Bitcoin gets additional features for security, robustness, and usability."  Then I'll vote in your poll.

Very good points, especially about fearing or not understanding technology.

My friends sometimes are skeptical about bitcoin because they don't understand how they are made. I always ask them why the use fiat if they do not understand how money is printed and money supply is controlled and expanded/contracted

[ljudotina]

You need eather
1) new friends
or
2) better way of explaning to ppl what btc is. It's all question of how do you explain something to someone else. You can do it good way, and bad way.

But to answer your qustion....is it ready? I dont see why not. But it could use little bit more of high quality services around itself.

[busterroni]

I don't think it's ready. We need more secure ways to protect Bitcoins and it needs to be much moar stable to be widely accepted. It also needs to be much easier to buy.