What is wrong with bitcoin and why it may never reach widespread adoption.

[west77]

I have been thinking quite a lot lately about the chances that bitcoin (or crypto currencies in general) will ever find widespread adoption and I lean more and more towards the answer of “no.”  Now, don't get me wrong, I have litecoins and am probably going to buy a few antminers knowing full well they will never ROI... I do it for my own reasons including the fact that I love minting coins that piss my central bank off and the fact that I can see some use for them though I imagine them to remain a “niche” market for a long period of time.  There are just so many hurdles to widespread adoption.  Also, if only a small % of people see a point to something tangible and with a thousand years of history as being a store of value I cannot imagine the entire population running to Cryptos.  Countries moved away from gold and silver and their citizens never question it... Now we want them to question fiat in favour of bitcoin?

-First, you need money to make money.  It is hard to imagine a world where the majority of the citizens will adopt this currency.  In the first world we can mine it if we invest a few thousand in hardware and some electricity... most of the world's citizens cannot say the same.  What reason would a person in N. Korea have to drop $600 on one bitcoin that requires a computer rather than 30 ounces of silver?

-Imagining that the answer to the previous statement is the expectation of appreciation we run across another problem.  While I can buy one today for $600 lets suppose that in 5 years the price is $10 000.  How difficult will it be for the citizen of a third world country to purchase a coin in order to "opt into" the system?

-I can imagine the answer to that is that they will purchase litecoin of some other crypto... But now we have a disconnect between what types of currencies various parts of the world will use and that will begin to have the same general issues that we already have with fiat in terms of having to exchange currencies.

I would be very interested to find out how many people have been scammed using bitcoin vs. a service like paypal.  I say this as somebody who has bought several vehicles sight unseen over the last decade and sent cash in advance without issue.  Somebody who has bought and sold on Paypal and sent instant transfers, wire transfers, money orders, international money orders, cheques...  All without issue (knock on wood.)  When I look on this forum I find story after story of people who have lost thousands to scammers and thieves.  And this in a community who is hyper-aware of scamming.  What are the chances that the average Joe will keep his coin?

This brings us to security.  You know to keep BTC in cold storage, copy your .dat files, use a clean boot of Linux or some other operating system, transfer your files on USB sticks... Do your honestly believe that the average person using a tablet is going to understand even a fraction of this?  In a first world country where Windows is the standard and the majority of users could not scan for a virus if their life depended on it (well, they might download some malware to scan for a virus should they do a search...)  I know the upcoming generation is more computer literate- but we are talking widespread acceptance in all countries, economic classes and levels of intelligence.  I think after the third time somebody buys a $600 coin and has it “drained” by hacking they may give up.  Again, why would the average person purchase something with these risks?

Now we get to the great argument for bitcoin... no fees, no regulation, free of the ability to charge back ect.  Anybody with an ounce of sense uses escrow.  Escrow fees are a percentage (why not just pay my bank for clearing funds?)  On top of this, I have to trust the person I use for escrow.  Suddenly, there are fees and additional risk.  Regulation is coming (many countries have declared BTC to be an asset and subject to taxation.)  Yes, I can get around it- you can probably get around it (I think most of us on this forum are savvy enough to know how if we try.)  However, if you think the number of people who have heard of bitcoin is small, imagine how many fewer can use these services and browsers (properly- without leaving major traces.)

The ability to prevent charge backs is great... but if I pay you in cold, hard cash it has the same advantage (including anonymity.)  The problem again arrives when we look at the number of people scammed or hacked with no recourse holding BTC.

Well, there it is.  I hope I am wrong.  I honestly like LTC, BTC, gold, silver, platinum, palladium diamonds... Anything the government cannot inflate away and screw with (even at that I think we all have to acknowledge that the government could screw with BTC if they wanted to trow a few million at computers.  I think the majority of us would also have to admit that they have screwed with gold and silver VIA the exchanges and banks already and that DeBeers has screwed with the diamond market since.. well, forever.)  They have the advantage that they can just print whatever it would take to mess things up if they really wanted to (though I honestly do not consider that a threat at this point in time- it would legitimize things and draw too many questions that they do not want to answer even though most of this community already know the answers...)  I will continue mining coins and messing around for fun (and maybe even a little profit if I am lucky.)  I expect that there will always be a market and that there will be more adoption over the next decade... But I cannot imagine the day I could pay my taxes in BTC (A topic for another day when I think I may ask “if BTC is an asset according to the government because it has value- can I pay the tax to them as a percentage of BTC I earned using BTC???")

[Elwar]

Welcome to bitcointalk!

[greyman]

You know to keep BTC in cold storage, copy your .dat files, use a clean boot of Linux or some other operating system, transfer your files on USB sticks... Do your honestly believe that the average person using a tablet is going to understand even a fraction of this?

No, I don't believe that, and to be honest, I don't even believe you yourself understand cold storage, given your brief description. But I don't think this will stop bitcoin adoption, most people will use online wallets, or something like a "bitcoin bank", where their bitcoins will be safe or legally insured. Maintaining money in local file is just an experimental software, mostly.

[bitsmichel]

-First, you need money to make money.  It is hard to imagine a world where the majority of the citizens will adopt this currency.  In the first world we can mine it if we invest a few thousand in hardware and some electricity... most of the world's citizens cannot say the same.  What reason would a person in N. Korea have to drop $600 on one bitcoin that requires a computer rather than 30 ounces of silver?

Well, N.Korea is a rather strange example - they do not have 600$ laying around unless perhaps they are a government official.  People buy stocks of higher prices than 600$ in the first world, I would not be surprised.

While I can buy one today for $600 lets suppose that in 5 years the price is $10 000.  How difficult will it be for the citizen of a third world country to purchase a coin in order to "opt into" the system?

They would buy a smaller amount. Perhaps a uBTC which would then be worth more.

This brings us to security.  You know to keep BTC in cold storage, copy your .dat files, use a clean boot of Linux or some other operating system, transfer your files on USB sticks... Do your honestly believe that the average person using a tablet is going to understand even a fraction of this?  In a first world country where Windows is the standard and the majority of users could not scan for a virus if their life depended on it (well, they might download some malware to scan for a virus should they do a search...)  I know the upcoming generation is more computer literate- but we are talking widespread acceptance in all countries, economic classes and levels of intelligence.  I think after the third time somebody buys a $600 coin and has it “drained” by hacking they may give up.  Again, why would the average person purchase something with these risks?

We have got tons of kids using things like dogecoin.  I think it is without a question that we will have an internet currency. People want fast and easy - have you ever tried to buy an App on a mobile phone? The number of forms to complete is simply not a model that will sustain.

[west77]

Welcome to bitcointalk!

Thanks... I lurk every now and then and threaten myself with buying an ASIC and then return to Litecoin.  As we all know, the days for Luddites such as myself are numbered unless I switch to another crypto else or spring for the hardware.  If going the way of hardware I see no downside to going with the 256 rather than scrypt.

You know to keep BTC in cold storage, copy your .dat files, use a clean boot of Linux or some other operating system, transfer your files on USB sticks... Do your honestly believe that the average person using a tablet is going to understand even a fraction of this?

No, I don't believe that, and to be honest, I don't even believe you yourself understand cold storage, given your brief description. But I don't think this will stop bitcoin adoption, most people will use online wallets, or something like a "bitcoin bank", where their bitcoins will be safe or legally insured. Maintaining money in local file is just an experimental software, mostly.

Sorry... I have kept most of them on USB sticks and some with paper wallets while wiping the .dat files... I had always considered that to be cold storage (though I will head off to look it up a bit later...)  If using a regular online wallet I think they are still threatened with hacking.  If we go to a "bitcoin bank" I cannot see what the real advantage to bitcoin is.  If it is insured they will charge a fee.  If I want my bitcoins, they will charge a fee.  If I convert my bitcoin to litecoin they will certainly charge a fee.  If I want USD or CAD or Pesos... they will charge a larger fee.  They may end up with a user agreement whereby they keep the BTC in a central account (and, being a bank, undoubtedly lend it out at interest.)  Suddenly rather than having complete control of my crypto currency I leave it to a bank.  Rather than having something that I know is not leveraged and lent out I have no control.  This is similar to why I might prefer to hold physical gold (and, by extension, my own BTC) rather than buying paper gold supposedly held by my bank in my name where they charge me annually for security, storage, transportation, and in a number of cases have been shown to have sold "my" gold to other people and hold absolutely nothing for me despite the charges... I may as well just hold fiat with my bank and hope for the paltry interest to be paid as put bitcoin there.  I seriously think this is another reason why universal adoption will never take place.

Again- I am actually a supporter (I know you would not think so by reading my ramblings.)  However, I am a realist and have met those people who make tech support have to ask "is the computer plugged into a working outlet?  I cannot imagine them holding a bitcoin wallet and if they have to use a "bitcoin bank" there is no advantage to them to convert.  Why convert to buy a pizza or a used car when they can walk in and write a cheque.  BTC would actually have to replace the local currency to make it necessary or useful to most average people.  I really hope I am wrong... maybe it is just past my bedtime and I am cynical?

[Kprawn]

The protocal is working 100% The other things e.g. Security / User friendlyness etc. etc.. Can be made seemless by 3rd party developers. Eg. Treazor.

When these things are in place, the normal user, will not even need to know about that. {They simply scan or swap a card etc.}

Saying it will never work, because the devices are not on par with the protocal, is a bit premature in my opinion.

Give it time, it's still early years for crypto currency.

[Velkro]

The protocal is working 100% The other things e.g. Security / User friendlyness etc. etc.. Can be made seemless by 3rd party developers. Eg. Treazor.

and thats already happening, its so early for Bitcoin and its already here, its just amazing
We can expect great things still for User-friendliness and bitcoin security for users that are not computer scientists

[west77]

I really hope that everybody is right and that it will be made easy for people.  I am an oddity in that I seem to like doing things the hard way.  I am not "computer illiterate", but I am far from comfortable.  I can still recall doing the .bat files and playing with all of the settings and taking hours to update drivers, downgrade drivers, play with the numerous settings and finally feeling that I accomplished something (my hash rate for my card was at the top end of the estimates based on others.)  Now it is copy and paste and the pool writes it all for you.  I have fun playing with these things, but know that most people would not.  

As I mentioned, I lurk here occasionally.  I read another forum on litecoin occasionally.  I look at tradeblock and the occasional blog.  With that said, I really do not know much about what is coming for security or user friendliness.  I hope that bitcoin (and litcoin because that is what I have mined) find some acceptance.  I think the next generation may be more comfortable- but I know plenty of people over 40 who do not even trust online banking (they will steal my identity...)  I cannot imagine them downloading something opensource for financials (if Microsoft does not approve it, it must be untrustworthy... Right?)

-First, you need money to make money.  It is hard to imagine a world where the majority of the citizens will adopt this currency.  In the first world we can mine it if we invest a few thousand in hardware and some electricity... most of the world's citizens cannot say the same.  What reason would a person in N. Korea have to drop $600 on one bitcoin that requires a computer rather than 30 ounces of silver?

Well, N.Korea is a rather strange example - they do not have 600$ laying around unless perhaps they are a government official.  People buy stocks of higher prices than 600$ in the first world, I would not be surprised.

We have got tons of kids using things like dogecoin.  I think it is without a question that we will have an internet currency. People want fast and easy - have you ever tried to buy an App on a mobile phone? The number of forms to complete is simply not a model that will sustain.

I know N.Korea was an odd example... but I was racking my brain for countries with lots of poor (I can now think of several... but as mentioned- it is past my bedtime and my mind was not functioning at the highest level.)

I really hope you are correct about it's adoption.  I would have to agree with you if you are saying that our hope lies in the next generation.  They will be more computer literate and have less hang-ups about technology than earlier generations.  The question then becomes "how long until digital currencies are accepted and adopted?"  I know things move fast- but I still have to say decades in the first world and many more decades before it is accepted world wide (and that assumes that we do not just end up with a model of fiat currencies being completely converted to "digital only" and accepted.)  The only reason why kids of today would not accept that model is if they take the time to educate themselves on the history and problems of fiat.  Most people do not care.  As long as a dollar today buys a chocolate bar while they are being paid $10 / hour they do not care that in a decade it will be $2 as long as they are making $20 /hour.  we all think that we are richer than any time in history right now...  What do they care if there are only 21 million bitcoins or if you cannot print them out of thin air... They can buy that chocolate bar right now (or video game, or car or house or even a pony for their birthday) all using the worlds favourite paper, the universally accepted greenback.

[LiteCoinGuy]

maybe never, yes.

[linuxnewbie]

While I can buy one today for $600 lets suppose that in 5 years the price is $10 000.  How difficult will it be for the citizen of a third world country to purchase a coin in order to "opt into" the system?

The smallest unit of BTC is 0.00000001. At this writing, one dollar on the exchanges is selling for about 0.00171 BTC.

If you're suggesting that BTC isn't divisible, I don't believe you're qualified to tell us "what is wrong with Bitcoin."

[west77]

While I can buy one today for $600 lets suppose that in 5 years the price is $10 000.  How difficult will it be for the citizen of a third world country to purchase a coin in order to "opt into" the system?

The smallest unit of BTC is 0.00000001. At this writing, one dollar on the exchanges is selling for about 0.00171 BTC.

If you're suggesting that BTC isn't divisible, I don't believe you're qualified to tell us "what is wrong with Bitcoin."

It is divisible... as is litecoin and any of the others.  The problem is not the question of divisibility but rather utility.  I am saying that buying .0000001 bitcoin in Zimbabwean fiat a few years ago would have been difficult.  I would have to pay 30 billion Zimbabwean dollars for that amount.  And really... why would I want to when I could buy one us dollar for the same amount and have it usable anywhere.  I know that right now you are concentrating on the first world- but that amounts to a very small portion of the population.  To be truly adopted you have to get a lot more people to buy into it.  Therein lies the rub.  You are saying that you and I in the first world deserve the tens of thousands of dollars profit (measure that by any standard you wish) and then after the money has been made and one bitcoin is valued at astronomical levels you expect the third world to be stupid enough to buy into it to keep us rich.

If this is what happens I fully expect third world countries to do a major work around and develop something that does not enrich us further (really, at this point I do not know what that is- but I cannot see them buying our bitcoins for gold, silver or Rupees and sending that value to us in exchange for a piece of the bitcoin pie.)

Am I suggesting that I am "qualified to tell you what is wrong with Bitcoin?"  No.  What I am saying is that I am qualified to tell you what a somewhat average person who is not immersed in it and spending my days reading how the world is bound to adopt it might think.  As mentioned, I actually mine and have some idea what it is.  For fun, I can ask 10 random people at work tommorow from any income bracket or education you want (I have access from everyone from oil company management to people who were homeless to the mentally challenged.)  I can almost guarantee you that not a single one would be willing to give me $300 for a bitcoin at this stage- even if I show them it is worht $600.  Why?  Because they would not have a clue what to do with it and to convert it back to fiat currency they can easily spend would take more time and effort than it is worth for them.

It is not saying it will never make it there- just that it has a long way to go and has to offer something more than what it does.  Please tell me why the AVERAGE person would exchange their fiat that is usable anywhere for a bitcoin at this stage?  (Particularly when the majority live paycheque to paycheque...) what will they buy with their converted BTC that they could not buy with cash?  What advantage is there in a debtless cryptocurrency when they use their Mastercard to make it through?  Call it an investment- sure.  But most smart investors like to understand their investments (otherwise it is a gamble... and you can find lot of "investors" who are gamblers who might put their money in BTC right now.)  To find an average person who is willing to do so would be much harder (and you need millions of those average people to garner long term support and acceptance.)  

I keep harping on it- but you really need more than just the first world to buy into it when so much of our imports come from the third world.  I can see Loblaws asking the sweatshop owners if they can purchase the next shipment of shoes in BTC.  Perhaps then the sweatshop owners could take advantage of that fractional breakdown to pay their workers in a currency the workers would find completely useless (unless they returned to the days just after slavery in the South and set up a company store that charged inflated prices in BTC.)  Hey!  I think we are onto something to get universal adoption if the large companies can continue to keep the poor under the yolk.  BTC may find a kind of forced acceptance if used to enslave third world workers...

***To clarify- I am not saying it is a bad investment, nor that you HAVE to be a gambler to invest.  I just think that the majority of people do not understand it well enough to call it an investment and not a gamble despite a multi year track record of returns... Most people simply do not understand the reason why.***

Well, that is it for the evening.  As we both agree that I am not "qualified" to tell you "what is wrong with BTC" I can just join the chorus of GO, GO BTC!!! cheerleaders...

[Kprawn]

It is divisible... as is litecoin and any of the others.  The problem is not the question of divisibility but rather utility.  I am saying that buying .0000001 bitcoin in Zimbabwean fiat a few years ago would have been difficult.  I would have to pay 30 billion Zimbabwean dollars for that amount.  [/quote]

Well that sucks for you, but image getting paid in BTC and converting it to Zim dollars! You would be a ZimGazillionaire. 

It works both way....

If the Zimbabweans can count to a billion, to give change, adopting BTC should be easy, because they only need to count to a million. 

[west77]

It is divisible... as is litecoin and any of the others.  The problem is not the question of divisibility but rather utility.  I am saying that buying .0000001 bitcoin in Zimbabwean fiat a few years ago would have been difficult.  I would have to pay 30 billion Zimbabwean dollars for that amount.  

Well that sucks for you, but image getting paid in BTC and converting it to Zim dollars! You would be a ZimGazillionaire.  

It works both way....

If the Zimbabweans can count to a billion, to give change, adopting BTC should be easy, because they only need to count to a million.  

Never mind billion... They had a 100 trillion dollar banknote at one point.  Yes, getting paid in BTC would be good- but I doubt you could convert it to something useful... I cannot imagine a farmer accepting BTC for wheat and by the time you converted it to Zimbabwean dollars it would be worthless due to the extreme hyperinflation.  You would have to convert it to USD... but back to my original question that your quote stops just short of... Were I in Zimbabwe at that point in time why would I want a bitcoin rather than USD?  So far nobody has told me what I need a bitcoin for that I cannot buy with a greenback at this point.

Absolutely, holding a bitcoin would have been better and more stable than holding 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars... but holding a pound of grain, a USD, an ounce of silver... a pet rock would have been a better bet at that time.  Out of those examples the only thing that BTC would have beat would be the pet rock (unless you used the pet rock to kill a farmer and take over the crop...)  On second thought- BTC would have been the least useful of the lot.  

So the question again is, why would I have wanted a bitcoin rather than a US dollar in that environment (or a Canadian dollar, or a German Mark or a British pound or a pet rock?)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Zimbabwe_%24100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg/375px-Zimbabwe_%24100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg

[bitcoin_bagholder]

I have been thinking quite a lot lately about the chances that bitcoin (or crypto currencies in general) will ever find widespread adoption and I lean more and more towards the answer of “no.”  Now, don't get me wrong, I have litecoins and am probably going to buy a few antminers knowing full well they will never ROI... I do it for my own reasons including the fact that I love minting coins that piss my central bank off and the fact that I can see some use for them though I imagine them to remain a “niche” market for a long period of time.  There are just so many hurdles to widespread adoption.  Also, if only a small % of people see a point to something tangible and with a thousand years of history as being a store of value I cannot imagine the entire population running to Cryptos.  Countries moved away from gold and silver and their citizens never question it... Now we want them to question fiat in favour of bitcoin?

-First, you need money to make money.  It is hard to imagine a world where the majority of the citizens will adopt this currency.  In the first world we can mine it if we invest a few thousand in hardware and some electricity... most of the world's citizens cannot say the same.  What reason would a person in N. Korea have to drop $600 on one bitcoin that requires a computer rather than 30 ounces of silver?

-Imagining that the answer to the previous statement is the expectation of appreciation we run across another problem.  While I can buy one today for $600 lets suppose that in 5 years the price is $10 000.  How difficult will it be for the citizen of a third world country to purchase a coin in order to "opt into" the system?

-I can imagine the answer to that is that they will purchase litecoin of some other crypto... But now we have a disconnect between what types of currencies various parts of the world will use and that will begin to have the same general issues that we already have with fiat in terms of having to exchange currencies.

I would be very interested to find out how many people have been scammed using bitcoin vs. a service like paypal.  I say this as somebody who has bought several vehicles sight unseen over the last decade and sent cash in advance without issue.  Somebody who has bought and sold on Paypal and sent instant transfers, wire transfers, money orders, international money orders, cheques...  All without issue (knock on wood.)  When I look on this forum I find story after story of people who have lost thousands to scammers and thieves.  And this in a community who is hyper-aware of scamming.  What are the chances that the average Joe will keep his coin?

This brings us to security.  You know to keep BTC in cold storage, copy your .dat files, use a clean boot of Linux or some other operating system, transfer your files on USB sticks... Do your honestly believe that the average person using a tablet is going to understand even a fraction of this?  In a first world country where Windows is the standard and the majority of users could not scan for a virus if their life depended on it (well, they might download some malware to scan for a virus should they do a search...)  I know the upcoming generation is more computer literate- but we are talking widespread acceptance in all countries, economic classes and levels of intelligence.  I think after the third time somebody buys a $600 coin and has it “drained” by hacking they may give up.  Again, why would the average person purchase something with these risks?

Now we get to the great argument for bitcoin... no fees, no regulation, free of the ability to charge back ect.  Anybody with an ounce of sense uses escrow.  Escrow fees are a percentage (why not just pay my bank for clearing funds?)  On top of this, I have to trust the person I use for escrow.  Suddenly, there are fees and additional risk.  Regulation is coming (many countries have declared BTC to be an asset and subject to taxation.)  Yes, I can get around it- you can probably get around it (I think most of us on this forum are savvy enough to know how if we try.)  However, if you think the number of people who have heard of bitcoin is small, imagine how many fewer can use these services and browsers (properly- without leaving major traces.)

The ability to prevent charge backs is great... but if I pay you in cold, hard cash it has the same advantage (including anonymity.)  The problem again arrives when we look at the number of people scammed or hacked with no recourse holding BTC.

Well, there it is.  I hope I am wrong.  I honestly like LTC, BTC, gold, silver, platinum, palladium diamonds... Anything the government cannot inflate away and screw with (even at that I think we all have to acknowledge that the government could screw with BTC if they wanted to trow a few million at computers.  I think the majority of us would also have to admit that they have screwed with gold and silver VIA the exchanges and banks already and that DeBeers has screwed with the diamond market since.. well, forever.)  They have the advantage that they can just print whatever it would take to mess things up if they really wanted to (though I honestly do not consider that a threat at this point in time- it would legitimize things and draw too many questions that they do not want to answer even though most of this community already know the answers...)  I will continue mining coins and messing around for fun (and maybe even a little profit if I am lucky.)  I expect that there will always be a market and that there will be more adoption over the next decade... But I cannot imagine the day I could pay my taxes in BTC (A topic for another day when I think I may ask “if BTC is an asset according to the government because it has value- can I pay the tax to them as a percentage of BTC I earned using BTC???")

If a Bitcoin reaches $10,000, the more commonly used measurement will be MilliBits.

1 Bitcoin = 1,000 MilliBits.
0.2 BTC = 200 MilliBits, and so on...........

Are people already avoiding purchasing Bitcoin because of the fallacy of the price being out of their reach? Litecoin is a poor man's Bitcoin. For $500 you can own 50 LTC or less than one BTC. Does it feel good for the poor man to own Litecoin or another alt instead of Bitcoin if he's low on funds, even if Bitcoin is clearly the leader of the pack? I think so. It's psychological.

[TheLittleDuke]

I share some of your sentiment.

Successful economies need to expand to include more participants.  They have to be safe and fair (or at least equitable)

It's still way too early for say my mom to get involved transactionally.

However, this is precisely what inspired us to develop http://doabitofgood.com -- a way to begin the conversation with non-IT people to help them participate in the economy until a time that they were ready for things like wallets and exchange.

Even if most people will never understand "mining" we make it easy for them to Do a Bit of Good by running our screen-saver that generates bits of coin that get donated to their favorite cause.  The big win we're seeing at the moment is for animal rescue shelters -- we're getting the word (and pictures) of adoptable pets so in this way we're actually saving lives!

[BetMoose]

West77 brings up mostly valid points. He's absolutely correct that most people wouldn't want btc for $300 a coin, and if they got it they'd just sell it. A lot of bitcoiners are in fact living in a bubble, because it's nice in here and we all know what mess it will be if we go mainstream. Most people will be using ebanks, there will be fees on everything, and ultimately, we won't end up fixing anything about the finance system, if anything, we'd complicate it further.

Bitcoin needs a killer app, something exclusive to it that takes advantage of it and makes people buy it to benefit from it. Personally, I do not think that advantage comes from spending it at merchants. We need to specialize it to where it's useful: underground markets, anonymous probably fair gambling, remittance, and anything else you can't do with fiat easily. Then accept the fact that that's where cryptos are useful, that's their value, and move on.

Tl;dr, Something cool isn't always valuable or practical.

[commandrix]

Some valid points...Sometimes I've thought that more people would get involved with cryptocurrencies if they could mine it on a decent laptop. (I will admit to curiosity about whether anybody's tried mining Groestlcoin. They're the ones that are supposed to have a more efficient algorithm.) Is there a way we could keep Bitcoin from becoming like the old financial system? I am thinking we should just do peer-to-peer lending if we have to get into the Bitcoin version of the money market at all. Fewer fees and we give the banks something to think about.

[DurbanPoison]

 I honestly like LTC, BTC, gold, silver, platinum, palladium diamonds... Anything the government cannot inflate away and screw with (even at that I think we all have to acknowledge that the government could screw with BTC if they wanted to trow a few million at computers.  I think the majority of us would also have to admit that they have screwed with gold and silver VIA the exchanges and banks already and that DeBeers has screwed with the diamond market since.. well, forever.)  

Ditch the LTC (slowly dying), ditch the palladium (illiquid), ditch the diamonds (you are right about DeBeers).

All you need is BTC, gold and silver FTW! Also, some of your local currency in small denominations in case TSHTF!

[zimmah]

Same interesting points, i'll try to answer some of them.

As for the gold standard getting dropped:

I think people did not really have a choice, what were they going to do, riot? Even if they would riot, would it have mattered? I don't think so. Also, politicians most likely used a lot of propaganda to pull it of (it's what politicians do).

Also, the gold standard dropped during a time the world was either at war, or recovering from war, so people did not really want to get more trouble by standing up against the government, no matter how hard the government raped them. (I believe war and post-war times are the best time for governments to create laws to screw people, and tell the people they are needed and are only temporarily and than eventually the people will forget there was ever a time with better laws, for example, income tax since WW1).


As for the laptops, you only need a cellphone to use bitcoin, and more people have cell phones than people have bank accounts. Many people who want to buy stuff on the internet simply can't, not because they don't have money (well they don't have a lot of money, but still, they have a few dollars), but because they have no bank account, and can't afford one (note bank accounts are more expensive the less money you have!). Bitcoin might allow them to order things online, if even very small payments like food from a local store or whatever they want to buy.

Many poor people live in countries with huge inflation, if they have to choose between losing 10~30% of their purchasing power guaranteed each month versus owning a volitile (but often increasing) bitcoin, it would be a no-brainer.

Security may be a problem for poor people and technologically challenged people, but for those people there's webwallets (coinkite, coinbase, blockchain), i agree you'd have to trust a 3rd party and they are not as secure as a cold wallet, but hey, it's still better than a bank!

[Meuh6879]

1) you can buy bitcoin with any money
2) you can sell bitcoin with any possibility (exchange, hand by hand -paper- or with smartphone)
3) you can pay seller with bitcoin, it's more cheap than any form of money




... bitcoin ... ? It's like the 3D printer ...  in more simple.
now, you can't use it because you don't known what it can do in this world.