What is the critical point above which bitcoin is officially mainstream?

[Roy Badami]

For it to be officially mainstream, presumably some official needs to declare it such.  Perhaps a civil servant in the Department of Mainstream Affairs might issue a press briefing?

roy

[pening]

Now with newegg accepting bitcoins, and every news channel reporting bitcoin, all the action happening around, can we officially claim bitcoin has entered mainstream?

When it isn't a news story anymore.

[toknormal]

1-800 Flowers, worlds leading florist now announced they're going to be accepting Bitcoin.

Major WSJ article - today:

http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20140701-906106.html

[Alley]

When over 50% of brick and motar stores accept it.  Hell there's still places I can't use my amex card.

[5w00p]

When you are blowing cocaine up a hooker's ass. On a beach. Every day.

I'm just trying to understand why one would give a prostitute a cocaine enema. 

Whatever floats yer boat, Skipper.

[sevenz]

what was the critical point above which the internet was officially mainstream?

The answer is only known in retrospect.

In terms of the internet, I would say the web became more mainstream when browsing services like AOL dumbed down the concept of being online to people making it a "no think, just point and click" zone.

I think systems such as CoinBase have been trying to do just that, but it's not quite there yet.

The internet took quite a while to become mainstream but technology moves 10 times as fast nowadays, not to mention obviously bitcoin is built around the internet. There will be services or payment processors that make it easier for people to use that's for sure. I don't think it's as complicated as many people make out though.

I agree, it's not as complicated as people make it out to be. But, neither was/is the internet.
The internet went mainstream in two phases as I see it, phase one took place in the 90's. Phase two took place with social networking which brought everyone who was late to the table and it nailed that door shut. Everyone is here now. Unless you are poor. But zuckerberg and his drones are taking care of that. LOL

Either way, it was AOL making "retard proof" GUI's that really stuck the internet into the mainstream. Technology is much faster these days, because people are using it....but look at what majority of people are using...easy simple apps that a 3 year old can operate - so much so that some even predict apps could become the death of the web browser and traditional internet.

Ease of access with make bitcoin go mainstream, as I said, coinbase as already kickstarted this ease of access. It's the long wallet keys that intimidate people who are not "in the know" with coins.

This is the pivotal point of bitcoin going mainstream...When AOL made retard proof GUI's and people hopped on, they were not really using the authentic internet - it was watered down and kind of disguised. This will happen with bitcoin, there will be a retard proof way, people will log on to use it - and at that point, people who were already using bitcoin will slightly judge them - the same way computer geeks turned their noses up to AOL.

Just my two satoshis. LOL

[ChuckOne]

I would summarise mainstream for bitcoin is "when shops expect a drop in sales if they do not accept bitcoin as payment". It is like going into a shop today and they do not accept credit cards.

US only.

[Beliathon]

when bitcoin does at least 50 transactions per sec (that's what paypal does).
we are at 0.8...

When bitcoin does at least 1000 transaction per second.

[BitchicksHusband]

When both amazon and walmart accept it, all the previous merchants are big for us, but tiny compared to amazon/walmart, they do like 1% of their sales volume.

Amazon $75 billion per year.
NewEgg $3 billion per year.

So, more than 1%.  Closer to 3%-4%.

[silversmith]

According to bitcoinrichlist.com there are only 1.1 million wallets with more than 0.01 BTC in them($6.35 USD at time of writing.) I would think there would need to be 100+ million wallets with more than 0.01 BTC before it is "mainstream."

[JypsiCreme]

when you'll be able pay taxes in BTC

[cuddaloreappu]

when you'll be able pay taxes in BTC

Tax again?
I thought bitcoin helps get rid of tax

[Light]

Tax again?
I thought bitcoin helps get rid of tax

Actually in all likelihood Bitcoin will not get rid of tax. It's simply far too necessary for the government and if it faces a threat it will legislate to find a means to keep the taxation system. While the idea of no tax sounds nice, how would you like a broke government that cannot afford education spending, road spending, infrastructure or any form of social security. Sadly taxes are the fundamental source of revenue for any and all governments.

[QuestionAuthority]

When there are more people spending them than there are hoarding them.

[maurya78]

I think 100m downloaded wallets or thereabouts

Where are we now on that metric, does anybody know?

[beetcoin]

when wallstreet comes in and the ETF.. you'll have solid options for your portfolio, and a lot of money will start pouring in.