Reason for bitcoin popularity in Germany?

[TheFootMan]

Germany is the home country of the Euro, and afaik it's stable financially.

I think it is great germans are so heavily into Bitcoin (like country #2 after the US), but what are the main reasons you're involved?

For countries where the financial situation is very bad, like Argentina, I understand why bitcoins are popular, but why so popular in Germany?

It seems in general when people are making choices, they more often than not, chose what's the simplest method or product to help them do their business.

For instance, in Kopenhagen, bicycles are popular, not because the majority of the population are environmentalists or health addicts, but rather because it's the 'quickest' method to get from A to B.

Bitcoin is great, but currently it's not the easiest way to pay for anything in Germany, so why is it so immensely popular in Germany?

Please enlighten me!

[curiosity81]

Hi,

On the one hand and In the developed world, Germany is a country with a relatively high population (80 Mio.), after the US and Japan. Therefore, the absolute number of users in Germany should be high compared to other countries.
Imho, Bitcoin is not very popular in Germany. If you check coinmap, then you see that the Netherland are far more developed in this matter.

On the other hand, after the two world wars, the wall and the GDR, and a new currency, the €, which was forced from the government instead of the beloved D-Mark, germans became quite paranoid with respect to the government, especially the political extrems. Many expect, that the EU is collapsing in the near future. Thus, people try to find alternatives, like the bitcoin, which cannot be regulated by the government, especially from the people in brussels. Many germans do not like it that non-germans are making decisions for europe and germany.
Imho, Bitcoin is not very loved in Germany, people are not as experienced playing with money. It is standard, to give the money to the bank to minimize the risk, so people are very conservative using their money.

[Chefin]

On the other hand, we have a big Volume of Gamemoney(not money from a game, i mean money you can play without fearing the waste). There you find a lot of peaople who want to find the golden Egg. Compare it a little with the Goldrush in California in the USA.

We have a lot of digger, who spend much money to be the one who become rich. And when you have digger you need equipmentstore which are the one who become rich. And some speculants too. Compared to the world we have one of the highest per head incoming in the world and more or less stable low prices. The ones who have higher per head incoming have much more food and energie prices. So we are in the position to play around even when we loose some money.

Of cource, there are allways people who are very poor, i spoke from a statistical side. Which means we still have some poor and some ultrarich also. But even the poors get around 800Euro/monthly from the goverment(depence how expensive the Flat ist the rent). I know some countrys in Europe where you get less per month while you work whole day.

But curiosity81 is right, nederland has much more per head. As they only have 16,8 millionen people compared to germany with 82 Million.

[e-coinomist]

But it's not the tipping point after which it grows exponentially, no. It's the tipping point where people start fleeing it en masse to other technologies and undervalued cryptos. After all, why would you buy Bitcoin if you can buy something cheaper, which does the same, or even better - if you can buy something cheaper which does the same and then a few other things. Bitcoin was the bootstrapping crypto, now is the time for other technologies to take its place. It won't happen overnight, but the process has begun.

Agreed. I also think the tipping point has been reached or at least will be reached in the very near future. A lot of people will most certainly call me crazy, but Bitcoin is dead to me.

I said that quite a while ago when Bitcoin was near high in November last year and I was ridiculed and laughed at by some of these people in a meetup. Perhaps their minds are too simple.

Bitcoin will see its last days. Maybe not tomorrow, but definitely before the end of the decade. The irony is, everyone is talking about bitcoin! We have banks, we have businesses, we have giant companies wanting to jump in the bandwagon and we have miners putting in 10s of millions of serious money into mining these coins. And no one can see the obvious storm that is looming ahead. Are they blind?

It is dead in germany, too. The ATM in Bochum just failed, will go onto the junkpile soon (partially due to their own fault implementing too much surveilance technology into the ATM, which features a fingerprint sensor. This is totally uncommon for each and every other terminal out there. None have that.)

[adamas]

amytheplanarshift on 02-09-2014, 15:10:36
Agreed. I also think the tipping point has been reached or at least will be reached in the very near future. A lot of people will most certainly call me crazy, but Bitcoin is dead to me.

In diesem Forum wird unglaublich viel Müll geredet von wg "Bitcoin is dead, etc", überwiegend von Trolls mit solchen Seiten: ournem.com

The ATM in Bochum just failed, will go onto the junkpile soon (partially due to their own fault implementing too much surveilance technology into the ATM, which features a fingerprint sensor. This is totally uncommon for each and every other terminal out there. None have that.

Agreed. In anderen EU Ländern gibt es auch ATMs mit eingebautem Fingerprintgedöns (z.b. Robocoin), allerdings ist das Teil meistens abgeschaltet weil es keinen interessiert (außer ein paar Techfreaks). Nur in Deutschland muss man natürlich wieder allen beweisen, dass man mit vorauseilendem Gehorsam, Kontrollsucht und Selbstbeschränkung jede Erfolg versprechende Innovation erfolgreich im Keim ersticken kann.

[TheFootMan]

amytheplanarshift on 02-09-2014, 15:10:36
Agreed. I also think the tipping point has been reached or at least will be reached in the very near future. A lot of people will most certainly call me crazy, but Bitcoin is dead to me.

In diesem Forum wird unglaublich viel Müll geredet von wg "Bitcoin is dead, etc", überwiegend von Trolls mit solchen Seiten: ournem.com

The ATM in Bochum just failed, will go onto the junkpile soon (partially due to their own fault implementing too much surveilance technology into the ATM, which features a fingerprint sensor. This is totally uncommon for each and every other terminal out there. None have that.

Agreed. In anderen EU Ländern gibt es auch ATMs mit eingebautem Fingerprintgedöns (z.b. Robocoin), allerdings ist das Teil meistens abgeschaltet weil es keinen interessiert (außer ein paar Techfreaks). Nur in Deutschland muss man natürlich wieder allen beweisen, dass man mit vorauseilendem Gehorsam, Kontrollsucht und Selbstbeschränkung jede Erfolg versprechende Innovation erfolgreich im Keim ersticken kann.

Giving up fingerprints is a major issue imo though, these cannot easily be changed ever, if you lose your password, fine - then change it - but you cannot easily change your fingerprints. Unless it's completely mandatory, like entering the US on a flight, I see no reason to ever give away your fingerprint. Heck, I don't even understand why people accept to do this on iphones.

[adamas]

Giving up fingerprints is a major issue imo though, these cannot easily be changed ever, if you lose your password, fine - then change it - but you cannot easily change your fingerprints. Unless it's completely mandatory, like entering the US on a flight, I see no reason to ever give away your fingerprint. Heck, I don't even understand why people accept to do this on iphones.

Ich habe noch nie USA Territorium betreten und werde auch in Zukunft gerne darauf verzichten (inkl. Fingerprints). Wenn die EU so weiter macht (TTIP, usw), ist es sowieso nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis die USA hier 28 neue Staaten annektiert.

[TheFootMan]

Giving up fingerprints is a major issue imo though, these cannot easily be changed ever, if you lose your password, fine - then change it - but you cannot easily change your fingerprints. Unless it's completely mandatory, like entering the US on a flight, I see no reason to ever give away your fingerprint. Heck, I don't even understand why people accept to do this on iphones.

Ich habe noch nie USA Territorium betreten und werde auch in Zukunft gerne darauf verzichten (inkl. Fingerprints). Wenn die EU so weiter macht (TTIP, usw), ist es sowieso nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis die USA hier 28 neue Staaten annektiert.

I agree with your sentiment, but I wasn't that 'enlightened' when I got there, and besides I guess that my family would've become very sad if I recjected. I envy much of the privacy stance germans have. But once you get on US soil, if you start rejecting to give fingerprints, I can only imagine what would happen..

[adamas]

Giving up fingerprints is a major issue imo though, these cannot easily be changed ever, if you lose your password, fine - then change it - but you cannot easily change your fingerprints. Unless it's completely mandatory, like entering the US on a flight, I see no reason to ever give away your fingerprint. Heck, I don't even understand why people accept to do this on iphones.

Ich habe noch nie USA Territorium betreten und werde auch in Zukunft gerne darauf verzichten (inkl. Fingerprints). Wenn die EU so weiter macht (TTIP, usw), ist es sowieso nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis die USA hier 28 neue Staaten annektiert.

.. But once you get on US soil, if you start rejecting to give fingerprints, I can only imagine what would happen..

I can imagine ..

[TheFootMan]

Giving up fingerprints is a major issue imo though, these cannot easily be changed ever, if you lose your password, fine - then change it - but you cannot easily change your fingerprints. Unless it's completely mandatory, like entering the US on a flight, I see no reason to ever give away your fingerprint. Heck, I don't even understand why people accept to do this on iphones.

Ich habe noch nie USA Territorium betreten und werde auch in Zukunft gerne darauf verzichten (inkl. Fingerprints). Wenn die EU so weiter macht (TTIP, usw), ist es sowieso nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis die USA hier 28 neue Staaten annektiert.

.. But once you get on US soil, if you start rejecting to give fingerprints, I can only imagine what would happen..

I can imagine ..

There was a UK couple tweeting after landing: "Going to destroy Las Vegas" as in 'going to have a great party time'. They were put on the first plane back to the UK..

[C. Bergmann]

Hi,

germany is some kind bipolar. I don't want to nationalize anything, but germans love good technology and are often pioneers.

If you look at some old player in the bitcoinspace - All4Btc, bitcoin.de, bitcoincommodities, bitcoincharts, bitcoin24, bitcard, bitcoin wallet for android etc. - you find a lot of germans that popularized bitcoin since 2011. Also if you look at the list of the core developers you find a lot of german names.

But, on the other side: germans are conservative and the majority believes that everything i don't use should be forbidden. Last year there was a study with the result that around 50 percent of the germans are for more rules and prohobitions. E. G. soft drugs like marijuana, gambling, etc. Some week ago there was a poll with the result that more than 30 percent of the germans think it should be prohibited that supermarkets sell christmas-stuff before a deadline. Why the @#!! do they want to tell my merchant not to sell my beloved "Speculatius" in october? This is the sentiment in germany.

Mainstream media shows currently a significant lack of interest for the freedom of speach when the speaker is their reader who don't shares their oppinion. Our only liberal (libertarian) party, the FDP, is dying. The majority of young people dream of a job in the civil service, and nearly no one is interested in starting an enterprise. And regarding the financial affaires - germany has never been a hub for financial services and so on, the majority of the people don't leave their "Sparbuch", even if it brings not more than 0.1 percent each year. Also the majority of people don't use any transaction service than their bank account, etc.

To overstretch it: germany is a good place for early adopter of any kind of technology, but it's a bad place to make any new thing popular. If the whole world was germany, we would have invented everything but never used it outside some strange circles that have become prohibited some years later. Just like the internet ... if I'm right, the first Email was send in germany, the mp3 was invented in germany, and a lot of the technical stuff inside our computers did come from german labs (like the harddrives using spins, the basis of usb-sticks). But not any of this technologies has spread to the public in germany. In real, we reimported it from the USA (I overstrech this, sorry)

[IIOII]

It's not clear, if Bitcoin is more popular in Germany than in other countries like the US. But if you assume it is, I'd think it's because of two major reasons:

1. History: Germans are much more fearful of inflation and distrust government more than other nations. Germans experienced a financial trauma during the late-Weimar hyperinflation which has been deeply engraved into their collective memory as a period of great hardship and social catastrophe. Germans also experienced two dictatorships in their more recent history which both being characterized by severe violations of human rights and also resulted in severe economic damage.

2. Preference for technology: Germans like technology. But German preference for technology differs a bit from other countries like the US. I think German preference is more on the hackish-pioneer side than on the shiny-business side of technological innovation.

I think both aspects are interrelated: Germans distrust government, so they are more likely to adopt a technology that comes from an independent source, even if usability is not perfect and requires some learning.

Of course that's not true for all Germans, but there is a larger part of the population that exhibits these preferences than in other countries.

[qwk]

Some week ago there was a poll with the result that more than 30 percent of the germans think it should be prohibited that supermarkets sell christmas-stuff before a deadline. Why the @#!! do they want to tell my merchant not to sell my beloved "Speculatius" in october?

Because whatever people don't like to see should be forbidden.
That's why:
Gay marriage should be forbidden. (eg. France)
Nudism should be forbidden. (eg. USA)
Kissing in public should be forbidden. (eg. Indonesia)

I don't really see anything special in Germans here. Whatever we don't like, whatever we feel uncomfortable with, we want it banned, locked up, hidden from our eyes. That's just the way we humans are

[e-coinomist]

1. History: Germans are much more fearful of inflation and distrust government more than other nations. Germans experienced a financial trauma during the late-Weimar hyperinflation which has been deeply engraved into their collective memory as a period of great hardship and social catastrophe. Germans also experienced two dictatorships in their more recent history which both being characterized by severe violations of human rights and also resulted in severe economic damage.

That was 1923, and just 80 years later there was the TEURO Scamcoin introduced, effectively halving people's assets. Resulting distrust is deeply engraved into the DNA codes by now.

[TheFootMan]

Some week ago there was a poll with the result that more than 30 percent of the germans think it should be prohibited that supermarkets sell christmas-stuff before a deadline. Why the @#!! do they want to tell my merchant not to sell my beloved "Speculatius" in october?

Because whatever people don't like to see should be forbidden.
That's why:
Gay marriage should be forbidden. (eg. France)
Nudism should be forbidden. (eg. USA)
Kissing in public should be forbidden. (eg. Indonesia)

I don't really see anything special in Germans here. Whatever we don't like, whatever we feel uncomfortable with, we want it banned, locked up, hidden from our eyes. That's just the way we humans are

Perhaps we should ban people banning things they don't like? 

[minime]

Giving up fingerprints is a major issue imo though, these cannot easily be changed ever, if you lose your password, fine - then change it - but you cannot easily change your fingerprints. Unless it's completely mandatory, like entering the US on a flight, I see no reason to ever give away your fingerprint. Heck, I don't even understand why people accept to do this on iphones.

Ich habe noch nie USA Territorium betreten und werde auch in Zukunft gerne darauf verzichten (inkl. Fingerprints). Wenn die EU so weiter macht (TTIP, usw), ist es sowieso nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis die USA hier 28 neue Staaten annektiert.

I agree with your sentiment, but I wasn't that 'enlightened' when I got there, and besides I guess that my family would've become very sad if I recjected. I envy much of the privacy stance germans have. But once you get on US soil, if you start rejecting to give fingerprints, I can only imagine what would happen..

if you want / need a new passport and / or ID you have to give your fingerprints... thats german law

[Dunkelheit667]

Giving up fingerprints is a major issue imo though, these cannot easily be changed ever, if you lose your password, fine - then change it - but you cannot easily change your fingerprints. Unless it's completely mandatory, like entering the US on a flight, I see no reason to ever give away your fingerprint. Heck, I don't even understand why people accept to do this on iphones.

Ich habe noch nie USA Territorium betreten und werde auch in Zukunft gerne darauf verzichten (inkl. Fingerprints). Wenn die EU so weiter macht (TTIP, usw), ist es sowieso nur eine Frage der Zeit, bis die USA hier 28 neue Staaten annektiert.

I agree with your sentiment, but I wasn't that 'enlightened' when I got there, and besides I guess that my family would've become very sad if I recjected. I envy much of the privacy stance germans have. But once you get on US soil, if you start rejecting to give fingerprints, I can only imagine what would happen..

if you want / need a new passport and / or ID you have to give your fingerprints... thats german law

You fingerprints are mandatory for the passport only, not the ID.

[C. Bergmann]

Some week ago there was a poll with the result that more than 30 percent of the germans think it should be prohibited that supermarkets sell christmas-stuff before a deadline. Why the @#!! do they want to tell my merchant not to sell my beloved "Speculatius" in october?

Because whatever people don't like to see should be forbidden.
That's why:
Gay marriage should be forbidden. (eg. France)
Nudism should be forbidden. (eg. USA)
Kissing in public should be forbidden. (eg. Indonesia)

I don't really see anything special in Germans here. Whatever we don't like, whatever we feel uncomfortable with, we want it banned, locked up, hidden from our eyes. That's just the way we humans are

Ja, vielleicht ist das nur menschlich. Ich habe trotzdem das Gefühl, dass diese Neigung in Deutschland besonders ausgeprägt ist. Aber vielleicht ist das auch nur Einbildung. Bekanntlich sind die Wiesen wo anders immer grüner

[Christian1998]

Thats a GERMAN Board!
Dies ist ein deutsches Unterboard! 

[qwk]

Thats a GERMAN Board!
Dies ist ein deutsches Unterboard! 

Jawollja!