Bitcoin's Edge - How will bitcoin fight off competitors?

[vrm86]

For now, Bitcoin doesn't get the attention of the common internet user(the one that just keeps wasting time on social networks and listening to music), and as for now, it seens that it'll go to nowhere.
The lack os stability of the price and the simplicity of getting stolen all your money in one click is also reasons that Bitcoin cant grow much further, and if another currency does a good solution for that(even if it means mass adoption and good developers) it can pass by Bitcoin.

Yes. The security could be the most important concern. If somebody new in bitcoins would take a look at the "Thefts and scams" list he/she could feel frightened a bit.

[Snail2]

At this moment there are not much real challenger for bitcoin perhaps NXT and bitshares but these two are still not very well known outside the altcoin section.

[SOAD]

It's already thought/fighting them off pretty well. Bitcoin is pretty much perfect as far as cryptos go and the only reason an alt hasn't come close to stealing its crown is that they've offered nothing truly exceptional. Bitcoin also has the 'brand' name (if you can call it that) and it's in the public eye with many merchants already accepting it and many more to come. I really can't see any alt coins stealing its thunder or gaining merchant adoption like bitcoin has.

[Lauda]

The bolded part is wrong. YOU would expect that they're up to no good. Maybe most bitcoiners would feel the same way. But the fast majority of the world doesn't care, just as they don't care about governments printing more fiat. In fact, they think that's the way it should be and can't imagine any other way.

The problem is not about a governmentcoin taking away the current bitcoin adopters. It's about a governmentcoin taking over the other 99.999% of people who are not bitcoin adopters. Bitcoin will then be relegated to a non-official, anarchist/drug dealing currency that most people avoid. I'd imagine merchants would feel the pressure to not adopt bitcoin, and bitcoin will essentially be either destroyed, or at least completely contained within a very small niche, with no further growth.

Again, the problem is, does the world really care about decentralization? My personal opinion, without any hard statistics to back it up, is No. In fact, I believe that a significant number of people would believe that centralization is a necessity*.

*I say WOULD believe, rather than believe, because I bet that most people don't really care enough to think about these topics, so they'd simply come up with an opinion when someone asks them the question. For now, they have no opinion.

So in the end, this question is about how we can achieve mass adoption with decentralized crypto like bitcoin, rather than a centralized government controlled one taking up 99.999% of the rest of the population.

I meant smarter half of the Bitcoin community and me. Should the average sheep even matter to you? I know that it does not for me.
If people want to get fucked over, then let them.

2nd bold: Like I've said, this is not possible. People have 0 computer skills and 0 understanding of technology (the mentioned majority).

[Puppet]

The network effect.  Same reason  no one is going to dethrone Facebook, or LinkedIn anytime soon no matter how good they make the site.  After all its fairly trivial to make something better than  eg  Facebook,  but no one is going  to use it because...  No one uses it.

[futureofbitcoin]

The bolded part is wrong. YOU would expect that they're up to no good. Maybe most bitcoiners would feel the same way. But the fast majority of the world doesn't care, just as they don't care about governments printing more fiat. In fact, they think that's the way it should be and can't imagine any other way.

The problem is not about a governmentcoin taking away the current bitcoin adopters. It's about a governmentcoin taking over the other 99.999% of people who are not bitcoin adopters. Bitcoin will then be relegated to a non-official, anarchist/drug dealing currency that most people avoid. I'd imagine merchants would feel the pressure to not adopt bitcoin, and bitcoin will essentially be either destroyed, or at least completely contained within a very small niche, with no further growth.

Again, the problem is, does the world really care about decentralization? My personal opinion, without any hard statistics to back it up, is No. In fact, I believe that a significant number of people would believe that centralization is a necessity*.

*I say WOULD believe, rather than believe, because I bet that most people don't really care enough to think about these topics, so they'd simply come up with an opinion when someone asks them the question. For now, they have no opinion.

So in the end, this question is about how we can achieve mass adoption with decentralized crypto like bitcoin, rather than a centralized government controlled one taking up 99.999% of the rest of the population.

I meant smarter half of the Bitcoin community and me. Should the average sheep even matter to you? I know that it does not for me.
If people want to get fucked over, then let them.

2nd bold: Like I've said, this is not possible. People have 0 computer skills and 0 understanding of technology (the mentioned majority).

well, first, I have to say thank you for being one of the only people who actually understands (or actually read my post) what I was trying to say.

The thing is, those sheep don't matter to me normally, but having them join bitcoin instead of another government controlled program would benefit bitcoiners, because that would necessarily mean more businesses accepting bitcoin, higher bitcoin prices, etc.

[jerol31]

I honestly think it would. I believe bitcoin is too strong and popular now and it can not be compromised by other online money.

Furthermore, I believe value of bitcoin will raise in future and now it is good time to invest in it.

[Beliathon]

Bitcoin has no competitors. Bitoin's edge is an event horizon. All non-blockchain financial matter is waiting to be sucked past it and consumed.

[ebliever]

One BIG advantage Bitcoin has is several years of intense software development and support, producing hundreds of aps that work with bitcoin from simple android stuff up to commercial systems like the bitcoin processors. No company or government will be able to replicate that without a tremendous amount of work and a budget to match. But without that it becomes much harder to deploy their bitcoin-competitor and get people using it.

As others have pointed out there is also the trust factor. Governments today are routinely selling future generations of their citizens into debt slavery, to pay off the welfare class and maintain the status quo for the ruling class. This involves devaluation of their currency over time. Why should we trust a cryptocurrency generated by a government functioning on this basis any more than we trust fiat currency from that same government?

[johnyj]

Communication protocol seldom have competitors, unless hindered by tradition, the most widely accepted protocol have the tendency to expand and dominate, since that will reduce the friction for any party involved

[thejaytiesto]

So far most (all?) of bitcoin's competitors, i.e 'altcoins' are created by random groups of people who aren't that influential in the grand scheme of things. As such, bitcoin's first mover advantage is huge; it is almost impossible to overcome. Another common argument for bitcoin, is that whatever features altcoins come up with, it can be implemented in bitcoin as well, if it's beneficial enough.

But what if bitcoin's competitors are not random 'altcoins' but cryptocurrencies designed and controlled by large governments or corporations? In the Economics sub-forum, we see threads like Canada trying to make its own cryptocoin pegged to the Canadian dollar, and IBM is possibly going to make their own as well. How will bitcoin fight against these competitors? Though bitcoin already has some infrastructure set up, for many bitcoin companies, they can probably switch to a government controlled crypocurrency easily. Bitcoin's first mover advantage can be easily overshadowed by governments trying to promote their own currencies, while making it harder for bitcoin to succeed.

So how will bitcoin edge out against these competitors? Before you say "well, bitcoin is decentralized so centralized government cryptocurrencies will not succed", are you sure about that? The majority of bitcoin supporters are either huge techies or motivated by their political beliefs, thus they see value in decentralization, getting rid of fiat, and stuff like that. But even for someone like me, who has read a lot about crypto, its benefits and effects, I'm not wholly convinced that decentralization is such a big advantage. Heck, I'm not even convinced it's a good thing. And I believe the majority of the world is like me, and not like you guys. If a government based crypto gets better infrastructure, approval from the government, ease of use, etc, I just don't see how the normal Billy Bob Joe will care for or understand the benefits of decentralization. I think a good example is Ripple. Though it's centralized, it's still bigger than most alt coins. Now imagine what a government backed Ripple can do.

I am bullish on bitcoin, and I hope that bitcoin will succeed versus a government/large corporation controlled coin. But I think we need to critically look at bitcoins strengths and weaknesses, and how exactly bitcoin will edge out all competitors, including huge goliath's like the government. If bitcoin's technology proves to be as innovative and revolutionary as promised/hoped in the next few years, I think we can be sure that governments will seriously try to promote their own crypto instead. If we don't want centralization, if we don't want government controlled money, we have to take steps now to prevent that from happening.

If these competitors happen to come from centralized entities, people will (hopefully) be repelled by it when we have the original, open source, no strings attached, apolitical option (Bitcoin).

In any case, Bitcoin will forever remain the e-Gold, even if another crypto takes off as a replacement for fiat.

[Ron~Popeil]

I don't think bit coin needs to "fight off" other coins. The market will inevitably choose the best coin. Alt coins also make wonderful laboratories for innovation. The best ideas can always be integrated. Progress is a sloppy business, but eventually a few crypto's will crawl out the digital soup and hopefully compete with fiat in a real way.

[LiteCoinGuy]

"we see threads like Canada trying to make its own cryptocoin pegged to the Canadian dollar"

failed long ago (google "mint chip")

[Lauda]

One BIG advantage Bitcoin has is several years of intense software development and support, producing hundreds of aps that work with bitcoin from simple android stuff up to commercial systems like the bitcoin processors. No company or government will be able to replicate that without a tremendous amount of work and a budget to match. But without that it becomes much harder to deploy their bitcoin-competitor and get people using it.

As others have pointed out there is also the trust factor. Governments today are routinely selling future generations of their citizens into debt slavery, to pay off the welfare class and maintain the status quo for the ruling class. This involves devaluation of their currency over time. Why should we trust a cryptocurrency generated by a government functioning on this basis any more than we trust fiat currency from that same government?

How is this an advantage for Bitcoin since the government could fork it, upgrade it as they wish. Wouldn't that coin easily be compatible with existing Bitcoin infrastructure?

[Ron~Popeil]

One BIG advantage Bitcoin has is several years of intense software development and support, producing hundreds of aps that work with bitcoin from simple android stuff up to commercial systems like the bitcoin processors. No company or government will be able to replicate that without a tremendous amount of work and a budget to match. But without that it becomes much harder to deploy their bitcoin-competitor and get people using it.

As others have pointed out there is also the trust factor. Governments today are routinely selling future generations of their citizens into debt slavery, to pay off the welfare class and maintain the status quo for the ruling class. This involves devaluation of their currency over time. Why should we trust a cryptocurrency generated by a government functioning on this basis any more than we trust fiat currency from that same government?

How is this an advantage for Bitcoin since the government could fork it, upgrade it as they wish. Wouldn't that coin easily be compatible with existing Bitcoin infrastructure?

The "govcoin" would also pretty much artificially go mainstream overnight since the government could require businesses and banks to accept it.  

There is no level playing field for privately created crypto currencies. Of course it could also have the unintended consequences of creating the illusion that government endorses crypto currency in general and a fast infrastructure build up that bit coin could piggy back on.

[calme]

Haha. U.S. government shitcoin would be #1 marketing tool for BTC.

[Lauda]

How is this an advantage for Bitcoin since the government could fork it, upgrade it as they wish. Wouldn't that coin easily be compatible with existing Bitcoin infrastructure?

The "govcoin" would also pretty much artificially go mainstream overnight since the government could require businesses and banks to accept it.  

There is no level playing field for privately created crypto currencies. Of course it could also have the unintended consequences of creating the illusion that government endorses crypto currency in general and a fast infrastructure build up that bit coin could piggy back on.

Actually, when I think about it, you're right. The government could make it mandatory, just like you have to accept $ in the US.
Well that wouldn't surprise me. It's well known that the government is manipulating people. First they are against crypto, then they endorse it.

[futureofbitcoin]

See, that's what I've been trying to say. Bitcoin's "first mover" advantage is pretty much useless against a government backed crypto. All of the current infrastructure could possibly be easily modified to work with the government coin, and it might be made mandatory.

[calme]

I doubt they'd force businesses to accept it, since it's still the same currency that they can manipulate/steal/etc., but in electronic form. Most 1st world nations already have the majority of their fiat supply in electronic form anyway.

[manselr]

Haha. U.S. government shitcoin would be #1 marketing tool for BTC.

This, it will clearly backfire and get the people's attention on BTC because it will be the "cool, non official outsider coin".