Everything will be put in place once the government takes the side of bitcoin. All those trusted media will come to stop those negative news about bitcoin if the government demands it to stop.  I guess what we truly miss is the full acceptance of bitcoin in the government. But as long as they believe that bitcoin will certainly replace fiat in the future, and will never be centralized, everything in the so-called trusted media will always be hard to stop.

You have a very good point of view from the regular masses' perspective. A lot of people don't want to be responsible with their wealth, they want others to take care of it. So even if banks are offering very little interest, they are just happy that their funds are safe in the bank. But when it comes to saving their own keys and understanding how crypto works, they won't try to educate themselves. But for some, who educate themselves about this market, they will appreciate and feel lucky that they learn this market.

That's one way of looking at it. There must be other ways. For me, it is less political and more technical. In most cases, people are not hindered to use Bitcoin even if their governments are not recognizing it. But why are they not into Bitcoin? It is probably because of the technicalities involved. Keeping Bitcoin is not as easy as keeping fiat. Comparing Bitcoin and fiat, the latter is user-friendly or easy to use and handle.

And, of course, there are the rest of the reasons like the masses don't really feel the need to use Bitcoin, there are a few business establishments that accept it as payment, and others.

Or simply, because:

• They're ignorant. They don't know how their money works etc.
• They can't comprehend the benefit of being self-controlled, financial sovereign.
• They've been misinformed.
• They're satisfied with credit/debit cards, online payment systems, banking accounts and don't bother to take it once step further.

Here are a few other reasons to play with.

And spending fiat isn't as easy as spending Bitcoin, unless someone else's keeps it for you, which therefore makes it a political problem. Look, I get your point, I'm just saying that the reason why some may find it difficult technically, is because they don't find it necessary at all.

And more merchants adopt Lightning day by day. It's inevitable to succeed as a currency, given that the people will have understood the utility. What's concerning me is if most merchants will have understood self-custody or will they just embed a BitPay or Coinbase API which will ask for KYC and other such nonsense.

It's not just having global adoption or not, but broader than that.

Lucky you!


There may be more people spending bitcoin than you'd think. Or maybe my logic is flawed. However, if one has a lot of money, he will just invest. But from those in this forum, I cannot expect them all just HODL (because if they would be so rich they would probably spend more time travelling around the world than sitting online). I expect a majority of those in here do spend, especially if the price is right (yes, I know that this is the weak point and it can depends from person to person).

Somehow, since Bitcoin is not accepted so much, Bitcoin-as-investment might be a selling point for Bitcoin. Maybe. I don't know... But that's not really something I can call "getting mainstream".


For now the payment processors in my country were very few and overly expensive. I had overly high hopes toward them.. years ago. I'm now disappointed.
But you're right, it may be one good course of action...


I agree about volatility. I don't agree about the part with safety of their coins, since I see that a second (or third!) step, when they did find out this or that about Bitcoin.
Most don't get there. Most see the official warnings, see the price wild fluctuations and stay away, not getting as deep as wallet security and "trading their freedom" (where you're right, of course)


One can hope, OK? Never say never

please note this topic is about BITCOIN, but silly people seem to take it as a opportunity to advertise their altnet as the solution..

^^ starts making some value points.. but of course,... you can guess what happens next .. he goes and contradicts himself when advertising his altnet


BITCOIN. i must emphasise this BITCOIN. is easy. you copy a QR code/address.. and you pay the destination.. job done, end of story

but blackhatcoiner then goes and advertises a different network (emphasis a completely different payment scheme) where people need to pre-arrange their spending habits for the next few months by deciding what value to put into what channels to lock value up for months ahead. and hope that when using LN the partners will be available and online and liquid to allow payments. and all the other crappy stuff that makes LN worse then bitcoin and credit/debit cards.

yes with a debit card you just 'tap and pay' you dont need to have set up 5 cards with certain balance just to increase the possibility of hope of successful cheap payments. you can just use one card and tap and pay and your done.
people choose to have more then one card.. but in LN its near on essential to have more then 1 channel, just to ensure you can make payments. which means locking up multiples of funds
say you want to spend $500 next month. because routes are not guaranteed people would need on average to have locked up $2000 in 4 channels of $500 so that they can have a near 100% experience of successfully spending $500 a month


in LN you need to do alot more prep works before during and after making LN payments EG before making a payment organising the channels and looking for the best channel to create linking to the best routes you might want to use later.
during the payment you have to see which channels are free and able to offer the route and have the cheapest one.
after payment, you then have to watch your payments closely and ensure your partner doesnt try to mess with you by broadcasting the wrong attempt/event

LN is so bad that they are now trying to invent watchtowers to be bank managers watching over penalty settlements. they are also inventing hub factories(custodial banks) so that funds go inwards to high liquidity central services to avoid the route/hop problems of needing multiple channels

oh and there is always a spending limit on LN, far far worse then bitcoin/debit card limits

bitcoin/fiat debit cards are simpler. just pay and not have to think about it again.

oh and LN after 5 years.. is no where even close to the bitcoin adoption rate of 2014(5 years after bitcoins invention) so dont kid yourself that LN is utopia

Most people are already aware of Bitcoin but don't have the technical knowledge of entering the space. Not that much technical knowledge would be needed, but most people are in line with traditional notions of fiat currencies and it takes years to disrupt the beliefs. Bitcoin will end up working its way to the masses not by choice if major currencies begin to fail with hyperinflation so you might wait for that market to open, it's just going to take time.

I scrolled from the 1st page before wanting to say this until I found yours. lol
And I think like you, I think bitcoin just needs a bigger technical community (at least actually using bitcoin in its network). Everywhere people say about " Just Holding, I'm Hodling!!!", but it's sad to see them doing it in a centralized service. Although I don't know how many bitcoin nodes there are currently individually, but I believe they are mostly run only by early adopters or companies that have centralized services. Bitcoin will be in concern if there is no preservation/regeneration of technical users especially from newcomers who continue the efforts of the old people to keep bitcoin "decentralized".

Hah yeah, we are lucky that people behind our main payment processors Paycek are very active and so far managed to get hundreds of businesses on board: from bars and restaurants to car dealerships, hotels, supermarkets and even couple of cities so there you can even pay utility bills using bitcoin.


Maybe, but I was just surprised to see some  people here advocating for not spending bitcoin, at least not yet and I always thought of bitcointalk as a place that gathers people who want to spend bitcoin and use for what was it initially intended for. Well, at least more than in some other places.


I used to operate that way, waiting for bitcoin to reach certain price and then spend, but now honestly I don't care and I stopped checking the price. I would of course time it if I am buying something expensive like a house or car, but for stuff like PC hardware or something in that price range I don't care anymore. Just month ago I bought new monitor and keyboard using bitcoin and didn't care that price is like 40% down from ATH.


True that. After all, crazier things have happened when it comes to crypto

The reason why governments doesn't want to legalize Bitcoin yet is because they're worried Bitcoin would overtake their centralized CBDC. Bitcoin doesn't really need to legalized or legal tender like the previous country have done e.g. El Salvador, but at least make Bitcoin can be used and not banned. When a currency got backed by something or any stuff, that's mean it's centralized. Bitcoin doesn't need any backed asset, it's backed by freedom.

I think the truly missing on Bitcoin ecosystem is less usage of decentralized exchanges, most people still sticking to centralized exchanges which is against of decentralization.