Quote from: kanus1113 on March 28, 2016, 07:34:14 PM

Quote from: DNotes on March 28, 2016, 06:36:18 PM

This is a pretty good article, worth the read, from Marcus Swanepoel is the CEO of BitX, Why Bitcoins Bad Reputation is in the Eye of the Beholder

As an industry insider, it is sometimes very hard to admit that bitcoin suffers from serious negative perception issues: that in the minds of many people bitcoin is still automatically linked to thoughts of drugs, terrorist financing and money laundering.

Needless to say, this has massive implications for all potential stakeholders: It slows down consumer adoption, it has regulators set the bar unreasonably high for bitcoin companies to operate and many banks still refuse to provide bitcoin companies with simple operating accounts.

All of this results in the stifling of innovation, the creation of an unfair competitive environment, and ultimately, a negative connotation for the consumer who is meant to reap the benefits of this new and useful technology.

Weve spent enough time with all these stakeholders to reasonably assert that most of these concerns are driven by perception and emotion, rather than facts and data. Are there risks around bitcoin? Yes, of course they exist in all financial systems.

[...]

Loved the article, he made some great points. Because of mt gox, perception is that is not secure, or because of silk road, perception is that is used for illegal activities. When in reality those are just individual cases.

"A couple of 'real-life' metaphors are also helpful to put these events in perspective: just like the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy that didnt signal that 'USD is a scam, or USD is insecure', or that a recent $1bn drug bust in San Diego didnt mean 'USD is only used by drug dealers', its important to realize that Silk Road and Mt Gox were also outlier events, and predominantly a function of the people involved rather than the currency being used."

Yes indeed, totally correct but, people tend to only hear and see what catches their attention in this over busy world of ours. The news that makes the most noise is still the sensational/loud/in your face stuff. The stuff that sells commercial and ad space, that keeps inferior information outlets in business. We need to come up with a way for the good stuff to generate the same kind of interest. Not an easy task by any means but, I believe, doable in the long run.