Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Is there a remote possibility that BTC won't get mainstream?
by
Xavofat
on 31/08/2017, 18:39:55 UTC
As it is, the complex PoW process in Bitcoin makes transactions horribly inefficient in terms of electricity use.  Microtransactions may appear "free" or "cheap" to the user when the blockchain is supposedly scalable, but it's certainly not cheap for the planet.

Another example of a problem problem is that forks hurt the Nash equilibrium - they can be more profitable while using the same mining algorithm, and they could be mined using BTC ASICs.

japan have adopted it
I don't know where you're getting this information from, but the vast majority of merchants in Japan do not accept BTC.  It's still only a small niche.
In the UK, I don't know of one place that accepts BTC on the high street and I'm not a hermit.
In BTC's current state, it wouldn't make much sense for a physical store to accept BTC unless people are buying expensive products (say in IKEA for example).  Transactions are too expensive and they require waiting for confirmation.  In a physical store, you can't just stand there for twenty minutes or whatever waiting for your transaction to confirm before you walk out with the product.

Online stores sometimes accept it.  If you're in the US, there's enough online stores for you to buy most products (not food).  In the UK it's a bit harder but there are still a fair few.

Basically I'm just saying that BTC is not ready for mainstream adoption.  It's far from bad, but it will take time for the technology to develop into a fully working cryptocurrency.