I'm new here and don't know much about bitcointalk forums. But I thought about Bitcoin for a while. At one point I wondered what it would be like if Bitcoin was a physical currency instead of a digital currency. It would not have gained so much popularity, and its price would not have increased so much. If it were a physical currency, it would be very difficult to buy, how would you buy? And had to go to different stores to sell or buy. How difficult it would have been then. Are you thinking about this?
I wanted to dismiss this imagination as nonsense as many others have already done here in the thread but on a second thought I decided to refine the idea. If bitcoin was to be a physical currency, it won't have a Blockchain connection, which will make the whole essence and relevance of bitcoin unattainable.
But we can imagine that bitcoin remains a digital currency, runs on the Blockchain and at the same time have a physical representation in terms of fiat. It is not actually making alot of sense but I am trying to roll the lane of Op's imagination.
So, if bitcoin being a digital coin, has a physical representation and people can handle and feel it, I instead think that it will encourage adoption. Why some people haven't adopted bitcoin yet could be that they cannot see it or hold it in their physical wallet to buy groceries with.