Quote from: rocks on October 01, 2014, 08:05:44 PM

Quote from: justusranvier on October 01, 2014, 05:21:46 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on October 01, 2014, 05:14:30 PM

"The Blockchain may only ever be applicable to Bitcoin as Money".

I think you can make an even stronger statement:

"A distributed consensus ledger can only survive if it is successful as money."

Note that Bitcoin did not solve the Byzantine Generals Problem because that problem is unsolvable. Bitcoin made it so that any successful attack is uneconomical. That only works if bitcoins are valued as money.

This means anything that tries to replace Bitcoin's functionality will either do so by being better money or else won't be a distributed consensus ledger.

Most early Bitcoin adopters agree that Bitcoin's properties make it money and that "BTC as valuable money" is necessary for the blockchain to function.

An issue for the next phase of adoption though is the next set of adopters do not agree with this largely due to different political views on what constitutes money. Most people I know believe money can only be defined by a government and only functions if it is "managed" by a central body with the power to "expand supply to grow with the economy". (Nevermind this is never actually implemented in practice.) And so refuse to trust in anything else.

The argument that Bitcoin is money is not going to drive adoption, that only served to kick start adoption with politically aligned individuals.

Instead Bitcoin's usefulness as money will have to be the next driver for adoption. Either people find it easier to use online, or merchants offer BTC discounts, or people use Bitcoin to engage in illegal forms of trade, or automated services (bots) find BTC useful to trade, etc. This is where Bitcoin as a superior technology over fiat (a hundred year old technology) becomes a dominate factor.

I have to disagree for a couple of reasons.

The pool of potential adopters that understand the value of a limited supply assets as money is far from saturated (see: gold market)

This next set of adopters you are referring to certainly are in the dark as to what constitutes money but most of them are familiar with concepts of store of value that can appreciate with demand like gold and other precious metals.

Now, for numerous reasons this mainstream audience, a whole generation really, has not had much interest investing into these assets considering the general bear market they have been in and the inconvenience of investing into them.

Enter Bitcoin. For the first time in history, gold is available in digital form at the click of a button and can be purchased with a credit card (Circle).

Political ideologies or usefulness is not required to drive the next adoption phase. All we need is greed. All we need is for Bitcoin to get close to ATH again and we are off to the races.