Is Gavin Andresen on the right track for bitcoin's mass adoption? If so, Steem was there first!
Today, I came across this interview with Gavin Andresen on coinjournal.com. For those that down know Gavin, he is the former Bitcoin Core lead maintainer.
Let's see what he mentions when asked what needs to be done to get Bitcoin to mass adoption (whatever that means):
The big problem with massive adoption is this chicken and egg problem of: How do people earn bitcoin?
Well, currently, only the miners can earn bitcoin directly. Maybe they should discuss giving out parts of the block reward to people, like on Steem.
"You really need to get people earning bitcoin directly somehow. I don't know how that will happen - if that will come about.
Well, it's easy. Let the people decide who gets how much. Or even better: Let the shareholders decide. Now the token would actually get a purpose (besides payment).
General friction also exists in getting people to move from fiat currencies to bitcoin, even when the exchange fees are ignored. Many people don't want to take the time to enter a large amount of personal information into a website just to get some bitcoin to make payments online.
Well, how about only a mobile number, or entirely anonymously using anonsteem? Then post some great stuff, build a reputation and get money "for free" (as in, no need to exchange from cash)
While accepting Bitcoin payments made sense from the merchant's point of view, the reality was that not many people were holding bitcoin, which meant consumers would have to pay an exchange fee before the merchant could gain the benefits of Bitcoin as a payment network. Merchants were also usually converting back to fiat after receiving the payment, which resulted in another exchange fee.
Guess what will happen if you have a stable crypto currency on the same blockchain? Guess what happens if you connect the dots ..... and pay people in that stable crypto instead of some weird volatile crypto token?
As an engineer, I am pretty disappointed by his statements regarding the plans of 21 (that is, let everyone mine with a small miner, burn electricity and get paid bitcoin):
Raising your electricity bill a little bit, which you probably won't notice, to create some bitcoins is an awesome way for people to earn bitcoins in a completely painless way. That solves that chicken and egg problem.
This is disappointing because he neglects the amount of energy wasted for bitcoin already today. Earth is already heating up due to second law of thermodynamics, we don't need to support that with proof of waste in every household with a miserable efficiency just so that people get the feeling they do something good and earn some little money.
Having read through that article made me realize that Bitcoin needs all the nice features we have on Steem, no matter they understand that or not.
//edit: Steem also solves the Micro Transactions "issue" for which some Bitcoin developers created the Lighting network on top of bitcoin.
Disclaimer: I usually don't rant, but I couldn't help myself in this case.
You hit the nail on the head, yes bitcoin has given the people the ability to create money again, but it has done it in a massively inefficient way. The only thing I'd use bitcoin for is storage, and even that really is iffy. Personally I don't even hold bitcoin anymore, there's so many better monies out there and the transfer times with bitcoin are ridiculous for small amounts.
You nailed it with why steemit beats out any crypto to date, thenmining to create coins is a complete waste of energy, all that's needed are nodes for the record. Steemit has built s better crypto (and faster) then most other ones I've seen to date and it accomplishes this creation through a social media site instead of electricity output.
I like that shit and honestly I'll probably never leave steemit just because of how amazing I truly feel this creation is.
You guys need to realise that the only real money of any true sense is a store of energy. The more energy that goes in usually means the higher the price. All that bitcoin needs to do to gain mainstream adoption is for the price to rise relentlessly over the long term which i believe it is doing. Bitcoins value is not and never will be every day money, we already have cash for that. Its a store of wealth for those who want to keep money safe, in their full control 24/7 and away from the eyes of the government. The fact its a waste of energy is therefore subjective especially as people will have more and more reason to use and hold bitcoin as times goes on. If we closed all the banks because we dont need them anymore how much electricity do you think the world will save?
Nice post,
There are some sites that allow you to earn (some) bitcoin by doing freelance work such as cryptogrind ( https://www.cryptogrind.com/ ) and xbt freelancer ( https://www.xbtfreelancer.com/ ) . I have never used them so I don't know about their credibility, perhaps someone else can comment on that.
Thanks,
-Kaj
Good post! Very much agree about mass adoption thoughts and steemit :D
Gavin Andresen gave us Mike Hearn and tells us that Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto. I'm pretty sure he's a CIA operative tasked with infiltrating and undermining Bitcoin.
Interesting to hear you rant. I think bitcoin has to wait and see how the offspring of coins evolve before evolving itself to keep at the price growth it's been having over the years and to stay relevant.
It would be interesting if Bitcoin deposited 1 percent of new bitcoins into everyone's account like steem power. It would get a lot more holders.
The easier it is to earn digital currency, the more digital currency people will hold, the more useful digital currency will become for the previous holders. Bitcoin really messed up not keeping Gavin in charge if you just look at the price.
The Graphene family certainly looks strong today.
Very interesting, Thanks for sharing your thought on this article.
I have noticed something interesting about steemit and bitcoin user. It seem like both should go together seamlessly without any friction but I have notice a lot of bitcoin user have trouble getting into steemit. They start make some post and don't really understand why they should start using steemit when their already doing well in bitcoin.
I have found this very interesting, That bitcoiners and steemians don;t always mix well even though it seem like they always should.