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Comment by Sargos | Hacker News Reader

I know Bitcoin is still in development but if things like this keep happening then it will never make it as a legitimate source of money. It's reputation is already in the dumps and these splits just make it worse and worse.

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How's that? Bitcoin's hard forks just tend to fizzle out into nothing. Ethereum's chain has been switched out with via hard fork several times already and people still love it.

When you refer to people in your comment it mostly likely means the Bitcoin enthusiasts and not a normal person looking at it from the perspective that it's a currency. It's volatile and has seemingly no leadership with realistic goals. People aren't going to take it seriously until it matures in multiple ways. But like I said it's still experimental so maybe the kinks will get worked out in a few years and it will become viable, but it has a long way to go and it's not moving very fast.

> volatile and has seemingly no leadership with realistic goals

I'd argue that the perceived utility of Bitcoin as a currency depends a lot on the alternatives available to you.

There's no way to measure Bitcoin adoption by country but Google trends gives an interesting picture:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=Bitcoin

... with the exception of Bitcoin Cash. It seems to be doing okay.

I prefer to measure success in network size rather than price, and Bitcoin ABC (the only available node for BCH) seems to be comparable to Bitcoin Classic, which had 2,000 full nodes running at its height, yet still seems to have fizzled out.

> it will never make it as a legitimate source of money

yes, but because it's far better to hodl and profit instead of spending it on a pizza. It's an investment right now, not a currency.

> Bitcoin's limitations mean it will never be a legitimate source of money

:: Hard fork to overcome limitations ::

> Bitcoin's adapting to overcome its limitations it will never be a legitimate source of money

The fact that they keep having to fork the currency to fix core problems goes right to the heart of my comment. There's no contradiction there.

Hard forks to overcome limitations need not be contentious and need not result in two surviving currencies. There’s a decent chance the Segwit 1x fork dies due to lack of miner support and everyone except Core continues on their merry way with Segwit 2x.

So if 100% of Bitcoin users can’t reach consensus, Bitcoin is worthless? The important question is how large the fraction is that wants to split off. There will always be some level of disagreement.

Also, importantly, how long do the forks last? Bitcoin Cash has only existed for little over a month as of now. If it dies off (price drops to zero) within a couple of years, it will be clear that forks of that nature doesn’t affect Bitcoin in the long run.

If id were to use Bitcoin as my primary way to receive/pay money, but don't enough about it to understand the difference between the forks. Where do I store my loan? How can I be sure that some fork that happened 2 weeks ago wont become the main chain and thus my loan will be worthless in a few more weeks?

This has to be made more clear for the "normal every day" user in order to make it really work, if you look at /r/Bitcoin and /r/btc, there is so much difference in their ideas.

Define "legitimate source of money".

Average people can use it to purchase legal goods and services.

By that definition dollar is not a currency in China.

You have to realize that there are many currencies, and they all have their niches. Bitcoin is just one of them.

I can easily exchange my life savings for Yuan and go live in China. I can't do that in Bitcoin.

Edit: Since I was downvoted I realized my comment wasn't clear. When I said you can't do "that" with Bitcoin I meant transfer my USD life savings to Bitcoin and then go to China and transfer it to yuan.

Bitcoin is seen by many to replace Gold as a "safe haven" asset. Gold is also volatile and you'll have problems buying goods with it but it's been trusted for centuries. There's some demand but it mostly appealed because of its scarcity.

It bitcoin wants to be the same it doesn't need to be accepted as payment. It only needs to be scarce (which it is) and be immune to manipulation by states (which it appears to be).

To be clear, I'm not saying that this means bitcoin will be popular but it ticks some boxes. If enough people trust it, it could have long term success even if no one accepts it as payment. Being banned by some regimes could even help its reputation there.

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