> Bitcoin isn't a viable option for Grandma.
And if there's no market pressure, it never will be.
And if there's no market pressure, it never will be.
We desperately need a digital currency standard that offers security and user-friendliness without being centralized in a cabal of shadowy clearinghouses, and without ridiculous technical limitations that keep it from being more than an overpromoted academic exercise.
Should Bitcoin become more widely adopted, I don't like how I would have no say in its operation or design decisions.
Paper currency, I get to vote on the people who appoint those decision-makers every couple of years. Bitcoin? Not so much.
(edited to fix a typo)
From the bitcoin FAQ:
Bitcoin is a distributed network, so any changes implemented to the system must be accepted by all users. Someone trying to change the way Bitcoins are generated would have to convince every user to download and use their software – so the only changes that would go through are those that would be equally benefit all users.
And thus, it is more or less impossible for anyone to change the function of Bitcoin to their advantage. If users don't like the changes, they won't adopt them, whereas if users do like them, then these will help everyone equally. Of course, one can conceive of a situation where someone manages to get a change pushed through that provides them with an advantage that no one notices, but given that Bitcoin is structurally relatively simple, it is unlikely that any major changes will go through without someone noticing first.
The fact that such changes are so difficult to make testifies to the fully distributed nature of Bitcoin. Any centrally controlled currency can be modified by its central agency without the consent of its adherents. Bitcoin has no central authority, so it changes only at the behest of the whole community. Bitcoins development represents a kind of collective evolution; the first of its kind among currencies.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#Could_miners_collude_to_give_...
I'm struggling to see how "any changes implemented to the system must be accepted by all users" is democratic, or gives any decision-making authority to the people.
I do think that sets an extraordinarily high barrier to making any changes; far higher than a citizenship test or a poll tax, two other things that have been discarded as antithetical to a democratic right to vote.