Over the past few years, we've all seen Bitcoin's price skyrocket to over 19,000 USD, as well as many new 'investors' entering the bitcoin trend enunciated by the media. However, many of these new crypto enthusiasts don't even understand the fundamentals of the blockchain, or even how/why prices rise or fall. Bitcoin is now harder than ever to buy (especially anonymous purchases), and it seems like the only options left are to either give up all your information to a coin trading service (keep in mind most of the public still associates Bitcoin with criminal activity), or meet some shady dude in an alley that will upcharge you 20%. Those are just some of the common issues with BTC in today's world. Let's take a look at some of the problems we could have with bitcoin in the future.
The first issue with Bitcoin's future as a payment method is the excruciatingly long time it takes to complete a transaction. Sure, fifteen minutes doesn't seem so bad when you're sending some BTC to a friend to chip in for dinner but imagine waiting for six confirmations after you order your McChicken. Doesn't sound very convenient to me. And if the wait isn't painful enough already, as reward for miners go down in the future and the network continues to expand, it is likely that transactions will take even longer to verify than they already do.
Another problem that plagues the Bitcoin community is fees for transferring between wallets or spending. After Bitcoin has grown so much in value, you can no longer simply transfer $30 worth of bitcoin to a friend to pay for some pizza. Every time a small transaction is made, it seems like you lose about $5 worth of fees. In theory, this shouldn't be a big deal because fees decrease when larger amounts of BTC are spent. But, In reality, the majority of the public would be using Bitcoin for small purchases. A stay at home mom isn't going to want to spend $120 on groceries when instead she could spend $105 on her credit card and get American airlines miles at the same time.
Great, It's out of the box. Yeah, you have to pay taxes on your bitcoin. As of today, they are only taxable when you cash out, but that could still mean losing as much as 15% of your hard earned million dollars. It's really not that big of a deal in today's world, but if everyone starts using bitcoin, you can be sure that Uncle Sam will want in. It's only a matter of time before new laws either impose large taxes on BTC, or restrict its use in the United States-- South Korea and China have already shown that it can be done.
So let's just imagine that all of a sudden it's possible for anyone to buy BTC at market price at the local bank, and the prices have stabilized. Everyone owns BTC. You walk down the street to get coffee at your favorite Cafe, and you are greeted with a two-hour line of people waiting for their transaction to verify. Really? No thank you. Imagine having to pay hefty transaction fees, large taxes, and wait 30 minutes for a transaction to complete after every single purchase you make. This is the kind of world BTC would create. Bitcoin was originally designed for anonymous transactions, and I strongly believe that Monero will be used for most of these types of secure transfers in the future. As of now, the crypto market is very similar to the health industry, in the sense that new ideas keep coming up and no one can seem to pick one to stick with. Despite all of the problems with BTC, it has led us into a new world of cyber currency, and there are very promising futures for some "banker coins" such as Ripple in the modern economy, and it is likely that centralized coins will be used for common transactions in the future. The blockchain will likely take over the future of electronic banking, but Bitcoin will not.
