Mark Cuban says that Bitcoin has an advertising problem
The owner of the Dallas Mavericks and billionaire investor from Shark Tank says that bitcoin is interesting, but we don't need to convince him of that.
We need to convince everyone else.
According to Cuban, the Mavericks starting taking bitcoin as a form of payment back in 2015 and again this year, which resulted in a total of 5 transactions.
FIVE.
That means that people used bitcoin a total of 5 times in order to purchase tickets or other Mavericks' merchandise.
According to Cuban, that is the whole problem with bitcoin, no one uses it.
His exact quote:
"BTC is available in this country and many others for almost no cost. The percentage of consumers choosing it as a methodologically for payment or SOV is infinitesimal. It's almost free and few want to use it. We started taking BTC in 2015 and again last yr with 5 total trx."
"You don't have to convince me. You need to convince your neighbors. If they don't see value, that is the problem you need to solve. I'm not opposed to BTC . I understand every argument being made.The world is littered with great products/services that failed for lack of consumers."
(Source: ~~~ embed:1205141177818898432) twitter metadata:bWN1YmFufHxodHRwczovL3R3aXR0ZXIuY29tL21jdWJhbi9zdGF0dXMvMTIwNTE0MTE3NzgxODg5ODQzMil8 ~~~
So, how do we fix his negative perception surrounding bitcoin?
According to Mark, we actually get people to start using it.
He literally said that exact thing.
He doesn't care about any of the technical aspects, he just cares about usage from customers:
"Lots of people are trying to change my mind. My mind will be changed not by technical discussions about fiat currency, sharpe ratios, valuation projections, protocol comparisons , etc . It will be changed by actual usage by consumers, who choose BTC over the many other options."
(Source: ~~~ embed:1205139623363653633) twitter metadata:bWN1YmFufHxodHRwczovL3R3aXR0ZXIuY29tL21jdWJhbi9zdGF0dXMvMTIwNTEzOTYyMzM2MzY1MzYzMyl8 ~~~
(Source: https://u.today/mark-cuban-says-hes-not-opposed-to-bitcoin-but-it-has-serious-problem)
Is he right?
In my opinion, yes and no.
His statement about no on using it is incorrect.
There was literally hundreds of billions of dollars of on-chain transaction volume last year (not exchange traded volume).
Using that data, bitcoin is technically more widely used (in dollar terms) than Venmo, PayPal, and Apple Pay.
Not only that, but looking at the data over time suggests that usage/adoption is increasing.
Number of transactions, number of wallets, hate rate, etc etc are all near or at all time highs.
So, while Mark is right that not many people (currently) want to use bitcoin to buy Mavericks tickets, that doesn't mean that bitcoin isn't being used all over the world for different reasons/purposes.
Perhaps at some point bitcoin will be more widely used for things like Mavericks tickets, though I don't see that as coming any time soon, but I don't think that is a bad thing.
See my thoughts on store of value in previous posts...
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@jrcornel/btc-if-bitcoin-were-to-replace-gold-it-would-be-worth-usd400k
Stay informed my friends.
-Doc
I agree with you, Bitcoin is used quite a lot. But just not by 'our' neighbors. And that's the thing. I'd say that the generation growing from teens into adults right now will be getting more into it, since some already have parents using it, and it is something that will be used more and more in daily transactions. I am not worried about it at all. It takes time and more people spreading the word.
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 0/3 - need recharge?)
I start sounding like a broken record but Bitcoin is too slow payment method for most of the people. For it to be useful in daily use, it needs to be about 60 times faster.
Agreed. But when people are looking at cryptocurrency, the very first they will probably even hear of, or look into is most likely Bitcoin. And from Bitcoin, they will possibly look at other, faster, and better cryptocurrencies. I don't know anyone who didn't start with Bitcoin first... Here, an upvote to make up for your downvotes...😉
I also did start with Bitcoin... It took weeks to mine enough to reach minimum payment threshold on a mining pool for newbies... I made my biggest profits with Intense Coin though.
I never mined and in the beginning, I only used Bitcoin to buy other cryptocurrencies so I've never really had to transfer Bitcoin aside from the odd time between wallets. Yeah, it takes a long time (but it has been worse...) but it's still faster than most bank transfers with fiat...
I've never heard of Intense coin, will have to look into that. My biggest profits were NEO (bought when it was still Antshares) and THC :)
Intense Coin (ITNS) was previous name of Lethean (LTHN), a coin that combines VPN functionality to wallet.
In the beginning I mostly mined because I didn't have enough cash to buy coins. Then I started modifying mining pool software to add features and that became primary reason for continuing mining.
Sounds interesting. Yeah, I'd love to mine, but I'm afraid I don't have enough technical knowledge for that. With trading, I literally started buying 30 dollars worth of crypto at a time. I invested a total of 400 dollars in about 3 months and was very, very lucky that I bought the right coins at the right time.
Mining is really easy if you have the right hardware and mine only coins that use well-known algorithms... It is usually best to mine coins that have been around just few weeks as it gets harder if the coin is older. Usually it is risky to mine coins that are not listed on any exchanges yet.