Today, I came across [this interview with Gavin Andresen on coinjournal.com](http://coinjournal.net/gavin-andresen-explains-main-roadblock-massive-bitcoin-adoption/). 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](https://steemit.com/register), or entirely anonymously using [anonsteem](https://steemit.com/steemit/@someguy123/anonsteem-create-anonymous-steem-accounts-without-social-media)? 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](http://21.co) (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.*