How Bitcoin Will Achieve Mass Acceptance: Through Community (Op-Ed)

Note: The following article has been hand picked for being one of the standouts in the Ziftr article contest on the topic of what needs to happen for Bitcoin to enter the mainstream. Happy reading.
According to Bitcoinobituries.com, bitcoin has already been declared dead 40 times in its short life. This can’t be seen as an impressive track-record for a piece of technology that’s also widely regarded as a game-changing financial tool, one capable of altering the way we handle money forever.
This attitude, however, is a good demonstration of the greatest hindrance that digital currencies face today. It also points towards the solution of bitcoin’s problem with gaining mass acceptance. The disbelief shown by most of the traditional media, financial institutions, and governmental bodies, that bitcoin could be a viable force to alter the financial landscape, is for now the biggest hurdle in bitcoin’s widespread implementation.
So far, the only time these pundits and social commentators have really come into contact with the nascent digital currency is when they hear about the Silk Road trial, Mt. Gox and the currency’s infamous price swings.

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2015-02-05.