Cointelegraph and Ziftr's competition to win BTC and ZiftrCOINs ends, and it's time to vote for a winner.

For the last few weeks Cointelegraph has partnered up with Ziftr in an exciting competition offering our readers a chance to win some bitcoins, along with hundreds of the new ZiftrCOINs. We've been asking for answers to the ultimate digitial currency riddle, “What will it take for Bitcoin to gain mass acceptance?”, and now it's time for you to vote for a winner.

ZiftrCOIN made a stir back in 2014 by offering a value guarantee in the sometimes volatile world of altcoins. When consumers conduct transactions within Ziftr’s retailer network, each ziftrCOIN can be redeemed for at least $1/coin, for up to 5% of the purchase. If ziftrCOINs are currently trading on the open market for more than $1/coin, then the 5% limit is removed.

The new digital currency recently celebrated the end of it's pre-sale, having raised US$860,000 from a mix of both normal users and venture capital firm 10X Venture Partners. The new approach, of value-backing the currency through Ziftr's existing retail referral network, proving to be an attractive reassurance for those hoping the coins will increase in value beyond the US$1 mark.

We teamed up with Ziftr to offer our readers a chance to get their hands on a top prize of 0.5 BTC plus 500 ZiftrCOINs, or one of five second prizes of 0.2 BTC and 100 ZiftrCOINS, by taking to their keyboards and writing us an answer to the ultimate question in the digital currency world: “What will it take for Bitcoin to gain mass acceptance?” Having now read through the entries, we're excited to showcase our top three answers and give you the chance to vote for the overall winner.

We would like to thank everyone who entered the competition, as we had a good time reading through all of the answers. You'll find our list of top efforts on our competition page here, so get reading, and then start voting for your favorite entry on the form you'll find under the list of entries.

Voting closes  on February 10, and we'll awarding the top author a grand prize of 0.5BTC plus 500 ZiftrCOINs, as well as those five second prizes of 0.2 BTC plus 100 ZiftrCOINs.

Here are snippets from the top three we've posted up..

The first is by Dwain Findlay talking about how Wall Street could push Bitcoin into the mainstream:

“Retailers begin to notice that a significant number of consumers own bitcoin and worry that if they don’t accept the currency they will be at a competitive disadvantage to the retailers who do. This leads to mass adoption by retailers that are trying to avoid being left behind in the new cryptocurrency revolution.”

Next up is Johan Lundqvist, addressing the need for community support for Bitcoin before it will gain mass acceptance:

“What will begin to change in the coming months and years though is the emergence of more and more success stories from the Bitcoin community: people who have started accepting bitcoin payments, using bitcoin payments for good, or driving innovative technologies using the crypto-currency's underlying blockchain system.”

Finally we have Brenda Lawson discussing the ways in which Bitcoin's image could currently be harming it's widespread acceptance:

“It’s no secret that BItcoin has an image problem. As the most popular digital currency out there, its path is bound to be more checkered than other, less comprehensive alternatives. Pundits right now tend to say that this is part of Bitcoin’s “growing pains” and that basically all will be OK in the end. Many of their arguments are solid and have widespread support, but turn on any political debate show and you’ll be reminded that armchair punditry, no matter how passionate or well-informed, doesn’t change much on the ground.”

To read more of that entry, and the others in the competition, head over to the contest page here, and start placing your votes!