The Next Step for Cryptocurrencies: Convenience and Trust-Building
While there are many benefits of using cryptocurrencies [https://medium.com/@XIF_Official/high-cost-of-existing-payment-processors-ba7c93afcc36], making their usage easy and simple in daily life seems to have taken a backseat [https://medium.com/@XIF_Official/how-merchants-have-adopted-cryptocurrencies-12b33e30e480] as ICOs develop mind-blowing blockchain-based solutions — from peer-to-peer lending to insurance to upending the entertainment industry. However, it remains a crucial step to make mainstream adoption happen.
Two ways to improve user’s experience with cryptocurrencies are through ensuring acceptance of any cryptocurrency by all merchants and giving users the peace of mind when transacting with cryptocurrencies (in terms of securities and adherence to regulations).
To reach the point where a random merchant will accept payments in the form of cryptocurrencies requires an exchange to transfer the user’s preferred cryptocurrency into one preferred by the merchant.
Solutions are being developed to allow cryptocurrencies to be exchanged instantly and on-the-spot, without a centralized exchange. Wallet developers are also working on crypto-to-fiat exchanges to allow ubiquitous cryptocurrency usage in the offline world. With these, users will have maximum liquidity no matter which cryptocurrency he/she is holding.
The convenience of a single wallet that can work with theoretically all blockchains and fiat currency cannot be overstated; the user base of such a wallet spans from all cryptocurrency holders to anyone that use any form of financial services.
This also includes the capability to use machine learning to analyse transaction behaviours comprehensively as behaviours of a user across different industries pass through one wallet.
To stay relevant, the payment industry must make use of the business intelligence it gains to reduce costs, drive turnover and to catch “bad” behaviour. With blockchain, the information required for analysis is already in the public domain as transactions are recorded on the distributed public ledger.
The ability to identify trends, track data from its source to its endpoint, and making inferred correlations between data points is highly sought after. Real-time data analysis of spending behaviour can promote additional usage and assist with customer experience enhancement.
Big data analysis can also be used to root out harmful behaviours in the system. This can be used to catch or limit hackers or more traditional criminals aiming to make use of cryptocurrencies. For companies, this is an important aspect because they wouldn’t want their businesses to be associated with aiding criminal behaviours.
As the number of people using blockchain-based services increase, the need to lower the inconvenience of using cryptocurrencies will only grow apparent. Recognising this, X-Infinity is creating a unified cryptocurrency wallet (Android and iOS) that allows consumers and merchants the ability to transact as easily using any blockchain asset as a currency. Read more about the future for payment at http://www.xinfinity.io.
— END
Making it more convenient to use cryptocurrency:
This looks obvious. But right now, the blockchain world is more research than application in the sense that people are working on using the technology to achieve certain goals, and are worrying less about how easy it is to be used.
While many ICOs are developed for multiple solutions (thus reducing the number of cryptos used), they may not be the best solution for a user. A person may want to use 2–3 different platforms overlapping the same industry because each platform excels at a different aspect.
A unified wallet can be also be used to learn a user’s full financial behaviour. This data can be used to provide better experience to users, and help merchants too.
