Forbes Got it Wrong. Current Titans Are Not Driving Mainstream Adoption. Something Else Will.
Forbes recently published an article depicting Binance, Mainframe, and Ethereum as the blockchain “titans” that are driving mainstream adoption given their most recent actions, which is a completely wrong conclusion. The secret key to global adoption lies somewhere else entirely and the seed has recently been planted.
But let’s regress to Forbes’ article for a moment and explain what really happened.
At the time of publishing, Binance made a strategic move to increase the profit by opening an exchange in Uganda to exploit the total lack of any legislation. Mainframe, a blockchain that is trying to invent a hot water all over again was doing nothing more than a smart and rather expensive marketing to A) create a buzz around MFT token that is now listed on Binance, and B) push ONYX, the only existing application on Mainframe’s mainnet.
The only relatively notable activity that may go in a direction of global adoption was that of Vitalik Buterin who announced grants for developers in January for Ethereum scalability research and development subsidy programs. Yes, he’s trying to make Ethereum more scalable but he doesn’t seem to be interested in teaching the everyday Joe, who’s busting his back 9–5, Monday to Friday, what are the public and private keys and how the hell can he utilize blockchain in his everyday life with ease.
What is “global adoption”?
To make the long story short, Blockchain is still a long way from passing the “Innovators.” What it needs, to become globally adopted, is to pass the so-called, “tipping point.”
Remember TIVO? A great product. Still, it never passed the tipping point and thus, vanished from the face of the earth. Twas just too complicated for our everyday Joe. Not to mention how expensive it was.
What about Binance or Mainframe?
Now, does someone who is opening a crypto exchange in Uganda or doing the airdrop to get his app on as many mobiles as possible before it hits that same exchange sounds like a person who is likely to bring the blockchain in a minimum of 14% of the world’s households to trigger the “viral effect”?
There you go. I mean, ask your neighbor what the “airdrop” is.
OK. Seriously. Where’s blockchain on that diagram?
In the most recent Gartner’s survey on 3000 CIOs, only 1% has already invested in the blockchain. And let’s face it, those are tech-savvy folks and not our blood, sweat, and tears Joes. Even these guys have troubles accepting the new distributed ledger technology and everything it carries with it.
So Who’s actually adopted blockchain so far?
Two types of people:
- Tech-savvy folks hooked on the idea of independence or the novelty of the code alone, and
- Moneymakers (read: investors looking to ride the wave for as long as it lasts knowing that if it starts fading, they’ll just short it and make money anyway)
Needless to say that the total number of people in these two groups is less than 2% of the global population.
What will push the blockchain over the “tipping point”?
The technology is terrific. It can easily change a number of paralyzing paradigms and simplify our lives beyond our wildest imagination.
I know that and you know that, but my 66-year-old father will probably never hear a word about it. Hell, my two sons (21 and 25) are yawning after just 2 minutes of explaining some most recent development in the blockchain industry. And I’m trying to use the simplest words possible and an abundance of analogies to bring it closer to them.
It means that even the short story about blockchain — in a way it is currently presented to the global population — is triggering their built-in defense mechanism — the brain is forcing them to move to something less demanding because they are burning a lot of energy for nothing. Just like when you’re trying to solve a hard puzzle and after just a minute or so, your thoughts wander off without you even realizing.
Now, imagine how the following sentence, well-known in the blockchain community, sounds to our everyday Joe:
“They implemented the SegWit2x technology in Bitcoin network.”
Yeah. You are getting the picture.
Unfortunately, geeky terms nobody really understands and the fact that the entire industry revolves around the word that actually means hidden or disguised are just one part of the “global adoption” problem.
Another is, “What’s in it for me?”
Let’s take EOS for example. They are a hot topic recently due to that ECAF fiasco.
What can Joe do with just another app development platform similar to Android or iOS?
Play games that are built on blockchain instead on Android? Sure. Only, there’s a problem. Joe won’t have a clue that he’s actually playing the game that resides on EOS mainnet and that some strange “nodes” took care of the transaction. Heck, he doesn’t even know what the mainnet is in the first place. In other words, “slipping” him a game app in the Google Play fashion simply won’t add to the ultimate cause.
So what’s the secret key to global adoption?
Augmented services explained in the simplest words possible that are accessible to Joe in the simplest way possible.
In other words, the tech part of the jargon must disappear. It has to silently retreat to where it belongs and that’s all those developers’ media, discussion boards, and IRCs. In fact, the tech itself has to move in the background.
Why?
The good analogy is your bank. Have you ever seen a TV commercial where some guy is explaining how “the advertised APR can sometimes just be the average APR”?
No, you didn’t. Because if you did, you would never set foot in that bank. But when he said that he’s got some cheap money for you, you barged in the very next day.
So instead of presenting your services like this:
“We syndicate real estate data into a globally accessible marketplace, where data is locally sourced, validated and secured via the Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts and cryptoeconomics,”
just say that you have a neat way for me to monetize my real estate while I’m still living in it, unless you are only trying to hook the investors who fancy (expect) hard-to-understand sentences and terms because it’s making them aroused and thus, more prone to put a few ETHs in your pre-sale.
Again, that’s just the part of the problem.
The biggest issue for our Joe is navigation through different blockchains.
Because, in not so distant future, we will have hundreds of different blockchains residing on their own mainnets, requiring they own unique tokens/coins.
How many wallets will Joe be forced to install to rent himself a car, drive his ass to the doctor’s office for his regular checkup, take care of the car’s insurance, rent the remote log cabin for him and his friends to celebrate Independence Day, and buy his little daughter a new bike on his way home?
A whole lot.
Will he happily install all those wallets and memorize which one pays what?
I don’t think so.
But what if Joe can use a single wallet that converges dozens of different blockchains (each on its own mainnet) and pay with the single cryptocurrency (token) for all those different services in a fraction of time and for fees so low that Joe is thinking to donate some to the network just to make sure those guys keep running?
And all he basically had to do was downloading the app that, among everything else, contains the multi-blockchain wallet while utilizing a single token for all services.
Would that make Joe adopt the new technology and throw away his dull dollar credit card?
Yes, it freakin’ would. And, as I said in the opening, the seed of this new paradigm has already been planted.
That’s what has the real potential to make global adoption of Blockchain reality and not some crypto exchange in a country where only 11% of the population own a bank account.
Perhaps, adjusting the sales copies to sound reasonable to everyday Joes would even bring more money to the fundraiser?
