The cryptocurrency adoption. Article 1

Problems that need to be solved in the nearest future.

A look at history

Remember the first mobile phones that could be purchased in the early 90s? Remember how they looked and what features they had? Perhaps you’re a young reader, so I’ll tell you about my father’s first phone: about 25 centimeters high and 7 centimeters wide, a large antenna measuring 15 centimeters, and its weight was about 500 grams. Speaking about phone functions — ability to make and receive calls… and that’s all. Over time, the phones began to decrease in size, they became colored, new functions appeared, such as sending and receiving messages, the ability to take pictures and videos, access the Internet, etc… As the phone improved and became high-tech, or in other words, became a smartphone, its adoption and distribution around the world has increased faster and wider, and now every resident of a modern state and even a resident of the village has a smartphone (and some even have a few). Ease of use and innovative technologies have led to the massive adoption of smartphones around the world.

I would like to recall the first Internet sites that I sometimes visited when I used the Internet. They were full of different colors, the sites were overwhelmed with a bunch of unnecessary text, the visual component was also terrible, but due to the lack of other options and because of everything new, I was very interested. Which I can’t say about my friends who didn’t really use the Internet, because they didn’t understand its purpose — everything was available in books and encyclopedias. Now back to present day — the pages have a certain range of colors that are pleasing to the eye, the text in a consistent style and only published where necessary, and as much as necessary. And such sites are used by millions of users, while the old ones have faded off into the background.

You can even consider an example of the social network Facebook. Before Facebook, there were a lot of social networks that had enough resources to become number one. But why did Facebook become a multi-billion dollar company whose social network is visited daily by hundreds of millions of people? The reason for this — simplicity and ease of use.

Different examples, but one conclusion

What is the result? It doesn’t matter if the technology is unique or not — the main reason for mass adoption is simplicity and ease of use? Exactly. Human psychology is set to facilitate and simplify everyday life. Why should I think about how to use a complex system when I have so much else to do? And if for the performance of a specific task I need to make only a few quick and easy actions (or clicks) and at the same time, these actions are quickly learned and remembered, then why not start using the simpler system?

Cars, computers, phones, Internet, social networks, online shopping. Everything underwent an improvement in the user interface, and only after that began their mass adoption and everyday use.

I want to note that in the future this may concern even those areas that we do not even think about. For example, shops of the future are being developed, where you can choose and buy goods while being in the car; smart kitchens are being developed that make cooking easier, and so on.

The situation with the cryptocurrency market

Sooner or later it will touch cryptocurrencies. While we do not see the mass adoption of cryptocurrency for various reasons. And one of the main reasons of course is the convenience and ease of use. Take for example the purchase of cryptocurrencies. In order to buy one or another cryptocurrency, I need to do a lot of rather complicated actions: register at the exchange, transfer money from a bank account to an exchange account, buy cryptocurrency using fiat, install a wallet, create an address on the wallet, transfer the cryptocurrency from the exchange to a wallet entering the correct address of a particular cryptocurrency. Or lets take the cryptocurrency wallet itself. Having installed a cryptocurrency wallet, you will not immediately understand what is happening until you watch the training video (however, each cryptocurrency wallet may have slightly different functions and methods of use). After examining the wallet, and before you start receiving cryptocurrency into your account or start spending it, you need to take a few additional steps — for security, you need to come up with and set a complex, long password that you need to keep with you in case of unforeseen situations. It is also necessary to make a backup of the “wallet.dat” file, as it contains the entire history of your wallet (transactions, rewards for network security). And you need to keep it with you, since in case of losing the password and “wallet.dat” you are less likely able to recover your savings.

Solution options

So far it sounds difficult for a regular user, but the cryptocurrency market is developing very quickly, and I am sure that the simplification of the user interface is not far away. At least, attempts of some projects in this direction are already visible (for example, the multi-currency wallet for cryptocurrencies “NEXT” is closer than others from the point of view of a simple user interface).

First of all, more simple cryptocurrency purchase options are needed. For example, buying coins directly from a cryptocurrency website using a credit or debit card. This will help to avoid various transactions with third parties (exchanges, intermediaries, etc.)

Secondly, the user interface of the wallet should be easy to use: to put less unnecessary information and buttons; there must be instructions for using the wallet right when the wallet is first launched. If the user (for example, a merchant) just wants to spend and receive his coins, the wallet can be limited to several functions (Balance, sending and receiving cryptocurrency, history, simple password to lock-unlock the wallet).

The faster and easier the user can complete a transaction, the more often he will use it.

I would not be surprised if in the next 5–7 years, in order to become the owner of a cryptocurrency or spend it, I will have to take only a few simple, easily remembered steps, while the security will remain the same.

Of course, simplifying the user interface does not guarantee global adoption, because there are a number of other reasons that impede global adoption of cryptocurrencies, but this decision to simplify the use of cryptocurrency will help significantly. The remaining problems preventing cryptocurrencies mass adoption and their possible solutions I will consider in later articles.