How Asia’s ‘super apps’ can give blockchain adoption a boost
In the last year or so, blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency economy have made waves in the mainstream media and there’s undoubtedly a lot of hype around it. On the one hand, it seems that everyone — from your grandma to your taxi driver — is talking about it. On the other , as opposed to the early hopes of many blockchain enthusiasts, the technology has not yet been adopted en masse.
In the next few years, some of the core issues that currently represent barriers to mass adoption — such as regulation and infrastructure immaturity — will be mitigated.
However, what is really required for mass adoption is a killer app — one application with a real desired use case of the technology that attracts the masses. Despite the many ongoing quests for more and more use cases for blockchain, I believe that the use case with the highest chance to become that killer app is the most straightforward one and the one Bitcoin was initially designed for: payments.
A good use case is necessary but not sufficient since it needs a good distribution channel, which brings me to the main point of this post: there’s a golden opportunity for large social platforms in Asia to release a blockchain-based killer app that can enable mass consumer adoption of the technology.
These are the reasons why:
- Massive user base — 7 out of the top 20 social platforms globally are based in East Asia, with an aggregated user base of nearly 2 billion users.
- Positive regulatory environment — South Korea, Japan and Singapore are some of the friendliest countries for cryptocurrency activity.
- Vendor & platform collaboration — Apple, the undisputed leader of the mobile device market in North America, with nearly 40% market share, is not likely to promote competing payment channels under its platform. In other words, without Apple’s support, it would be harder to penetrate the US market with a new decentralized payment system. However, in Asia the market is much more fragmented. In addition, Asia-based mobile vendors, who make up the majority of the market, are very open to collaboration, and a few of them, such as Samsung, Huawei and HTC, are already paving their paths into the blockchain world.
- Mobile payments— It is well known that Asia is a hotbed for mobile payments. “Super apps” such as WeChat and LINE already process a huge amount of transactions each, but this market is still very fragmented with dozens of different payment providers. Cryptocurrencies could be a great opportunity for them to collaborate and create a synergistic payment eco-system as well as break the geographical boundaries of these payment platforms and to expand globally.
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