On Adoption of Crypto Currency — Financial, Commercial And Mental
This past Friday, September 21st, we were witnesses of an event rarely seen in 2018: Lambos flying to the Moon. The celestial event was fueled by the news of PNC Bank, one of the major US banks, joining RippleNet and starting to use the xRapid token based on XRP, which lead to a rally on crypto exchanges, where buyers pushed the price of the XRP high enough to have it land on the second place by market capitalization, pushing Ethereum temporarily to the third place.
Looking back to the origin of blockchain and crypto currency, to Satoshi’s Bitcoin white paper, it is not a surprise that cryptos have been relatively quickly and widely adopted by the financial industry — after all, the original purpose of crypto currencies was to become globally accepted means of payment, with direct peer-to-peer transaction stored on an immutable public ledger. The standards and protocols used in the financial industry have been globally established for decades, which allows blockchain and dApp developers to build and deploy applications suited for the financial sector on a large scale.
Crypto currencies have also been well adopted by financial speculators, individual and professional, who have recognized (or experienced) the potential to earn (or lose) in day- or portfolio trading on crypto exchanges.
The usage of blockchain technology and adoption of crypto currencies is on the rise in other industries as well, finding applications in the automotive industry through projects such as Xain and IOTA, which is also taking giant leaps in the sphere of IoT and data monetization.
It is not a surprise that big players from all industries were the first to embrace the innovation brought by the crypto-paradigm as they have the funds and resources for research and development of more and more use cases — tracking information on blockchains, supply chain management, healthcare — just to name a few.
None of this means that the blockchain/crypto paradigm is off-limits for small businesses and start-ups — on the contrary. Merchant adoption of crypto currencies brings new customers to businesses as well as an asset that can be further used within or outside the crypto sphere, and at the same time grants access to services, such as Coinmap, that allow buyers to locate crypto-friendly businesses. Many blockchain projects develop features and dApps that directly support the commercial and merchant adoption — such as Point-of-Sale applications or trustless data storage on chain (see the bottom of page).
The cuddly shiba inus of the Dogecoin project have recently started testing the Dogethereum Bridge, which will allow the transfer of Dogecoin to Ethereum and back — supporting crypto-to-crypto transactions. The PoC Consortium of the Burst project will be introducing tethered assets, a financial instrument allowing the preservation of value in a number of fiat currencies and exchange traded commodities on the blockchain — thus minimizing the risk of the change of price in volatile crypto markets. Some existing and emerging blockchain projects are offering tethering of crypto currency to off-chain fiat deposits. All this is happening with the intent to ease and support the commercial adoption.
“Man has conquered natural forces and made the desert flourish. Cotton already grows in the Negev desert. The one desert that still resists man is the one in his own head. “— Ephraim Kishon
A number of higher education institutions have started offering blockchain technology courses to their students, as they offer knowledge that will be valued in the future. The administration of New South Wales is planning to introduce a blockchain solution into issuing and managing drivers’ licenses. Various administrations have already issued recommendations regarding taxation of crypto currencies, and the ruling on crypto ETFs in the USA is expected soon.
All activities, developments and operations mentioned in this article were listed in an attempt to display in which directions the process of crypto currencies adoption is heading.
With all this said, and considering the fast pace of changes brought on by the crypto economy, one cannot help but be surprised when young and fairly well educated and generally informed people coming from well developed social environments still react with dismissal, not skepticism, questions or reservations, but straight rejection when the crypto sphere is mentioned. This might be the effect of often uninformed and superficial reporting, the occasional bad news (but those come from all directions) or lack of realistic and complete information to base their opinion on.
The directions and the pace of crypto adoption suggests that soon enough (in the middle term), we will not be able to not adopt crypto currencies, as stores or value or utility tokens to obtain services. Maybe it’s best to roll with the wheels of progress.
The text of the article is available on the Burst blockchain, and is retrievable using the CLOUD-KRFE-ZXS9-N28U-7DXUL CloudBurst ID.
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