What are the THREATS/DANGERS to BLOCKCHAIN and Cryptocurrencies? How Do you see it's FUTURE?

Every cryptocurrency has a different set of threats and dangers to it. Most of them are due to the world we operate in, while others can be credited to the technology still being under-developed. Since, I can't address all at the same time, I’ll attempt to briefly address a couple of threats to bitcoin and it's implications as per my understanding.

Rules & Regulation

Regulation for a developing technology is a twofold edged sword. On one hand, regulatory clarity is helpful for investors, entrepreneurs, developers and users as it removes a certain amount of doubt over what actions are unlawful. On the other, if we get regulation wrong, or issue regulations too early, we might handicap companies and users from tapping into the maximum capacity of this technology.

After a decade of Cryptocurrencies there are still no solid regulations. We don't know what the governments would come up next. Although, I disagree and I have written some harsh articles on JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon remarks, but he's certainly right about that the governments like control and they would not accept cryptos.

I am aware of the fact that it's a BLOCKCHAIN hence can not be banned, it's immutable. But the fact that they still can ban exchanges. Which would most certainly put a stop to the inflow of capital we have been pouring into cryptos.

Due to all these FUDs, there's a great debate on the utilization of DEX (Decentrilzed Exchanges) in such a scenario but I am not sure if that would work either. Individual would find it useful but business will hesitate and in fact don't even look at it. And we need Businesses for Cryptos to be successful otherwise it would just remain a betting tool and nothing more.

Scalability & Architecture

Currently, the bitcoin network can just process 5 to 7 transactions per second on average, and the number of transactions on the network is expanding relentlessly. However, there are compromises to security as you scale – you can’t just toss more hardware at the issue.

The blockchain’s architecture even when scaled with attempts such as Segregated Witness, Block Size, or even Lightning Network is incapable of providing the proper ability to handle transaction volume that centralized processors do daily (Visa peaks at 50k tx/s). This limits and threatens its ability to grow as a true worldwide currency.

Daily Confirmed Transactions = 24 Hrs x 60 Mins x 60 Sec x 3 approx = 259200 daily transaction that can be completed at the current rate. Clearly, for a mass adaptation to happen it would need more than that.

An incredibly devoted group of core developers are working to address this problem, but it standout one of the most disagreeable debates in the Bitcoin community. Which is why we have seen Bitcoin dark, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Segwit and now Segwit2X.

Adoption

Ultimately, cryptocurrencies can be the most secure, productive and viable approach to solve financial matters in the world, but if a critical mass does not adopt the technology, the utility of digital currencies will not be high for many people.

And it seems that there's still a lot of time for that to happen. It would take years to educate the under developed about Cryptos. If you look down upon Africa, Asia (where large number of people lives) from a Western point of view, it seems that a couple of CNN and BBC documentary will be enough to do that.

But if you look at it, right from where I am writing this, it's no easier than climbing a Mount Everest or K2, or perhaps harder. As, I have still folks around me figuring it out, 'how to make a call' on their own.

You don't wanna see that sight when an old man handover's his Phone to someone in the market saying;

Can you please do this transaction for me?

And then later realizes that he just handed over all his pension.

But hey! It seems like this one doesn't agree much with me. ↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

Safety & Security

Bitcoin is frequently charged as the most secure cryptographic money on the planet, and it has a solid history of proving that to be true. However, as organizations, governments and others begin to utilize it, the incentive in attacking it for both financial and non-financial reasons becomes significantly greater.

Miners

Mining pools and developers and foundations centralize the power structure and decision making of the network without public consensus, often making decisions on their own whim creating similar circumstances to what we experience in our current political system. They are too rude to give up on their point and go with the larger interest hence creating split chains such as the recent one, Bitcoin Cash.

There are some good projects who are looking into all these issues and coming with better and better technologies. Cryptocurrencies are still in an infancy phase. Some coins are even developed to avoid the mistake of the previous ones such as Litecoin hence better clones.

While I am hopeful of the better future, in fact a bright one, but the Crypto community, startups and developers must come to address all these issue as we head to charge on the traditional financial systems. The Crypto community must stay diligent.

@enazwahsdarb I used some of your images, I hope you don't mind.