How Will Future Exchanges Look Like?

No, I'm not referring to decentralized versus centralized exchanges, although that will be a distinction.

Hopefully, as blockchains will start to integrate in more domains where they can bring benefits compared to the current state of the facts, more people will be influenced by them. The interaction of regular people to cryptos will determine their overall impression of the space.

Right now there are probably over 1500 coins or tokens created, most of which have no purpose or real use.

There will probably be some more before there will be much less.

Right now, pretty much every initiative in the crypto space comes up with a coin of its own. Not always with a blockchain of its own, but almost always with a new coin to add to the confusion for the regular guy.

Now, let's imagine a future where various services have blockchains as underlying technologies. And a guy Joe on a regular day.

Joe calls for a car service which sends a car to drive him to work (he is old-fashioned, still likes to go to the office). On the way in, he orders the cool VR game console his son wishes to have for his birthday.

On the lunch break, he goes to a fancy restaurant to meet a client. He pays, of course.

On the way back from work, Joe decides to make a change, and takes the hyperloop tube. It has a station not so far away from his neighborhood, and he can lend a bike, another thing he hasn't done in a long time.

He enjoyed the ride so much, that he forgot to leave the bike at the lending place, which was only 200 yards from his place. Luckily, Joe sees the 12-year old neighbor's son and his friend, and he tips him to get the bike back.

As he enters the door, he receives a message on his phone, that his subscription to Netflix has been automatically paid for.

On this little scenario, 7 payments were involved (including the tip), none of them to the same beneficiary or business.

Let's suppose every payment was made in cryptos.

If we follow today's model, every business has its own coin. The boy was probably happy with any type of coin Joe transferred to his card.

A more likely alternative for the future, would be that every business has its own coin, but accepts a number of universal coins as well. Or that every business accepts a number of universal coins and has no coin of its own.

In any case, but even more significant in the first situation, the way future exchanges will look like becomes very important.

If, in 10 years from now, there will be only one currency in the world, and its name will be bitcoin, as the CEO of Twitter said, then there will be no need for exchanges in the future. Would this scenario be possible? That would mean no fiat currencies of any kind, and no alternative currencies of any kind, just bitcoin. Hmm, I doubt that... Plus, shortly after this opinion, Twitter joined the crypto ads blockade.

If however we would have both fiat and crypto in the future, and more than one cryptocurrency, then the characteristics of the future exchange should be well thought out.

To continue with our scenario above: Joe has only one type of crypto (or maybe only fiat). If businesses won't accept his crypto (or fiat) directly, exchanges need to take place.

Here are some key points:

• Will a transfer between fiat and crypto and the reversed operation become easier and more widely adopted?
• Will in the future exchanges be pairs of cryptos based on one or two major cap cryptos like today (bitcoin and etherium)? if not, how will liquidity be assured for pairs with low trading volumes?
• In the scenario above, Joe did at least 7 transactions, double if it went through an intermediary pair. How much will the fees be? How about the time to confirm a transaction? Or the capacity of the underlying blockchains?

If there's a problem preventing the crypto space to be mass adopted, where does the problem lie? At the blockchain level? At the cryptos level? At the exchanges level? At the perception/marketing level?

Of course when prices are down and we come after a dip, with no immediate bullish signs, talking about mass adoption may not be the wisest thing. Or maybe it is? It is pointless to prepare about it when many are in a FOMO stage and their head is clouded.