Why is crypto still not adopted by the masses?
Hi Steemians,
I was thinking the other day how cryptocurrency is still far away from mass adoption, which i think is weird.
Bitcoin, is now almost a decade old. Satoshi released the Bitcoin Whitepaper in 2008. We're almost 2017 and in terms of mass adoption not allot has happened.
You often hear this analogy with the internet, people like to compare the rise of blockchain technology with the internet itself. While its true that there are certain similarities with the net itself, the difference is that the internet didn't take this long to reach wide spread adoption.
Suspicion
Many people simply aren't open to the idea of cryptocurrency. I recently tried persuading a vendor in my street to start excepting it in his store. After explaining to him what Bitcoin is and how it works and that he doesn't need to invest in it to become part of it he just looked at me like i was trying to sell him something.
It's as if everything has to be served on a platter by a company for people to except it or even notice it.
People are soooo used to buying stuff from companies that when something new comes along they instantly think that its another company trying to sell them something. It's like the majority has to be spoon fed.
I had a hard time explaining a friend of mine that Bitcoin is not owned by a company. And that he doesn't need to make an 'account' or whatever.
Steemit
It has been said a few times that Steemit might indeed be the perfect gateway to crypto for the masses. But people are going to have to start waking up though, i informed friends of mine of Steemit a couple of weeks ago and they still havent made an account. Its as if people are sleeping, or they've stopped believing in change.
One thing i've noticed though, and i have said this in previous posts, is that there is money being made from nonsense. When people start writing serious articles and invest their time in producing great content only to find out that a make up tutorial is making 20G's while their content is barely noticed it creates disillusionment in the fairness of the platform.
Then again, before i was using Steemit i was posting all of my work online and i wasn't making anything so at least Steemit is giving us a chance to monetise our content in a groundbreaking way.
Bottom line is that crypto, in my opinion, still has a looooooong way to go. And anyone who has ever tried to explain cryptocurrency to the uninitiated knows exactly what i'm talking about.
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Think about it. Was the internet really widespread in 2000? I wouldn't say so.
Besides, not everything about crypto will be the exact same as it has been for the internet... but there are a lot of similarities.
Crypto certainly has a long ways to go still, but Steemit is a great platform to get people into crypto. It works mostly just like any other social blogging site, except they can get paid for participation. Then they will realize that even though the actual technical parts of cryptocurrencies are extremely difficult to understand, in terms of general usage, anyone can do it.
This is true. Its also highly likely that bitcoin will sit in the background for many services, Visa is testing this with car hire so the end user doesn't even know they are using bitcoin. These types of services will become very common over time. Mass adoption doesn't just mean everyone goes out and buys bitcoin (of course that would help) There are other things that need to fall into place too half the world's population does not have a bank account and unlike traditional payment methods bitcoin (or cryptocurrencies in general) would be extremely practical for them. The bitcoin network could not handle mass adoption not this second these fixes won't come overnight doing something wrong could break everything. The web also had its fair share of scalability issues in its early days
I think adoption is great, but ive never really understood the widespread belief in the crypto world that adoption is somehow the ultimate bellweather to crypto success. Has bitcoin failed somehow because i have to pay for my morning coffee with dollar bills?
In general, i think a lot of markets where you see slow or no adoption are markets where theres really no advantage to using crypto (versus conventional currency)
there is a lot's of reasons but i can describe only few.
Good points. I think you mean the world wide web the internet has been around since the 60s it still took some time people thought it was for geeks and laughed that you would read news on a computer when you can sit in a park in the fresh air and read the paper among other things. You had to know code just to send an email how many people would do that today? Even at that stage not in anyones wildest dreams had people starting thinking/planning/dreaming about selling online. Credit cards took some time too almost 10 years for mass adoption people didn't trust them or "fully understand how it works" The average person does not want to know about encryption keys hashing and blockchains they want simplicity the last thing they want to do is change. When you pay for something with a credit card do you go home and look up how the payment gateway works? You don't need to understand it I have been in the bitcoin space longer than most people it has come a very long way but you are right it has a long way to go the network could not even handle mass adoption right now. The chances of mass adoption of just bitcoin are very slim anytime soon what bitcoin gets integrated into could rapidly change things, so yes Steemit has attracted people in masses who know very little or have little interest in cryptocurrency this is a great thing!
I also posted about this stuff today ;)
https://steemit.com/money/@mandax/i-purchased-my-first-bitcoin-at-usd40-here-is-why-the-price-doesn-t-matter-and-my-predictions-for-blockchain-and-steemit
I should also add the dust has settled now even the mainstream media is starting to get it I mention this in my post the blockchain is like a massive app store bitcoin is just one app, the first app if all goes well hundreds, thousands, millions of other apps are on the way who may integrate bitcoin in some way just like Steemit - That's were mass adoption will come from rapidly some of these people won't even know they are using bitcoin its already happening
Well, I think it is not that easy to use it either. Imagine you giving your mother a wallet with 100 steem in it. You think she will be able to figure out a way how to buy bread with it at the local bakery ? If you find a way to make your mother do this in an easy and straightforward way, you just made sure cryptocurrencies will get mass adoption.
I was telling somebody about Bitcoin, and he just replied, "why not just use dollars?" An uninterested party that has inherit faith in the dollar, just doesn't see it purpose. The amount of explanation needed to understand it to a trustworthy level makes it difficult to explain the advantages. I feel like that is the problem with crypto in a nutshell.
One really important point is that normal people don't want to use volatile currencies. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been really volatile which has scared a lot of people away.
Steem is in really unique position with Steem dollar (price stable cryptocurrency). That has been tried earlier, but there hasn't been any easy way for common people to get any stablecoins. But now they do, they just have to blog. This combination can boost Steem's network effect quite well.
People are not yet ready to cryptocurrency
just a matter of time, simples
I love bitcoin and steemit !