Surrounded by friends in tech start-ups, blockchain, AI and data analytics, I’m conscious I’m late-ish to adopt cryptocurrency as a viable investment or tool. As someone who watched the early rise and crash of cryptocurrencies, I’ve remained cautious of an innovation that has not really settled in its form as a product to shape future life and society.
At the same time, the early days of cryptocurrency mimic the early days of the internet, dotcom boom and crash followed by the rise of tech giants and digital millionaires and billionaires. It’s a sector for pioneers and early innovators who are rapidly shaping the landscape of our future ‘new normal’. I am increasingly aware that to delay entering this market is to regret using a useful and innovative tool that will soon become a part of life.
To counter my luddite ways I’m am endeavouring to document and sharing my learning as I venture into cryptocurrency in a series of posts here on Medium.
The reasons I have to adopting cryptocurrency now are several:
Maturity
Since October 2020, PayPal accepted Bitcoin [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54630283] and this nod from the finance giant is just the first step of mainstream companies adopting cryptocurrency for online payments. Will Facebook’s delayed Libracoin be launched in 2021? If so it will transform the way transactions occur on the global platform.
As of writing, the cumulative market for cryptocurrencies is 1.04 Trillion USD [https://coinmarketcap.com/] and is steadily growing with banks and trading desks globally investing. While only a fraction of the world’s money is in cryptocurrency, this will rapidly grow as has internet and mobile technology has grown globally.
In only 30 years of the internet currently:
- 59% of the world uses the internet
- 67% of the world uses mobile phones
- 80% of the UK and 79% of the USA shop online [www.worldretailcongress.com/_media/global_ecommerce_market_ranking_2019_001.pdf] with vast adoption in China, Japan, Brazil and most developed economies
- 1 Billion mobile money accounts exist in Sub-Saharan Africa [www.statisa.com/topics/6770/mobile_money_in_africa/]
With change happening at ever increasing pace, it will not require another 30 years before global and mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency is prevalent. In fact, the next few years should see rapid shifts in how we each interact with crypto currency.
Ease of Adoption
Setting up a crypto wallet barely requires access to data — mobile or internet, some form of identification — passport or drivers licence, and payment in the form of bank transfer or credit card payment. Compare this to setting up a bank account which requires multiple forms of identification, evidence of residential address, and credit checks all of which are out reach of any displaced persons.
The global, decentralised, consensus based blockchain of crypto means that not only opening an account can be fairly instantaneous but transactions can cross borders and evade many of the fees currently levied by centralised services and institutions. This also means that crypto currency is more viable for the current mobile money users many of whom are unbanked and for millions of stateless people who currently move across borders.
While there is still a vast amount of information to digest about the crypto landscape, not least of all how to understand the vast array of coins that are materialising daily, these two factors alone are incentive enough for me to step into a new and exciting world.
