In six months from now, Satoshi Nakamoto’s creation will be 10 years old, but will it reach mass adoption? ponders Osato Avan-Nomayo of Bitcoinist.
With numerous blockchain products being utilized by private institutions, multinationals, and NGOs, and, with it increasingly becoming a real prospect for governments around the globe, the technology has expanded to become far more than just a new idea, but are cryptocurrencies used to their potential?
According to Zerion founder, Evgeny Yuttaev, cryptocurrencies are still more speculative than used for practical utilitarian purposes, suggesting there is a lack of use cases for digital currencies in 2108.
He suggests that most ICO’s seem to be in search of the next Bitcoin or Ethereum in search of massive profits, but what is really needed is projects which can change peoples lives, and for this to happen, decentralized applications (Dapps) need to become mainstream.
Currently, there are 1,565 decentralized apps built on the Ethereum blockchain alone, unsurprising given Ethereum’s historical place in the development of blockchain solutions. Carl Bennet of Status.im suggests that 2019 will become a new dawn for Dapps, suggesting:
“We will see more developers and designers focusing on creating simpler and more familiar user onboarding experiences for mainstream use we’ve come to expect from the applications we use and an overall lower barrier to entry into the crypto ecosystem.”
The suggestion is that Dapps will be the key to widespread crypto adoption, beyond the payments system created by Bitcoin, offering users the ability to interact with cryptocurrencies, while navigating user-friendly mobile and desktop applications, thus bringing digital currencies to the “forefront of social consciousness.”
That said, Bitcoin has made significant progress in terms of reducing payment time and transfer fees, whereas until recently processing times of up to an hour and expensive fees made it unsuitable for day to day use. Bitcoin transactions are now at their lowest in over a year and are completed in far less time
Yurtaev illustrates that even if favorable regulations lead to more widespread cryptocurrency regulation, blockchain still has the issue of scalability to solve:
“Public blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum must scale if they are to find mainstream success. It isn’t enough to handle five to ten transactions per second. To even begin to compete, they are going to have to be able to process hundreds of transactions per second.”
If next year is to herald in a new awakening for cryptocurrencies, Waves CEO Alexander Ivanov suggests that there must be a synergy between the traditional and the new:
“2019 will definitely be the start of crypto’s mass adoption, though much more still needs to be done for the two worlds — traditional banking and crypto — to coexist frictionlessly”
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