Bitcoin was created almost ten years ago — this fact has raised a lot of different opinions recently that are declaring the near-death of cryptocurrency. However, despite already existing for 10 years, bitcoin is still worth four figures. But can we say the same about other coins and the whole sector — is it still relevant to adopt cryptocurrency and work on its implementation in everyday lives, or was it just a brief novelty hype?
Despite the appearance of new digital currencies, they still didn’t break into mainstream. The majority of online retailers or merchants do not accept crypto, and bigger financial services better rely on fiat currencies. The skeptics say that despite the booming market of crypto, with over 2000 different digital currencies, more than 800 of them (almost a half) is dead. Of those that are still afloat, very few are relevant. How many types of cryptocurrencies can you name? The majority would only need one hand to count those. Despite the still pretty high value of the most important cryptocurrency, bitcoin, its value radically drops in periods of time. This leads to a lack of acceptance from investors’ side, and even the unregulated advantage doesn’t look as attractive as it was in the beginning.
Do these facts mean that the relevance of crypto is coming to an end? While it is true that most of the market crashed in 2018, the consequences of that are gradually disappearing.
Even though cryptocurrency adoption is not mainstream yet, a lot of major companies are implementing it in their solutions or creating own currencies. This applies to banks like JP Morgan (that once were greatly against cryptos), up to social media giants like Facebook. Additionally, Bitcoin starts to be discussed as a usable digital currency following the increase of adoption from big industry players.
While payment with crypto is still on its way to becoming massively adopted, what is becoming a standard is blockchain technology. The security of it is relevant for many different sectors and industries, especially in the finance area. Consequently, the services these tools provide are based on cryptocurrencies and tokens. So, as companies are turning to blockchain solutions, crypto will become more attractive.
The bottom line is: adoption is a slow process that can happen with more services bringing fully-digital and decentralized solutions into their business, and with the appearance of fiat-to-crypto gateways. The more technologies are being developed, the faster they’ll become adopted by the mass. As cryptocurrencies continue to better demonstrate their value in a lot of different spheres and situations, from banking to paying for goods, the technology will strike itself. Many solutions are likely to fail (this is relevant to any industry though), but the sector will continue to grow.
