Ever since the earliest days of the cryptocurrency complex – the birth of Bitcoin nearly one decade ago – this entire concept of an improvement of contractual transactions through the use of the decentralized blockchain has been undergoing an intense evolutionary process.
As we continue to realize the ramifications of this revolution, and find new ways to apply the remarkable potential inherent in the cryptocurrency project for society, we must yet face four major challenges that continue to represent the core obstacles that lie between the current situation in the world and a new world defined by greater convenience, security, and personal choice through widespread mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies as a way of life.
The four bogeymen are as follows: security, regulatory uncertainty, market volatility, and practical application.
Security
The crypto complex has been burdened with a series of scandalous stories impacting its recent history that have been severe enough to undermine the confidence associated with it on a broad conceptual level. It’s just bad PR. And bad PR has consequences.
In this case, we have seen frauds and scams play out for a number of different coins and exchanges leading to a broad public mistrust of the underpinnings of how secure crypto really is.
Unquestionably, huge headline hackings, such as the Mt. Gox scandal, have had a severe deleterious effect on public confidence. This must be repaired before we can expect anything like mainstream adoption.
Regulatory Uncertainty
It takes governments a long time to catch up to new trends. That’s why it should come as no surprise to see that major regulatory bodies such as the SEC still have a long way to go in terms of personnel training and broad theoretical underpinnings to have any hope of being successfully proactive where cryptocurrencies are concerned.
As a result, we are saddled with the likelihood that they will be defensive and overshoot in their efforts.
In addition, many countries see cryptocurrencies as a threat: an entity or system capable of dis-intermediating both systems of taxation and the regulated banking system and its associated currency. We should not expect this to be taken lightly.
Hence, we’ve already seen serious regulatory backlashes in China, South Korea, and the United States. And this is had an impact on both public perception and the purchasing power of the coins involved.
However, we are beginning to see some good news on this front. For example, the French government recently altered its approach to taxation of cryptocurrencies, reducing the tax rate from a top-end level of 45% to a simple 19% flat tax. This is a step forward, but we will need to see a lot of other similar steps before the overall tide of the regulatory threat turns in favor of cryptocurrencies and their mainstream adoption.
Market Volatility
Unquestionably, the pure price volatility that we see in the cryptocurrency complex is an adversary and obstacle to its mainstream adoption. While this is wonderful for traders, it is not so wonderful for those attempting to use something like Bitcoin as a currency for everyday use in terms of purchasing goods and services.
As the price of Bitcoin fluctuates 10% one way or the other each day, so do the effective prices of anything that one might wish to purchase with Bitcoin. Because, rest assured, those prices are in some way tethered to the concept of the US dollar or some other major fiat currency, rather than to that of Bitcoin. And it is precisely because of this volatility that this is the case.
Practical Application
Finally, there isn’t much sense in adopting something as your currency of choice if there’s very little that you can buy with it. In the end, much of the fate of things like Bitcoin will be determined by what is known as the “network effect” – the more people use it, the more useful it will be.
There are some companies that have begun to accept Bitcoin as a full and formal payment – such as Expedia and Overstock – but there’s still a very long way to go.
As major central banks begin to get in on the game and hold some cryptocurrency reserves or look to develop some of their own, this will no doubt help us reach the elbow of the curve. No doubt, the network effect involved here on a broad economic level will be characterized at some point by a tipping point. And once on the other side of that, we should see accelerated mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies. But we aren’t quite there yet.
OPEN is Here to Help
The OPEN platform has committed itself to the goal of helping blockchain and cryptocurrency – as major concepts in society – leap over these four obstacles and blossom as core tools on a mainstream level. OPEN represents the original decentralized payment gateway for the processing of payments both on and off the blockchain.
Those using this platform are able to select from a variety of different cryptocurrencies, including the largest market cap names such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, for use in the completion of in-app purchases, subscription purchases, and many other important applications.
The OPEN platform is first of its kind as a blockchain-agnostic platform. This means that developers can integrate this Gateway application into new and existing projects without needing to understand anything about Solidity or other blockchain programming languages.
This is hugely important because it means that application developers will be able to integrate the OPEN platform seamlessly into their current projects as well as into their existing work.
If you’re looking for a catalyst to push the crypto complex past the tipping point and into mainstream adoption, the OPEN platform is it. Be sure to visit the OPEN website today or if you’re a developer, sign up for the OPEN Developer Program and let the OPEN Platform benefit you.