It was told a lot of the world-changing potential or role of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. It's already 10 years from the Bitcoin inception gone but where's the revolution? All this time the way of cryptocurrencies was accompanied by the skeptical headlines, Bitcoin has died a thousand deaths, and there's only one right thing about it — we still can't see mass adoption or even any firm signs of it. So were the skeptics right about the failure of the cryptocurrency project? Of course, they are mistaken.
Obstacles I
Yes, there are obstacles on the way to the new world. But remember such fundamental things as the "modern" monetary system (and other relicts) rarely change quickly. The entire world's habit is against this change. But don't forget that action brings a reaction, it might be technologies, it might be new business models or social changes — ideas that seem to improve our lives win with the time: whether it's equal marriage rights, decriminalization of some recreational drugs, the Internet in your pocket, artificial intelligence or VR glasses. The things that seem fantastic at some point become reality, sometimes it takes decades to upset the setup.
Obstacles II
So what obstacles can we name when we talk about the mass adoption of the blockchain or cryptocurrencies?
First one was already mentioned — disbelief. Of course, until many people can't trust the technologies such as smart contracts or blockchain, in general, they won't use it. For many paying with cryptocurrencies is as scary as a ride on an unpiloted taxi. This obstacle has a firm basis, it's a fair result of two other obstacles: the misuse of cryptocurrencies (or the wrong understanding of the blockchain's mission) and the lack of wide support of blockchain projects by the businessmen (retailer companies, for instance), politicians, celebs, etc.
By misuse, I mean the fact that most people involved in cryptocurrencies are using it only for exploiting of its volatility. This sad situation worsens the volatility. People are losing their money over unlucky "investments", frauds surrounding the world of crypto — all these things affect people's trust to blockchain negatively. Such news stops some people to start accepting BTC as payment in their shops, and so on. They really think that they can lose money this way, although it's quite obvious that the wise move towards the new technologies is the way to improve and update the business. They forget that such elementary thing as acceptance of cryptocurrencies will attract new customers. Not allowing payments by credit card is something incredible today. So why should we avoid allowing the crypto payments? Start living in the future now and the present will follow you.
Good Signs
Even 10 years of existence of the very new technology is not enough to change the world. The best comparison is the time it took for the Internet to change things entirely — decades! A lot was said about the dot-com bubble burst, but after that burst, you can't have a business without the presence online.
The same thing is going to happen to the blockchain revolution. Those who don't embrace the blockchain will simply be the last people who will start using it anyway. They will have no choice.
The transition to blockchain will the question of surviving for any service or business. The companies and services using blockchain save resources and time, and make their product cheaper and more accessible. It will work. Competitors will have to follow the trend.
This year is going to be big because for the first time the big players are going to come up with their first blockchain solutions. That's something we never had before when most of the blockchain startups were created by enthusiasts. Now, such heads as IBM, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Amazon, and even conventional banks (!) are working on blockchain projects. Some governments are here, too.
The blockchain removes intermediary and creates strong truly independent data storages. Cryptocurrencies add opportunities for buying and selling. Opportunities increase freedom.
What We Need
The researchers say that the most important factor of mass adoption is not the excellence of the new technology. What really matters is a strong fully operative ecosystem.
What we need is more successful use cases of crypto and blockchain (and the correct media coverage of all of these cases), we need the projects to have high scalability to make the user comfortable. Decentralization, diverse functionality, and high security will add allies to the blockchain. All new projects should be open for contributions from the side developers and communities but secured from the mistakes of low-quality changes. The projects should be intuitive and user-friendly. What's good is that all of these qualities are already considered by the developers of the new blockchain projects. Most of them will be launched this or the next year. I guess mass adoption is around the corner. The 20s will be the decade of the blockchain boom.
The most important thing that we can do is not only spreading the word about our favorite projects, but using the blockchain projects, using cryptocurrencies, and sharing our experiences with the rest.