Ghandi once said: “First they tell you it’s play money, then they tell you it’s a bubble, and then they ask you where to invest”.
Well, it wasn’t actually Ghandi who said that. But let’s face it, it does sounds a lot better than saying that I got bored, and started playing this little game where you take famous quotes from history and try to give them a time-update.
But I think the point stands regardless.
Any new technology, invention or uncommon idea is bound to receive a lot of the resistance when it’s first introduced to the masses.
However, that resistance - sooner or later - is bound to fade away once a certain critical mass starts to gather around that idea.
Have cryptocurrencies reached that point yet? Are we still approaching it? I don't know, but one thing is sure is that there is more and more mainstream influential people adopting and promoting this technology than the previous years.
"Why would a bank be closed on a Saturday and Sunday? You know why? Because they are greedy motherfuckers that have been making too much money for too long and didn't have any competition..."
"...Your job, and all the crypto guys out there that are in love with this is to make sure people understand how simple it is, how real it is, and how easy it is to use." ― Grant Cardone
For many of you reading this, you’ve probably seen how hard it was a few years ago to explain cryptocurrency to people.
It went from ridicule, to scam, to bubble… Passing by the hundreds of mistaken obituaries about the upcoming death of bitcoin and the rest of cryptocurrencies.
In fact, rivers of digital ink has been spilled on failed doomsday predictions. There’s even a website that records all the obituaries of bitcoin alone.
Of course, the experts who made these outrageous claims were horrified. They were swallowed by shame, they apologized and were never heard from again... I’m just kidding.
On top of all of that doom and gloom, and at the end of the day just when you think you've heard it all... There were an still additional 10.000 excuses or reasons on why cryptocurrencies would never work. My personal favorite is this one:
People will never adopt cryptocurrencies because they have been using gold for hundreds of years.
So what? People have been using candles for hundreds of years as well. Tell me a single place in town that still operates on the candle lighting system every day of the week.
Aside from the set of Game of Thrones and some S&M dungeons.
Ironically enough, there’s an important lesson to be learned here. When electricity came along people didn’t adopt it right away despite all the benefits that it brought them. All the contrary in fact.
It took decades for people to be comfortable enough around the new invention, and they needed to watch many, many other people adopt it first in order for their fear-of-the-new instincts to be soothed and replaced by a new sense of intrigue and FOMO.
At a historical level, this phenomenon is predominant all across the board. For instance, did you know that credit cards were invented in the 1950s?
How long did it take for that trend to catch?
People used to much rather wait in line for half a day to speak with a bank clerk, than to use a new invention that was much more convenient for them and which would've saved them a lot of time.
Though it would be fair to observe that back then there was a handful of channels that controlled just about all the information you had access to.
Which take us to our next invention: The internet.
You see, the internet was invented on 1983, however it wasn’t until the late nineties (or even early 2000s) that the internet was found in every home of the common man.
Then we have the blockchain. Although it was invented only a few years ago, it still managed to record billions of Dollars in transactions and millions of users worldwide despite its relative youth.
Granted, there is still a lot of fear and skepticism around the technology nowadays, but everything seems to be pointing out that the mass-adoption process would be much shorter this time than with the previous life-changing inventions.
Especially given the large distribution of information systems that we have today.
How Long Till We Hit the Bell Curve?
Barely a few months ago, cryptocurrencies had little to no representation among mainstream influencers.
Now you look around and everyday you find a new financial adviser, lifestyle-guru, self-help expert… Posting their Bitcoin tutorials or selling their cryptocurrency classes.
Even longtime crypto-skeptics like James Altucher for example are now promoting the technology in MSM television channels and in their own newsletters.
It gets better, guess what was featured on the latest The Big Bang Theory episode?
One can never predict what the future holds but it does seem like the trend is about to break the first level of resistance, and 2018 may very well be be that year.
What do you think? Do you think cryptocurrencies could break the first-level of mainstream resistance in this 2018?
Feel free to leave your comments below!