This morning started like pretty much every other morning. I got up at 4 AM to do my work out, and started thinking about what I might write a post about today. Sometimes stuff comes easy, and others it is a bit harder. I see lots of crypto and finance related stories before I go to bed and when I first get up.
The only problem is, I know by the time I get into work to actually write, someone will have covered them already.
This morning I am actually reaching back to a story from a couple of days ago for inspiration. While I was working out I started thinking about the rumors that Apple might be coming out with their own crypto exchange and I wondered to myself what that might look like.
This led down a rabbit hole, and it occurred to me that if Apple comes out with anything like that, KYC is going to be a given. As much as they want to claim they care about privacy (remember the whole locked iPhone thing a while back?), I think when it comes down to something financial like this, they aren't going to take as much of a stand. Heck, I can't even download a free app on my iPad without putting in a credit card number!
I know for a fact there are a lot of people in crypto who hate KYC. I can't tell you the number of times I have seen someone say "I tried to sign up for ..., but they have KYC in place so I said screw it".
This all made me realize that as excited as we are for where crypto is heading... easy onboarding, quick access, mass adoption, etc. It may not be for all of us. I have been saying for quite some time that I think for crypto to gain mass adoption, we are going to need to make some concessions in terms of regulation and privacy. Like it or not, I don't think I am alone in that assumption, and I think some of the news stories we are seeing lately point to it as well.
Those rules and regulations are one of the main reasons many people turned to crypto in the first place.
The scenario I played out in my head while I was crushing some aerobic walking was actually a little unsettling...
Imagine twenty years (maybe less) from now. Many of us may have made a big cash out on our tokens and we are actually doing pretty well for ourselves. We are probably still kicking around on Hive/Leo/Whatever, because we always have and it is familiar to us.
The long term crypto investments we still hold now feel more like those old traditional investments like stocks/bonds/mutual funds.
We sit around in our chat rooms and talk about blockchain as we know it now the same way people currently talk about Facebook and Twitter. Meanwhile, we already have one foot in the next big thing that is going to change the world.
As crazy as it seems, I can see a world where the coolness fades. The excitement dwindles, crypto becomes too commercialized, and those of us who like to live on the cutting edge actually move on from blockchain/crypto.
I know that is going to be hard to imagine for many of us. It was a pretty staggering revelation for me this morning.
What do you think?
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