5 Phases of cryptocurrency adoption

in #cryptocurrency7 years ago

Daily use of cryptocurrencies

Although there’s a great number of cryptocurrencies, we’re hardly using them for transactions in our daily life. If parts of our economy shifts to a crypto economy, then we’re still at the beginning of the (r)evolution. I read this article has the blockchain failed with the following quote:

..after almost 10 years on since Blockchain technology was truly birthed, there is no one sector where this ledger has taken over and rendered its competitors obsolete. The ideas are great, but the execution of this game changing technology is still too slow.

For me that doesn’t mean that blockchain innovation won’t happen. It only means that it’s more complicated to implement. Let’s not forget that we’re going through transformation of fundamental thinking processes and it needs time to convince people that it works and that there are benefits. At the WEF, Blockchain was the second most popular word. This confirms that blockchains are on the agenda of world leaders.

Don Tapscott about the evolution of Blockchain

5 Phases of cryptocurrency adoption

Thinking about it, we probably go through different phases:

  1. Phase 1: Technical – testing different concepts
  2. Phase 2: Trust – Broadcasting the different concepts to generate interest and accumulate trust
  3. Phase 3: Scaling – Making concepts fit for purpose
  4. Phase 4: Utility – Users actually using tokens in real life
  5. Phase 5: Mass adoption – Shift from traditional economy to tokenized economy

There are probably more established theories about adoption phases, but these were the first that came in my mind and the point I’m trying to make is that we’re still at the beginning.

I’m not sure if scaling or utility comes first. Between phase 4 and 5 there will probably be consolidation, like it happened in the dotcom bubble. I assume we’re currently still in phase 2, so I anticipate a lot of opportunities. In phase 5, I don’t anticipate a token to take over from traditional currency, I expect them to coexist. Like the e-mail complemented physical post and airplanes complemented travelling on land. Each will have their advantages and disadvantages.

Thank you for reading, following, upvotes and resteems!

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scaling is a constant process so i think it should not be on that list as a phase. otherwise i agree

Thank you! I agree with that. The reason I put it in is that both BTC and ETH are currently limited by scaling issues, so it's maybe more of a hurdle that allows further adoption than a temporary phase. That might actually apply to the other items as well.