The Stigma that Forever Latches on to the General Public
Growing, But Still Not Quite There
There have been waves of efforts made to spread the knowledge and benefits of blockchains and cryptocurrency in today's society, but from my own anecdotal experiences, it's still not quite reaching a majority of the population beyond the hype of BitCoin, and a get-rich-quick scheme. This is coming from someone who was on that boat just a little over a month ago. I was completely skeptical about cryptocurrency, only knowing what BitCoin was and barely Etherium.
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The only news I ever heard about cryptocurrency was hearing about how the price of BitCoin was shooting up like crazy, coaxing a majority of my friends to buy a little bit of BitCoin to ride the train of hype to make a quick buck. But this past week, I've made an honest effort to reach out to the same friends to explain what blockchains are, or even other cryptocurrencies that are out there. But the responses were more or less dismissive, or even if I managed to pique their interest, I was unable to explain the concepts clear enough, due to me not having enough knowledge in the subject itself.
A Conversation with my Brother
Just this past weekend, I tried testing my knowledge and application skills to my brother, as he had a very pessimistic outlook on the future of cryptocurrency. During our 4th of July BBQ, we had a serious conversation about the state of cryptocurrency over some nice steak, sausages, beer, and sake. He insisted that cryptocurrency, if anything, would be at its peak currently, and would only go down in price from here on out. He predicts that the government would regulate all cryptocurrencies and throw them into the stock market, similar to NASDAQ, where the top 50 cryptocurrencies would be condensed into one stock share.
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I explained that cryptocurrency itself cannot be regulated, as it is essentially a borderless currency. It cannot be bound down to the borders of a country, therefore the United States government itself cannot regulate it on its own. The only thing that the government can really touch are the transactions themselves. They can regulate the exchange sites such as CoinBase or Binance, but not have direct influence over the value of a cryptocurrency.
Implications
From my experiences thus far, I've run into acquaintances and friends that can be separated into more or less two categories. The first category would be individuals that have a base knowledge on what the key terms are, such as cryptocurrency, and blockchain. These individuals would develop a strong opinion based on the knowledge that they have, but they would missing the full picture to the capabilities of the blockchain technology, thus becoming a crypto-skeptic. The other category are the ones that only know BitCoin, but not blockchains, or even the other cryptocurrencies. Both categories need to understand the decentralized system of a blockchain is very beneficial for online media platforms, where there is full transparency, and none of the guidelines or constraints are decided by a higher parent structure that would exist in a centralized structure.
Based on these experiences, I can say there are one or two that have been swayed from my explanations on the blockchain, and I have high hopes for the continued exposure that blockchains and cryptocurrency are getting every day. To combat this stigma, one must be concise, but not leave out the important details of the blockchain, and even something as simple as trying to explain cryptocurrencies without mentioning BitCoin at all. One can even bring up the comparison of Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake to show the differences on how some people mine for these cryptocurrencies.
How do you think @twotoedsloth what will happen next?
It'll grow, but just at a slower pace, due to people slowly being more open-minded to change!