RE: How Will Cryptocurrencies Solve Their Massive Usability Problems?
I agree with everything you have said. It was tragic how Betamax was canned when it was by far the better tech and I can see this happening with certain cryptos e.g ethereum (smart contracts) v bitcoin (well supported but comparatively dumb).
I do wonder how increased regulation will play out also. Most of us cryptonerds see it as a threat but I suspect the majority of future newbs might see it as a reassurance e.g. government will guarantee so much of your savings in case of a bank default. Also look at CEO pay and how that has become politicised yet with people expecting government regulation rather than allowing the free market to regulate it. In the crypto universe it would be left for the free market to regulate it as being decentralised. Would people trust this to happen? There clearly are not in the current political arena.
Crypto is trying to rid us of state fiat control which sounds good but at present we seem to be putting ourselves under the control of the hidden whales and coin ico/hypers. Is this necessarily better? At least with the state we know who they are and sometimes have a chance to vote them down. Hopefully this will change slightly with the community voting processes that some crypto chains are developing but then we get into the slowness of non-majority governments where decisions take forever to enact versus winner takes all system of e.g. UK politics.
I also worry about the popularity of privacy coins. I can see a use case for businesses (hiding market sensitive info)and ridiculously rich private individuals (so they do not become targets for violence) but it is keeping the outsider's perspective of crypto as something subversive perhaps, either trying to keep Joe Public out or avoid taxes a la Paradise Papers.
I also worry about valuations as few of these crypto businesses have any history and evidence that they have durable income streams. I like the idea that ICOs bring in a larger community than IPOs and that might offer resilience to the businesses. However a lot of the ICOrs are in it more for the money/short term gains from what I am reading (which is a lot!) and so will probably not necessarily use the product but merely try to maintain the hype and inflate the bubble even more. A lot of the argument against it being a bubble is that it is an adoption curve like the early internet. I can see that argument but again I would repeat that a lot of the current users are probably more financially motivated than they were with using the early internet. I like the tech and I support ethical coins such as SUB, POLL, HST, HMQ, OMG but without the gains from XLM, ETHOS, ENG ETH, QSP would I spend so much time on crypto. Probably not. Was I using early internet projects expecting financial rewards. No.
Dave, yeah some good points you make there. I too would hate to see the space be taken over by the old financial establishment. But there probably is some validity to the argument that it might act as some reassurance to the wider public (as crazy as that is).
The speculation, and I'm as guilty of that as anybody else, has become a real problem. It not only makes currencies way to volatile, but it takes attention away from the real world utility. I run a business, and although I love cryptos, there is no way I'd want to receive payment in them, it's just too volatile. By the close of business the payments received in the morning could have fallen 30% for example, you'd only be interested if the crypto was instantly and automatically converted to fiat currency, and that begs the question (why bother with it in the first place?) Somehow that needs to be solved. I think mass global adoption for use as everyday currencies would calm down the volatility, but the volatility is what prevents that, it's a catch 22.
Not sure what you can do about the ICOs that are just in it for the money, with no real intention of producing a long lasting real product. I guess just people communicating on social media, about what are and aren't viable projects, and what are just pump coins. Maybe some kind of Crypto ethical standard amongst users to reject these things, as quick bucks aren't worth damaging the whole crypto arena. Something like making it socially unacceptable, like drink driving.
The other problem with the speculation and pumping is like when you've got meme coins getting Billion $+ valuations! When at some point in the future these things correct to fair value and a lot of people get burned, I'm worried that the publicity around that will be very damaging to crypto's reputation as a whole. Also, the same when some of the Ponzi schemes go belly up. Unfortunately, the outcry from the public would probably be that we need more government regulation to stop something like this happening again.
That was an interesting point about being at the mercy of whales and ICO hypers etc. Democratisation of projects tends to lead to inept governance, but some level of community say on projects is probably a good thing. I think free market voting with your wallet, would be a good way to go, while business driven Cryptos will be free to innovate, and incentivised to do so; to keep ahead of the game and provide the best product for the market.
I like the privacy coins for similar reasons that I like crytos per se. Though, I can see your point that this could give the persona that cryptos are something bad and nefarious to the public, and I'd say a tool for government criticism also. For me, It's two fingers to the government and the traditional financial institutions. Two entities that are far more corrupt than you or I could ever be :) But keeping their fat fingers out of the crypto pie is going to be increasingly difficult, and a real chance of decentralisation could be lost, and that would be truly sad. Not least because the public might actually call for it. So I think somehow the speculation needs to be kept in check, otherwise it might lead to the sinking of the whole original ideology of it.