Why I believe cryptocurrencies will not be adopted in near future

Because people are afraid of unknown. Because people do not trust what they don’t know and what they cannot touch. And because most of the people don’t like change and avoid the ‘new’. So, the answer is that simple.

Let’s compare two different generations and try to see why cryptocurrencies are difficult to be adopted by them. I start with people who were born in the late of Baby Boomers, early of Generation X.

Most of them own smartphones even though it is hard for them to use. Some of them have social media accounts which they mostly use to follow their children. Some hear about the latest technologies — not because they are specifically into that — but few understand what they really mean. While some really adopt digitalization in their daily life such as online shopping, some still prefer traditional ways. Some even live in a developed country like Germany — country with largest economy in Europe, but still prefer paying everything with cash money due to their fear of having debt — Germans relate credit cards to having dept.

As you can see, what I described above is not a 70 years old person who is totally unfamiliar to our digitized world. Contrary, it is a person who tries to adapt himself/herself to the latest improvements as much as he/she can. Will that be enough to do the same thing with cryptocurrencies though? Unfortunately, no.

Why?

Unknown — it is new and they really do not understand it.
Almost no trust — they do not see it and cannot touch it.
Difficult access to information — if something bad happens, they cannot go to a physical place to learn what went wrong.
Too much instability — the value of it can both increase and drop drastically in one night.
Too much vagueness — there is no clear policy/attitude regarding cryptocurrencies in many countries.

Probably you already knew about these and you were not surprised while reading. But here comes probably the more interesting part.
Now, let me take myself as an example and I am neither a developer nor deeply interested in economy/finance topics.

I am a woman in her late 20s. I own smartphone, I have an account in social media sites where I can hear and read about many new stuff, I am interested in the latest technologies and therefore, I am familiar to the IT buzzwords. I even own some cryptocurrencies (with the help of others). Nevertheless, I still don’t believe in cryptocurrencies adoption in the future — by that I mean 10 years.

What is the reason behind?

Am I hesitating the ‘new’? Do I not trust it because it is not tangible? No!
Apart from the fact that there are thousands of tokens in the market which in my opinion just diminishes the value of cryptocurrencies, I do not understand how it works. All these terms such as Distributed Ledger, Market Cap, Arbitrage and etc. are too confusing/foreign to me and makes it harder for me to understand.

Let’s say they were more understandable. Would I support cryptocurrencies if the terms were not that confusing? I do not think so.

To be honest, I am not even sure if I want to understand it. For me sitting in front of a computer to learn the terms’ meaning is just similar to reading a text book that I am simply not interested in.

I believe the real problem for my generation is (at least for me) not to have enough excitement as I cannot relate it to the things I care about in life. This leads not to have a motivation to learn how cryptocurrencies work and eventually understand it. In my opinion, it is more about to understand the relevance, the points that get along with the values of the young generation than to understand how it works. Then it will be much easier to embrace it.

To sum up, there are varied reasons that make people not to believe in cryptocurrencies’ mass adoption. The reasons are based on different factors such as demographic, social, cultural and so on. But, does it all mean there is nothing that will change people’s view on it? Of course there is or at least will be someday.

After all, “the only thing that is constant is change” Heraclitus of Ephesus.

PS: I keep Blockchain technology apart in this article. It was intended to be only about cryptocurrencies.

Original of the article is shared here.