The crypto-currency market has experienced some significant level of activity while on its way to mass adoption as the main medium for transfer of value both online and offline. The most notable of this was the period between the ending of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018, when the total crypto currency market capitalization grew from 160 billion US dollars to nearly 900 billion, representing over a 500% growth in a matter of months. This massive surge in the crypto-wed environment caught the eye of investors round the globe and also attracted the attention of regulators and for some time in this year the blockchain and its associations stayed on the lime light . However the subsequent months have seen a massive CRASH to the tune of about 80% from the previous high. This mostly as a result of uncertainty about the future of crypto #currencies, caused by regulators skepticism (not necessarily towards the blockchain technology itself but towards the mode of operations of players within the blockchain space).
With so much despair and uncertainty surrounding the crypto-currency eco-system, the question most people’s mind is “where do we go from here?”.
In this article, we will be contemplating some of the factors or indicators that can help guide our understanding of the direction of movement of the world of blockchain, crypto-currencies and decentralization .
NOTE: this is not investment advice, the points expressed in this article, though they come from factual research, represent opinion drawn from my personal logic shared for informative purpose and do not substitute for investment advice or any call to action.
So in order to determine the direction of this innovative technology we have come to know as #blockchain, the vital question to ask is whether it offers an improvement in an relevant aspect of our lives. The logic is that if it does then it s only natural to migrate towards the better option just like from analog to digital, offline to online etc.
There are a lot of differences between crypto currencies and fiat currencies within the digital environment. Comparing the effect of these differences will help to determine which of the two is more suited for the purpose in the world of today. I will only discuss some that I find to be very note worthy but you can read some other comparison of fiat and cryptos from here
Although the blockchain technology can be applied to much more than financial transactions as it relates to exchange of goods and services, it is pretty much the main area that seems to have to be dealt with first before looking into other use cases and so we will be concentrating on the competition between crypto currencies and digital #fiat.
The efficiency of a financial transaction can be measured against three main criteria; speed, cost and security each of which is almost as important as the other. Comparing the performance of both crypto and fiat system against these three measures will give a guide as to which is more efficient as an instrument of online #trade.
SPEED
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On the subject of speed, the Fiat system has remained the instrument of choice. VISA for example recorded a peak activity level of 10,000+ transaction per second in 2010 and claims to be capable of handling 24,000 transactions per second (though not tested yet), #bitcoin on the other hand is significantly slower at 5 to 7 transactions per second it (as well as Ether, litecoin, dash etc) are at a huge disadvantage. Although some crypto #networks like ripple (#XRP) claim to be capable of speeds of up to 50,000 transactions per second, they have not really been tested up to that level.. (if you would like to know more about transaction speed click here
SECURITY
(In 2016 US financial institutions reportedly lost 900 million USd to debit card fraud even with the current upgrade to chip and pin cards that are supposed to be more secure. Crypto-assets are designed with more robust security and are pretty much in-hack-able. The only users could lose their funds or registered assets would be if they lost control of their private keys.
COST
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I have decided to keep this peice as short as I can but there are several levels to this argument about crypto currenncy replacing fiat. Other factors also come into play, like the wider variety of crypto use cases that exceed the limits of fiat because of its decentralized and “openly anonymous” nature, the ongoing migration from web 2.0 to web 3.0 and vital role of crypto currencies within the same web environment, and the ICE’s unveiling of a bitcoin futures exchange this year (is that an subtle indication that experts think blockchain is more efficient?).
One seemingly obvious conclusion is that there is a strong fascination and passion spreading towards the blockchain tech and crypto environment and this doesn't seem to be going away. If you asked me I would say its only a matter of time before a significant percentage of payments are made using crypto currencies particularly as developing countries with poorer and less globally recognized payment services, start to tap into its potential. The reluctance from developed countries can be attributed to them already having fairly efficient payment channels.
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