I know that everyone's been screaming mass adoption ever since the beginning of 2018 and even the previous months or years before that. I get it. I get why we want mass adoption. I get why we as a community are compelled to root for it. However, wanting it and needing it are 2 different things.
Here's why: Mass adoption is gonna inflate the price and we all want that! I want that too. But if mass adoption happens this year, I'm gonna cash out for sure because I know it's gonna go down soon! Timing will be the tricky part.
I'll make this super simple by exploring the consequences of premature mass adoption. Let's pretend crypto mass adoption will happen this year ayt?
Let's mimic a real-life gradual mass adoption phenomenon. For it to be realistic, it has to be gradual. You can't expect 500 million new bitcoin users by tomorrow no matter what type of news comes up; that's very unlikely to ever happen. In fact it's more like Hyperbitcoinization--which is an interesting topic for another time.
Before we move forward I need you guys to just know... more money does not equal more innovation. Likely, it is the opposite. I've read the book The Power of Broke by Daymond John explaining this very clearly.
It is the end of December and now Bitcoin has 500 million new users (I'm not gonna assume a price I'll leave that to your imagination) since August and everybody seems to believe they are sooo smart--including those who got in just a month ago. Everybody will be saying we are going to the moon again and this time it's for sure.
And the whole world will be in a crypto frenzy like never before. Forget drugs we're all high on our own ignorance
When people finally stopped HODLing and accumulating and started using it as currency.
Bitcoin can only handle 9 transactions per second (currently it handles 7 TPS) and surprisingly, mass adoption didn't help much!
It is still underdeveloped. It still hasn't matured. It still couldn't handle 3 million daily active users let alone 80 million.
Now the network becomes congested and magnitudes slower than it's ever been. Transaction fees reach $500. Now no one wants to use Bitcoin anymore. The last time they make a transaction would be to cash out.
Everbody is gonna call crypto a scam. The bankers, whales, government agencies will say "I told you so" "Crypto is a pyramid scheme" and whatever bullshit they can come with. And everybody is gonna believe them because it would appear so.
Is that what you want? Is that what we should all hope for? Premature mass adoption?
And I know some of you will say "That's good Lambo, but you are talking about Bitcoin--which is old and inherently slow. New generation cryptocurrencies are actually faster...."
Let me make this clear: Bitcoin is not inherently slow. Bitcoin is the most secure decentralized cryptocurrency in existence. Bitcoin is slow because it's the only cryptocurrency that hit the ceiling and right now it is in the process of breaking through that ceiling. Most cryptocurrencies that claim to be the next Bitcoin or boast superiority have not even reached halfway of what Bitcoin has gone through.
Always remember that more users means more transactions means more load on the network. As some of you might have noticed, Ethereum is slowing down too. Now Ethereum sucks and EOS or Cardano is the future? Come on guys! I'm not implying anything here but please think these things through before coming up with a conclusion. If possible, just don't come up with a conclusion. Keep your mind open here.
So I did mention that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that's hit the ceiling. Some would say Ethereum is hitting this "ceiling" too. When I say this I mean that crypto has plateaued.
Today, crypto is at a point where there's little improvement in it's capacity and efficiency despite the ongoing innovations. But, do not mistake this for no progress. In fact, progress is growing exponentially in this space. It's just hard to see.
We are walking through uncharted territory. We are now building the new infrastructure of the future! The new internet or whatever. And when I say we, I don't mean me. I mean the developers all over the world not just on Bitcoin but for every serious cryptocurrency out there.
Why? Because of the SCALING PROBLEM that's been going on for 3 years now. Apparently no one has solved it yet without compromising the main principles of decentralization. This is the ceiling I'm talking about. A lot of altcoins have proposed their own solution to this and they are working on it.
You should leave it at that. You can't rush these things with mass adoption.
This is how Bitcoin is breaking through that ceiling as we speak.
The Lightning Network’s use of payment channels effectively allows users to transact with each other directly rather than broadcasting their business to the entire world (aka main blockchain). By tracking their payments between each other on their own, the two parties are able to avoid expensive and time-consuming interactions with the blockchain. If there is some sort of dispute regarding balances on the Lightning Network, the most recent balance sheet provided by either of the two parties will decide how the funds in the multi-sig wallet are split up.
It's not that I don't like mass adoption or anything like that. In fact, if Bitcoin moons again as a result of mass adoption, I would rejoice for a day then cash out in time. Timing would be the hard part because if mass adoption happens so soon it is bound to come down deep afterwards.
Innovation takes time. Be patient. The price has little to do with how secure a cryptocurrency is. There's just too much hype clouding people's judgment.