We are likely still at least 6 - 12 months away from mass adoption. By that, I mean when it's invisible to the average Joe that they're using a blockchain/DAG powered product/service. The point where the user does not necessarily have to deal with private keys or buy tokens on secondary exchanges to use the platform etc.
The projects I mention below are not buy recommendations. They are simply examples where the average Joe will be using a product today, next year and not even realise it's running on a blockchain/DAG. These sort of projects will get us closer and closer to where we all want to be.
ETH: Chiliz/Socios - http://chilliz.io/
IOTA: Volkswagen: https://cryptobriefing.com/vw-iota-product-released/
EOS: Eva Taxi - https://eva.coop/
In order to gain mass adoption, we must have 3 things in place:
A system/product that matches or performs something better than what we use today - In terms of performance. This is where crypto falls short in terms of scalability. Bloxroute can push ethereum for example to about 1-2k tps but more work/experiments are needed (sharding etc).
A system/product that provides what we don't have today - Online Identity solutions (Sovrin for example),
Clarity on regulation in those countries. The technology is accelerating quicker than regulation. In the past, this has usually been favourable. For e.g. Skype, Napster/Media Sharing, Uber (I think) were all illegal to start with.
A general topic around blockchain's unsolved problem is the scalability trilemma/decentralisation. These are 2 good articles that I would recommend reading:
https://multicoin.capital/2018/02/23/models-scaling-trustless-computation/
https://twitter.com/Melt_Dem/status/1031190564639830016
- Melt_Dem
My belief is that all of these blockchains can coexist because they can all serve a different purpose. Some platforms can be highly secure with lower throughput or not as secure with higher throughput. Some may rely on the code and some on an elected governance. I'll leave the debate for another day. So far, we do not have a winner and do not need one but that doesn't mean there are no benefits to the existing platforms already out there!
There is a tendency for the crypto masses to judge projects because crypto influencers on Twitter "said so". I prefer to be open minded and think about how useful these platforms can be around the 3 areas I listed above.
We have platforms that are decent enough to start building an internet where our data can be a lot more secure and we can have more control of our data. The internet was not built with an identity layer at the core but we are getting ever closer to finding a scalable solution to that problem. I will be reading about projects like Avalanche, Algorand and Hashgraph to see what they bring to the table.
To close, I believe we are certainly getting closer to adoption:
For speculators/investors, we need trust between founders and investors. Smart contracts that are easy to read so that projects can't go back on their word on locked/vested tokens etc. We seen it happen so many times: EdenChain being the most recent example. Security Tokens which will provide more protection to investors. This will be all the rage in 2019.
For platform users, we need user friendly platforms for the right purpose. Cryptokitties won't work on Ethereum in its current form. We need to educate users (Binance Academy) on the benefits of blockchains. We need better identity solutions that can easily integrate with the world today.
What industries do you think will kickstart adoption to a mass scale? I think Gaming.