how can we achieve crypto mainstream adoption and better yet is crypto mainstream already how
exactly do we define mainstream and if it's not how can we make it adopted all around the world
those are some of the questions we're gonna try to answer on today's coin market cap episode my
name is kay and here at coin market cap we are on a mission to make crypto accessible all around the
world that's why we love to make content for you that is packed with information that is
easy to understand and simple to share with your friends and family so if you want more than just
hype and actually learn about crypto make sure to hit the subscribe button right now turn on this
notification to not miss any future videos and let's learn together crypto mainstream adoption
disruptive technologies like electricity cars and TVs all travel the same road to mainstream
adoption a road that crypto seems to be traveling as well the wells fargo investment institute
recently reported that the rate at which people around the world are adopting crypto is remarkably
similar to that of the internet on top of it now that governments worldwide are starting to
regulate crypto institutional investors who were previously not willing to invest are jumping in as
well some suggest that kryptos 1.5 trillion growth last year means that adoption has either happened
or that we're really really close and yet despite all of this unstoppable progress a lot of people
haven't really warmed up to crypto for now it seems that it's mainly younger generations who are
buying while older generations are still sitting cautiously on the sidelines i'm talking to you mom
but what does mainstream adoption actually mean it's a difficult question and there's no agreed
answer but before we dive deeper i want to ask you what would it take for you to consider krypto to
be mainstream is it the number of people using crypto would the majority of people around the
world using crypto be enough to convince you that it's mainstream and what is the majority is it 51
of all the people in the world well if that's the case then we have a long way to go
right now bitcoin has the same number of users as the internet had in 1997 only about 115 million
or roughly one in every 70 people on earth a study from crypto.com estimates that nearly 300 million
people on any crypto including bitcoin which is a little bit better and it's 1 in every 25 people
and 1 in 25 is a bit closer to most people but it's still a long way to go however another recent
report from crypto.com projects that a billion people will be using crypto by the end of 2022.
a billion users by the end of this year would actually be an incredible achievement for all
of us all of us as a community but it still once again falls short from the 50 mark but
if we step back for a second and look back look back at our history half of humanity might be
actually too high of a benchmark especially when you consider that the internet only reached
this benchmark over 50 just in 2017. even now only 65 percent of all of us use the internet every day
in fact when the web one era ended and facebook was making its start in the world at the end of
2005 only 16 of people worldwide had access to the internet yet most people would say the internet
was already mainstream before that so it might be that we need to set our bar a little bit lower
maybe it's around that 15 or 16 maybe it's 20 just like in the facebook days
if you're thinking to yourself crypto adoption seems like a confusing subject
it is nobody has agreed on a specific metric however if we don't just focus on the number
and instead look at what's happening around the world there's some compelling arguments
that we have already reached mainstream adoption for instance in september last year el salvador
became the first country to officially make bitcoin a legal tender a short while later a poll
showed that 27 percent of u.s residents supported making bitcoin a legal tender as well and that 80
of younger people aged between 18 and 44 had a positive attitude towards bitcoin institutional
investors as well warmed up to crypto last year a leaked member from goldman sachs indicated
that investment bank was running crypto trading desk and an analyst from jp morgan told clients
that crypto is set for much greater acceptance from mainstream investors and companies in 2022.
crypto's also been getting a lot of love in the business sector got tesla microsoft whole foods
accepting crypto payments and fintech companies like paypal and square have opened the door
to floods of new retail investors it seems that momentum is there but still the number
is important and despite all these encouraging news only one in 25 people use crypto so far
and crypto's global market cap is only slightly above that of amazon's so let's
make this more actionable let's actually look at what's standing between crypto
and a wider adoption we all know that crypto has an incredible wide range of industry specific use
cases and definitely has the potential to make the world better and fairer right but before
many of these industries can adopt krypton before the world can adopt crypto as a whole
there are a few obstacles that we need to overcome number one education right now
there aren't as many people around the world that understand crypto and until people understand
crypto and how it might be beneficial to them they're not going to use it to its full potential
and while here at coin market cap we're doing our best to educate everybody about why crypto is the
best thing since sliced bread there's no getting around the fact that educating everybody is going
to take a while but we're doing our best but there is also reason to be cautiously optimistic
for example both new york university and stanford are now offering college courses in crypto so our
european universities as well all of which might inspire the next generation of crypto pioneers
of course politicians governments and regulators desperately need to learn about crypto as well
which was one of the biggest reasons that is standing between crypto and mainstream adoption
yet when we consider that six members of the u.s congress bought and sold crypto last year and
that congress had a crush course on crypto in december it's possible that by the end of 2022
that governments and regulators could become a smaller obstacle for crypto adoption and now
that Gary Gensler who previously taught courses in crypto and mit is the chair of the securities
and exchange commission and the united states we have good reason to believe that favorable
crypto regulations are coming our way any day now so let's stay optimistic but also realistic
number two accessibility once people understand bitcoin blockchains nfts and everything crypto
they're still not going to use dapps defy unless the services are easily accessible
what do i mean by accessible i mean easy to use affordable and without too much technical
lingo a good litmus test is if your aunt or your six-year-old nephew are able to use a d app then
it's accessible because the more people use crypto the more money there's in crypto and the more
people and money are involved in crypto the more institutional investors will incline to invest
the more money institutional investors put into crypto the faster the apps and services grow
and the faster the world adopts to crypto do your part and make it more accessible number
three interpretability as i'm sure you're already aware by now cryptocurrencies run on blockchains
one of the big drawbacks of today's blockchains is that they struggle to talk to one another if the
web or the world is ever to run on blockchains those blockchains have to be able to exchange
assets and information between one another which is called inoperability inoperable blockchains
like cosmos and polka dots have come on leaps and bounds in the past year so we're expecting to see
more networks like that soon and when we get there fully inoperable blockchains will allow
developers to create powerful new services and apps apps which are capable of things we can't
even imagine right now in fact trying to imagine today what crypto platforms and blockchains will
be capable of in 10 or 20 years is like one of the first computer engineers trying to predict
netflix tick tock or even crypto itself number four infrastructure why did it take decades for
the car to overtake the horses as the transport of choice simply because the infrastructure that is
roads that were good enough to drive on didn't exist and right now crypto is suffering from
the same problem if crypto is ever going to scale which needs in order to replace
some of sectors traditional finance we need a lot of infrastructure think back to the early
internet which run on the phone line it took 10 minutes to send a low resolution jpeg you know
you know what i'm talking about and that was if you didn't run out of data whereas now you can
have netflix 49 and 50 other tabs on chrome open while you're simultaneously sipping your latte
so what made this possible solid dependable and scalable infrastructure as time goes on and
demand for crypto builds more and more money will inevitably go towards infrastructure and just like
increased demand for the internet so national upgrades on copper wiring and then fiber networks
increased demand on crypto will lead to more and better infrastructure we just have to be patient
and keep on building number five volatility people love a get rich scheme but they also don't like
losing money unfortunately for a lot of people bitcoin ethereum and all of the other crypto
still seems like unnecessarily risky investment because when you compare cryptocurrencies to
stocks bonds and saving accounts crypto is and is probably going to stay for a while longer
an unpredictable asset class still you could probably argue that bitcoin is only
marginally less stable than any other stock take facebook for example the tech giant once worth
nearly trillion dollars just saw its stock plummet by 26 in just one day and is down nearly 44 since
last september during the same period bitcoin actually went up a few percentage points but in
all fairness bitcoin had a much bumpier ride than facebook up until now why because bitcoin price
is based on supply and demand how many coins are currently in circulation and how much buyers are
willing to pay for those coins now apart from the supply and demand mainstream media outlets
and crypto influencers still have a big hold on the price take elon musk for example who
with a single tweet can send bitcoin's price spiraling out of control either up or down
but rest assured that this problem won't be around forever or at least crypto probably won't be as
volatile as it is right now in 10 years time because as crypto market cap grows the
influence any one person or media side has over crypto will diminish we just need to be patient
now to wrap it all up if you're wondering where crypto is right now to where it's going to be
10 years from now i want you to step back for a second and think about the original apple app
store remember all those funky and weird apps like you had a candle that you could blow out
on your phone or you could play with the lightsaber and back then you did have some
practical app but i think you would agree with me that nobody would have imagined that in 2022
you could run a multi-million dollar business using logistic apps banking apps accounting
apps and be successful and that's what we consider crypto to be right now don't worry if
it's mainstream yet or not there's still a lot to build still a lot to create there's so much more
to do so join us let's start creating together and let's get it adopted all around the world