Those numbers aren't small though on an absolute basis. Most companies are only accepting Bitcoin as a marketing ploy (e.g: look at how much KFC Canada rode that train). I don't know that the world is going to adopt a new system they hardly understand for benefits many hardly care about. More realistically, it will be a group of us who care for avoiding financial surveillance and having control of our finances that want to participate in this ecosystem.
Unless Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be made simpler and better than existing solutions (which will be difficult to near impossible given capital going into these), then likely many people won't adopt it because they don't care about control of their information (they say they do, but they really don't).
Furthermore, the tech behind these cryptocurrencies are still in their infancy yet are being priced as though it has been fully developed. Even respected figures within the field agree it's a bubble because of the mass euphoria and speculation that the masses are participating in for the objective of becoming wealthy. My comments about a bubble aren't a shot at cryptocurrencies, but rather an observation of human nature which has repeated itself since the dawn of time.
In the beginning days of the Internet, it was not easy to use. One had to have a computer modem, and dial into a local university to login to a text-based interface and run commands to access handful of text-based resources. The idea of email was a curiosity at best to the people I explained it to in the early 90's. Many people were of the opinion that this whole "computer thing" was a fad that would go away.
My point is that technology evolves, and cryptocurrency will likely one day be as easy to use as web browsing is today, or will be entirely transparent to the user. The rapid rise of crypto-backed debit cards is one example of transparency. When nations release their own national cryptocurrencies, as a few have announced they will, and people are earning their salaries with crypto, the payments landscape will be different.
There is also the whole machine-use dimension of this technology - autonomous vehicles that operate by themselves accepting cryptocurrency from the humans it gives rides to, which it then uses for charge-ups and maintenance, for example. Our new programmable money need not be used only by persons. The entire Internet of Things movement will play a big role in the evolution of cryptocurrency (IOTA, I'm looking at you).
Not to mention the emergence of artificial intelligence and its integration with crypto/distributed networks through projects like SingularityNet. And Virtual Reality and the various distributed platforms being designed.
So I'm not sure about whether the seemingly exuberant pricing is all that irrational. Most technology stocks are also trading in multiples of their fundamental valuations, because traders are looking ahead to their future potential. We have a loooong way to go with the implementation of p2p cryptographic network technology, but there are tens of trillions of dollars currently invested in other asset classes, institutional funds, etc., available for investing in the emerging new technological infrastructure. I like one commenter's idea that the stock market is a giant bubble, and cryptocurrency is the pin.
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Very well said!
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Good points! But let’s say the total market cap goes over $10 trillion by the end of 2018 (which I think will likely happen) would you still look back to this point in time where it is currently around $500 billion and call it a bubble?
Would you look back a year ago when it was at $17 billion total market cap and call it a bubble then?
Just look at the mass adoption taking place.... ie #1 app downloads, 350k people signing up for binance in less than 2 hours, hundreds of new ICO’s popping up, etc.... everything is moving so fast, I never thought this type of adoption would come so quick! But with that being said, STILL LESS THAN 1% adoption!!!! Their will be so much more money flooding in this year, I think beyond what we can imagine! And the tech as well as the tech adoption is all moving much quicker than I thought it ever would. This is where ripple and their CEO are playing a vital role in help the mass adoption along. He does a good job representing crypto to the masses and works very hard. It make it more palitable for the older generations to receive the concept of crypto.
Yes, lots of set backs for sure! But I just look at them as setbacks, not bubbles.... From my view, the term bubble has such a negative connotation....
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