CoinGecko has released their 2019 Q2 Cryptocurrency Report and is holding a contest about it on STEEM.
The full CoinGecko report in pdf is here:
https://bit.ly/CoinGecko-2019-Q2-Report
And the contest information is here:
I'm really glad to see @coingecko on steem and get notifications when they post here. They are growing with crypto and on top of the many developments that are too fast for the rest of us to keep up with.
The contest asks us to talk about some of the report slides in the a post, and I am choosing:
- Slide 8: Bitcoin’s continuing and expanding dominance in the crypto space
- Slide 33: Lightning Network 2019 Statistics
- Slide 34: Lightning Network 2019 Releases
I am new to crypto only because of STEEM and learn what I can about the various coins, exchanges and market trends as I can. After two years here, I still have a lot to learn.
I feel like crypto needs to be more than a place for investment in order to become a substitute for fiat. People need to be able to use it in order to jump in. The mainstream is 95% users and 5% investors. When those users get here they will want to USE the money and BTC has been a big fail for me.
When I move money in or out of STEEM, I need to convert it to another coin first. BTC is a clunky, expensive mess. I takes hours to get my cash and the fees are high. LTC is my most preferred coin for moving money. It has cheap fees and sometimes the money is already there by the time I login to my exchange. Second is DASH for me. It is also fast, but not quite as reliable as LTC, and a bit more expensive.
I believe that BTC is the dinosaur that brought attention to crypto, but will not be able to keep up with the times. I think this will be similar to the situation with IBM later getting killed off by Apple and Microsoft. The big guy got the people to use computers and want them. The little guys had superior tech and won the long game.
So I was sorry to see the expansion of Bitcoin on Slide 8 of CoinGecko’s report:
Bitcoin’s continuing and expanding dominance in the crypto space
I think this was due to the excitement when BTC went over 10000 again. I’m all for the price increase, but I would like to see other coins gain a share of the market instead.
The two slides about The Lightning Network may show a change in the game. If both fees and transaction times are reduced, maybe BTC really can become the people’s coin.
The Lightning Network runs on top of the BTC blockchain and is meant to allow transactions to go through instantly and with low fees. I am used to steem where I have free transactions go through in an instant. This is what needs to happen for people to be able to buy the proverbial cup of coffee with their BTC.
Lightning Network 2019 Statistics
Lightning Network 2019 Releases
If people can have Lightning Network on their phone and be able to spend BTC in the grocery store, they will. So I hope to see more good developments for this project in the future.
These three slides are only a small part of the comprehensive @coingecko report. Be sure to take a look yourself and stay on top of current news in crypto.