Steemit Crypto Academy Contest / S2W2 – Cryptocurrency Adoption by @ckole

Hello everyone. I'm glad to participate in season two of the steemit engagement challenge. The topic "Cryptocurrency adoption" is a point of discussion we encounter almost every day and discussing it today would be a great joy

In today's world, anyone that has not heard of cryptocurrency must probably be living under a rock. There are thousands of coins serving different purposes with various use cases and they have been of great use to the world at large as an alternative for online payment. The evolution of money has traveled far to the point where technology has taken over. Today, cryptocurrency is widely used for buying and selling.

Until 2009, transactions are only carried out with the help of traditional financial institutions like banks, which serve as the third parties between those involved in the transaction. There was no privacy and to some extent, we love doing things without a third eye-poking into our affairs, and that was one of the reasons Satoshi Nakamoto came up with the first-ever coin called Bitcoin in 2009. The aim was to allow anonymous transactions between users by cutting out the third parties

Blockchain technology was used to create Bitcoin to achieve this purpose, and blockchain refers to a digital ledger of transactions duplicated across a series of networks/computers. Just as traditional money was printed by the central bank, bitcoin was also printed using blockchain technology through the process called mining, and in other for a coin to be mined or printed, there has to be a consensus between the nodes

Concensus in cryptocurrency means the coming together of the networks to agree in other to decide whether a transaction is valid or not. Once they agree and validate a transaction, the validator is rewarded with a coin. That's how the bitcoin is printed

Crypto adoption was a process that started gradually. Businesses have started adopting it and we are expecting more as the journey continues

Like seriously, the adoption of cryptocurrency to me is a blessing. I was astonished when a multi-billionaire in Nigeria said he was fascinated for using the blockchain to send an amount the bank can not send within a few seconds

From now till my eternity, I will always support the adoption of cryptocurrency. Why? Let me tell a short story

Once upon a time, I was roaming the street. A graduate without a job working as a labourer on the site. Well, I'm not the first to do that and I won't be the last. I got a job at last and the worst happened. Back to the street again, I was fortunate to discover crypto. It was like my prayer was answered. I hustled for a browsing phone and started surfing online. I started with mining and later came across steemit. From there, I learned a lot about crypto and here I am today. The situation in the country isn't welcoming. What most of the youths depend on for a living is cryptocurrency trading/blogging, nft, lending, staking, gaming, and so on

Also, the adoption of cryptocurrency has made transactions easy. It eliminated the third parties from the transaction chain. It has helped people set up p2p transactions as a business that is used to sustain their families. People get rewarded for the little things they do on the internet. The adoption has brought about a level of development technologically in every sphere. In short, my opinion on cryptocurrency adoption is positive. Steemit helped me to grow so also other cryptos. I believe that the next generation of billionaires are people that believe, adopt and invest in cryptocurrency

Very well it is. The only country that has accepted bitcoin as a legal tender is El Salvador. But did you they passed through hell before it was realized? Thanks to their parliament that voted in favour. After that, some bodies came out to fight against the approval

80% of the citizen refused bitcoin as their payment for wages and salary and also said using the government bitcoin wallet is against the rules of a decentralized system of operation

But we are emphasizing the volatility. For the fact that bitcoin is volatile, workers find it difficult to accept it as a payment method. What saved the day was the stable coins and the introduction of crypto courses to educate people on how to trade, buy-sell, transfer, and withdraw their funds with minimum charges

The only country using bitcoin and stable coins as legal tenders is affected by the crypto volatility, so I know this is a big issue that needs to be trashed out. Though the introduction of stable coins is part of the way forward

Government workers are scared of being paid with bitcoin and Business owners find it difficult to adopt bitcoin as their payment method because of its volatility

Most of them capitalize on the loss and forget that the volatility can also be to their advantage if the market goes bullish. I don't blame them for their actions. Some of them do turnover. If the price of the crypto accepted for payment drops and they need to stock their business, they either wait till the coin regains its losses or sell at a loss. The same thing is applicable to anyone that takes crypto as payment for a contract

Since the crypto market isn't stable, businesses would find it difficult to conveniently accept crypto as a payment method, and to a reasonable extent, that is expected

1. Understanding the concept: When I first heard that I can make money through steemit, I asked several questions like

These and many other questions were a big issue and it was a hard nut because I found it difficult to understand. The reason is not far-fetched, I see scams hovering over my head and apart from that, I wanted to see a valid testimony before dedicating my time to something I'm not sure of

It took me time before I believed and start my crypto/steemit journey. Many have ignored it because of a lack of understanding. I think there should be sensitization for people to understand how the blockchain works. Once a wide range of people understand it, more people will begin to adopt it without fear">2. Lost of funds without reversal: I've lost a lot of sbd in the past when I knew a little about handling wallets and transfer of funds from one crypto wallet to another. The first time I made a mistake, I was expecting I could create a ticket and request a reversal. Funny. That was the day I realized that any fund transferred by mistake cannot be reversed. I'm not sure of how this can be solved but a double verification process can be initiated in wallets for every transaction made using a particular address for the first time. If it's an address that is used multiple times, the system can recognize it instantly, but any new address used should trigger a double verification for the user to be sure of where the fund is transferred to

3. Untraceable transactions (Anonymity): When I made the wrong transfer, I was supposed to be able to trace the account I sent it to I thought, but that wasn't possible. Transactions cannot be traced to anyone. It's anonymous, that's what it's called a pere to pere transaction that eliminates the third party. Only the parties transacting are involved and both of them do not know each other. The fact that transactions cannot be traced to any individual is part of the limiting factor of cryptocurrency adoption. The government believes it would be the safest way for money laundering. Also, Each time a system is hacked, a huge amount of assets is lost. This questions the safety of people's funds. Some exchanges were hacked and people lost millions of dollars. The fact that the safety of people's fund is not guaranteed also limit the adoption of cryptocurrency

What did El Salvador do? They created a bitcoin app where every user would fill in their details before having access to use it. Many people claimed that the system has bridged the rule of a decentralized system of operation that the blockchain was created for, but that was the best way that occurs to them to adopt cryptocurrency and make it a legal tender. Of course, it's not mandatory to use the wallet but I think there are other advantages attached to using the government bitcoin wallet. If government comes up with some policies, it would help the adoption of cryptocurrency

5. Issue of security: Once you misplace your keys, it's likely you don't have access to the account again. Some people have lost keys to their wallets and couldn't access their funds anymore. This alone is enough for people to be scared of adopting cryptocurrency. In other to make things easier, the backup must be a necessity instead of making it an option. This would help users to retrieve their keys and password easily in case they misplace it.

Discuss the Pros and Cons of cryptocurrency adoption by business owners.

Pro's

Con's