There is a word that I use often when referring to cryptocurrency. The word is portability. And I think it is an important word to bear in mind. Why? Because portability is viability.
Ultimately the end goal for crypto-enthusiasts is that we one day can use cryptocurrency much like we might use fiat today. Albeit with, according to them, certain advantages, of course, over fiat.
Whether or not there are or will be any advantages over fiat is not the aim of this commentary.
Ultimately the purpose of any currency is to be able to use it in exchange for goods or services, or other types of transactions. Right now what is portable is fiat. What is not so portable, although we are seeing some advancements in this area, is cryptocurrency.
That makes crypto, right now, unviable. Unless I can walk into Walmart and buy my weekly groceries and other household items using Bitcoin, or BCH, or Polkadot, or whatever coin happens to be out there in the cryptosphere, I am as dead in the water as a guy standing before a vending machine that only accepts coins with a $20 bill in his hand.
You have the money to buy whatever you want in that vending machine. You just don't happen to have the form of it that the machine will accept.
As I dive deeper into the world of crypto, I do believe that portability is coming. But I also believe that it may be some time before this actually happens. And that's okay. I think we all need to be okay that it may take a while.
What I think is that too many people want it all to happen now. Overnight. They want crypto to be waved in the air like a magic wand to just wipe out fiat, and all the powers who control it today.
That is not going to happen. Let's face it. Bitcoin is only 12-years old. In the world of finance and all things related, cryptocurrency is an infant. In fact, it may not even be out of the womb yet.
So, we have to be patient. Getting cryptocurrency to portability and viability is something that is going to take time. It is going to take hard work. It is going to take a strong sales pitch and we have to understand that we cannot, at any point, force fiat into submission.
Not unlike any successful business, you start small. Very small. And slowly but surely you build on the smaller successes and make them into larger ones. Slowly but surely you tell customers why your product or service is better than the bigger guys already well established in the world. And if you have done it right, an interesting thing begins to happen.
Your customers build your business into a larger one for you. Why? Because you have convinced them that your business is better and you have given them a reason to support you.
Cryptocurrency will have to abide the same paths, and the same processes as any other thing that becomes successful has to abide. It has to prove itself through action. Not words. Through adoption as a portable and viable alternative to fiat.
First it is the small doughnut shop on the corner, and then the coffee shop sees the potential for more sales by accepting it. And then the grocery store wants to sell more doughnuts and coffee and they begin to adopt it. And then the big chains come around and begin to adopt it.
But it will take time. It will take trial and error. It will take proof that it actually works, and that it makes sense from a business perspective to accept crypto as a form of payment for goods and services and other types of transactions. It will take time to build trust in something that right now is unproven as to its viability or even its reliability.
None of these remarks are meant to be disparaging in any way toward cryptocurrency. Its claims, nor its aims. For me it is simply an extension of my own experience and perspective of how things work in the real world, and the application of my perspective as it relates to cryptocurrency.
This perspective, I think, allows me to keep things in perspective. It allows me to view cryptocurrency more positively.
It may be a silly example. But one can look at their own paths a bit and maybe understand better what I am driving at here. If you start a job tomorrow and think that you will immediately oust the CEO from his seat, you will probably be fairly shocked to know that the first door you will find is not the door to the CEO's office. But the door leading out of the building. If you want to oust the CEO and take over his seat, it is going to take a while. And you are going to have to be patient, work hard for it, and do all of the things necessary to get there.
You are going to have to convince a lot of people along the way why you will make the better CEO, and why you deserve to sit in his seat.
Granted, cryptocurrency is a bit of technological thing. And technology tends to move a bit faster than other things do. So, crypto may be able to advance itself faster than analog things.
But it still won't be an overnight thing.
The one thing that I can tell you is that what we are talking about here, regardless of what anyone thinks about crypto as a whole, is money. At the end of the day, that is all it is. A store of wealth and a means to offer someone the ability to exchange the value of that wealth for things we want and need. And businesses want our money. It matters little to those businesses in what form the money comes, so long as the value exists and is quantifiable, and they too can exchange it for what they want and need.
And of course who drives a business beyond the CEO's and wealthy businessmen? The consumer. You and I. The end users. The ones who will part with whatever means of currency we have in our pockets to buy the goods and services these businesses sell.
If we are patient, and if we truly believe in the value of cryptocurrency and all that we claim it offers in the way of benefits to the world and the people in it, the only logical conclusion is that so will everyone else, and more importantly, so will the businesses who will look more closely at accepting it.
When we achieve that, we achieve portability. And when we achieve portability, we achieve viability. And when we achieve viability, the placement of stickers on business doors that display acceptance of Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express will gladly be accompanied by ones saying they also accept cryptocurrencies.
But it will not happen before that.
Lead image courtesy of Pixabay, user petre_barlea. Bitcoin Crypto Btc - Free photo on Pixabay
Patience is key. But sometimes it's difficult for us to have it. I live in a country where you can easily find a place to use your crypto. Although, we are still a long way from being able to talk about adoption. But the circumstances we live in make cryptos have here fertile ground to be used. So I guess here, we have at least taken some steps towards viability.