Bitcoin's biggest problem.
I break down the real problem's we face with Bitcoin in order to achieve mass adoption and ultimately reach 100k.
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor and this is not in any way financial advise.
Ok. Before you freak out - I have held my Bitcoin since 2013 and continued to buy the dips (and some tops too). But that doesn’t mean I am blind to the challenges ahead for our beloved Bitcoin. I am doing so not to be bearish or create FUD, but to propose that maybe we need to be investing our energy into solutions instead of trolling billionaires on Twitter.
Problem #1: Assholes
Let’s first address the elephant in the room. There are a lot of assholes in the crypto sphere. I never understood this aspect of crypto. There are bitcoin maximalists that insist everything other than Bitcoin is shit. It makes no sense. Why should we limit the potential of decentralized innovation around the blockchain? Nobody is denying that Bitcoin paved the way for everything crypto and is one of the greatest inventions in modern times. Being an asshole about it - seems to be counter productive.
There are clear limitations to Bitcoin which has encouraged the invention of some pretty dynamic projects like Ethereum. And even though it’s obvious these two cryptos solve completely different problems - people still insist on pitting them against each other. It makes no sense. It would be like arguing “cars vs airplanes”. Sure, both get you from A to B, but for different use cases. Nobody drives 15,000 miles over water, and nobody goes to the store in a jet.
Solution: Let’s stop arguing “Bitcoin versus ______” and defend crypto as a whole. There are billions of people who do not know about crypto, and they need to be given a less toxic introduction to the space.
Problem #2: Scams
When you have billions of dollars flowing through a digital system (especially one that is decentralized) there will always be fraud and scams. The Internet itself has shown us this for the last 30 years. Crypto is a dangerous place for those who are looking to “get rich quick” and ignore the warning signs we have all come to learn over the years.
The challenge is two-fold. One one side, there are a lot of people who yell “SCAM!” from their mountain top, when it actuality they are wrong (or misinformed). We all remember in 2017 when every major bank, government and industry leaders all declared Bitcoin a scam. And even though they have all changed their tune this year, it did a lot of unnecessary damage that could have been avoided if we did a better job educating.
On the other side there are hundreds of new tokens being launched that could certainly qualify as scams. The problem of course, is a lot of them are outperforming Bitcoin as a short-term return on investment for traders. The classic example is Doge Coin. One could argue that Doge Coin is 99% bark and 1% Bite with no real future of becoming a useful asset. This certainly spells disaster at some point, and will teach a lot of people a lesson (if it happens). Of course, I don’t think anyone is ignorant to the fact it is a meme coin - so I would argue it doesn’t really qualify as a “scam”. Just like gambling isn’t a scam. You can lose everything - but you kind of knew that when you rolled the dice.
Solution: Instead of calling everything a “Scam” with no real basis, we need to approach crypto like the gambling industry. There should be a clear understanding of risk when investing in a new coin or token. There are ways to measure risk and provide insights to buyers in a simpler way.
Problem #3: User Experience
The user experience of buying crypto sucks. For the average person who is not technical but wants to buy Bitcoin or a new ERC20 token the process is still very much painful. The first step of setting up an account on an exchange has definitely improved through services like Coinbase, Binance and Gemini - but even within those services there is limited access to buying/selling crypto. And of course, most people would recommend moving the coins off the exchange into a wallet - but that introduces even more complexity. What wallet supports my tokens? Metamask for ERC20, Binance Smart Chain for BEP-20, etc, etc.
Here is the classic experience I hear when onboarding someone new to crypto:
Newbie: “I just signed up on Coinbase, what should I buy?”Me: “Bitcoin, maybe Ethereum if you looking to diversify a bit”Newbie: “Ok, what about DOGE, my kids wants DOGE”Me: “Ok, well you can’t buy that on Coinbase. You need to join another exchange and get a wallet”Newbie: “Ok? how do I do that”(Two weeks go by waiting for approval on new exchange)Newbie: “Ok… I got it setup, and I bought some DOGE… but I hear good things about SHIBU INU… how do I get some of that?”Me: “Ok, well you need to download Metamask wallet, move some Ethereum to it and then swap for SHIBU INO on uniswap”Newbie: “…….. ugh….”Solution: Innovation in the DeFi space needs to focus more on user experience and interoperability instead of just copying other coins, renaming it and then trying to make a quick buck. There needs to be real innovation around simplicity - even if that means embracing traditional on ramps and interfaces like Paypal and Visa.
If we can solve these three problems, then and only then will Bitcoin hit 100k. If we can’t then we will be stuck in this vicious cycle of whales, miners, new scam tokens and leveraged traders eating everyone’s bag over time using these weaknesses as weapons of FUD.