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What's preventing Bitcoin mass adoption?

source-logo  chepicap.com 31 March 2019 16:00, UTC

What’s preventing Bitcoins’ mass adoption? This was the question bought up at the 2019 MIT Bitcoin Expo, and interestingly, scaling and usability were not chief among the answers…

The first panelist to answer was Jack Mallers, creator of the Lightning Network based Zap Wallet.

For Mallers, the main issue to overcome was mental, rather than any technically of developmental problems:

“Here, I think there’s a serious mental barrier that needs to be broken down as far as people’s relationship with Bitcoin and the asset itself.  They aren’t comfortable holding it. They don’t look at it as very useful. They look at it as highly speculative.”

Furthermore, Mallers touched upon the highly ruminated Bitcoin (BTC) ETF adding that both approval and further regulatory clarity on BTC would foster an air of legitimacy and security for the wider public.

“As this industry matures and our relationship with the asset matures, I think that’s a way taller obstacle than the technology itself. The technology itself is moving at a grossly rapid rate.”

Fellow panelist and software engineer Pierre Rochard agreed with Mallers suggesting that time is the only barrier to adoption for BTC:

“To me, the most important variable in that is just time, the longer bitcoin is around coming out every ten minutes with a new block and just working reinforces the psychological aspect of, this thing is going to be around tomorrow, it’s okay for me to hold it and use it today.”

Another panelist, Justin Moon, the instructor of the Buidl Bootcamp, an online bitcoin developers tutorial believes, much the same as Rochard, that people need to become accustomed to the idea of BTC and its longevity”:

“Most people take it seriously like the third time they hear it didn’t die or something. Most people don’t take it seriously the first time, nor should they because there are so many different things to evaluate in your daily life.”

Ultimately, for Moon, the biggest hurdle of all is education:

 “People just didn’t understand it. They didn’t understand why it’s valuable. They didn’t understand how to use it. And so, I think we just need a lot more [education].”

chepicap.com