The world of cryptocurrencies is quickly expanding, and step by step, they are gaining momentum towards mass adoption. Bitcoin (BTC), one of the most known cryptocurrencies, serves a more significant use than just making money. The main goal is to make it a digital currency that can easily be used for various transactions and purchases. A recent survey conducted by Harris Poll, answer the answer about how many people use Bitcoin in 2009. About 27 million Americans use Bitcoin. The survey places Bitcoin as the most popular crypto in the blockchain industry.
However good the number looks, Bitcoin is still at its early stages of adoption. Every new product in the market faces one big challenge, and that is how to ensure the adoption of the product to different users.
The daily growth of technology has helped boost adoption, but there’s still so much to accomplish. It is no surprise that many consumers do not really understand what cryptocurrency is all about, and a good percentage cannot give a proper explanation of the changes Bitcoin seeks to achieve.
It is hard to pin down the exact number of people using Bitcoin (BTC) across the globe. However, it is estimated that over 32 million BTC wallets have been set up since the coin’s evolution. It is essential to point out that there is not a direct correlation between the number of wallets and the final users interacting with the network. One person can own multiple wallets.
This article tries to give a step by step evaluation on how to mainstream Bitcoin adoption. Below are the expected phases of BTC adoption:
The rise of BTC
The 2009 to 2010 rise of BTC was its beginning. It was like an experimentation phase. Everyone was still experimenting, and investors were getting into the system with one foot on the fence.
Pre-adoption phase
At this level, Bitcoin merchant processors, exchanges, and wallet providers start coming up with market strategies including how to pull and encourage investors, entrepreneurs, and other Bitcoin users. This level mainly focuses on placing the product in the market and evaluating consumer use.
The venture capital phase
It is the present phase, otherwise referred to as the adoption stage. At this point, the world’s top VCs start investing in Bitcoin-related companies. VCs put in over 90 million dollars into BTC liked businesses. By 2014, the investment had risen to over 300 million dollars, which are about 50$ million more compared to what VCs had invested into the internet-linked corporations.
The Wall Street phase
Here, banks, institutions, and broker-dealers join the mix. At this stage, the increasing volume, the rising price, and the development of derivatives became the stimulant for mass adoption.
The global consumer adoption phase
Although this has not happened entirely, the progress is quite positive. 100% adoption will be witnessed if companies continue to innovate ways to make it easy for investors to buy, own, and spent Bitcoin. If more BTC awareness programs are run across the globe, this will also hasten its adoption.
BTC climbing quickly towards the global adoption
According to Bitcoin’s public blockchain, the coin crossed a significant adoption phase with its 400 millionth transaction. Right now, BTC is averaging 350,000 transactions per day, which is about 15,000 transactions per hour.
Bitcoin is yet to cross its adoption milestone. This is because transacting has proven slightly less fast compared to other money transfer platforms. This is slowly changing with new technologies like Lightning Network and Liquid.
Moreover, it is still not clear how diverse the users of Bitcoin can get. Wide experimental research on new product adoption is being carried out all over the US, the target being young college users.
The future however looks bright. Some may argue that the rise of users does not really mean complete adoption but we believe the more the consumers the more promising the adoption phase looks.
