I have a very hard time picturing the world without fiat currencies and don't see the powers that be allowing it to ever happen. But can crypto take a serious step forward and become more accepted payment method...sure with some serious work. Right now transactions speeds would become cripplingly slow if they even thought to approach just the volume of Visa, forget all the other payment methods. This needs to be addressed. Security is great, but when standing in line at the store the last thing you want is to add 45 seconds or more per transaction.
Being how new this technology is this will get sorted out and scaling will happen. Just talk about taking over the world is very premature just on the technology side...forget the other hurdles that are standing in the way. If the tech gets more widely accepted there are massive profits to be had and that is why we speculate.
You make a good point about transactions times and that is one of the things that IOTA will be better than Visa. IOTA technology is designed to work faster the more people that use it. It is called "Tangle". It will make Visa look like an old donkey.
Secondly, Visa etc. will not be be secure on quantum computers. A quantum computer will be able to break a cryptography code in seconds. Only IOTA is designed to be secure on quantum networks. It honestly looks like the guys at IOTA have thought of everything.
Bitcoin will not survive unless it can advance to a quantum computer environment. But of course it cant because blockchain technology will be out of date and not secure.
But I agree, there are major hurdles to come over first and this is the part Bitcoin has to play in this whole historical period we are living in
Great comment @thedakrhorse : )
Bitcoin IMO is very much "Old Guard" holding onto it's legacy. If they don't make some real advancements they can be worthless in the future. We aren't talking about a slow drop, it will be a freefall that will leave many in it's wake. I have no doubt that better tech will take over and make bitcoin completely obsolete.
Food for thought on that, only 12% of the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 were still on the list 59 years later in 2014. Most of the companies on the list in 1955 are completely forgotten about companies today that once ruled the world. Those changes happened when advancements went at a snails pace compared to changes in tech, and I feel changes in tech overall will have happened at a snails pace compared to what the next 10 years will bring.
We likely can be talking to someone in 10 years that is new to investing that has never heard of Bitcoin if it doesn't evolve with advancements in the tech. Right now it's transaction speeds are a joke and their fees are way to high.
IOTA will be something I need to do more research in as speed was my concern and I didn't grasp the Tangle concept. Price per coin is low, but there are a shit ton (my technical term) of coins out there. The sheer volume of coins turned me off previously...but maybe it's time to get past that.
I pretty much agree with you.
When Bitcoin falls it will be at free fall speed.
I think most of the new investors dont actually know much about the the tech behind Bitcoin, like how the blockchain actually works, and they are merely jumping on the bandwagon. But as time goes by they will "wise up" and realise that Bitcoin is already way out of date.
The "Tangle" is really hard to your head around and Im currently studying it so I can do a "Tangle simplified" post.
I am passionate about IOTA and will be doing a few posts on it to keep interested people up to date on any happening an well as explanations of features.
Interesting what you said about the Fortune 500, make sense really.
Thanks for the great feedback :)
The new investors is actually what scares me most. They are fickle and expect to get rich overnight. When things start to drop they tend to pull their money and force things to go even lower then they should on simple pullbacks. Then they wait and if it starts to rebound they buy high again.
At some point they get sick of the ride and pull everything (many times because the spouse is sick of the losses). They get the "if it drops one more time sell it all and get our money back" ultimatum.
I've seen this many times when clients try to do some investing on their own vs letting the pros take care of things. Emotions rule for them and that is never a good thing.
Small dips should be buying opportunities, not time to panic. Large run ups aren't time to buy more, they are likely time to sell a percentage to lock in profits and then wait for a dip to purchase more.
Look forward to the posts on Tangle!
Brilliant description of "new investors" my friend you tell it exactly how it is spot on. They let their emotions dictate their actions. You just ca not do that when dealing with money or finance.
Saying that, when I started trading in crypto I was doing the same thing lol : )
I made a lot of mistakes that way and had to earn fast if I was to make any profits. Jeeez I was so impatient those days. Now I see the bigger picture and play the long game. For example I bought some Bitcoin the other day to ride the fork train that is coming. It went up last night and IOTA has gone down. I think IOTA and other altcoins will go down too and I will just buy more while the price is cheap. I would never have done that when I first started:
Yeah I am working on that "Tangle" post as we speak..
So good chatting with you @darkhorse I can see you have some knowledge in the trading space yourself you dark horse : )
Also followed you, look forward to reading more of your thoughts on IOTA
Nice one. Followed back :)
I think a new fiat will probably be born in crypto. Bitcoin is not the new fiat, but it may be the new gold. The reasons that fiat will be digital are many; but there is definitely a war on cash going on (see India bans large notes, notice the digital revolution even withe cards before crypto). Banks don't want to lose savings deposits when they finally start pushing negative interest rates to try to kickstart the economy for one. There are also a number of ways that digital currencies and smart contracts can facilitate commerce and therefore also kickstart the economy. Just the implications of the technological abilities alone that are coming to light are enough to put money bags in the eyes of the government, big banks, etc., so if anything I think they see it as an advantage not a threat. This is becoming more and more clear as we see Jaime Dimon rescind his comments and even allow a spokesperson to admit they are interested in Bitcoin now...Putin endorses Ethereum...the IMF talks about creating a blockchain, etc., etc., I think large institutions will not directly oppose BTC/ETH but endorse and create others that have the intention of dominating over it.
@returnofbonsens I think you are probably correct about crypto becoming the new currency and it will be backed by governments around the world. It will be on a platform that allows the government to track everything and tax everything...remove cash sales and tax revenues jump. The governments of the world are always trying to figure out how to tax cash transactions more efficiently and the best way is to remove cash from the general public.