Crypto mass adoption – elusive or impending?

Long before NFTs became mainstream and especially perhaps since the run-up to the 2017 crypto rally, the dream of mass adoption has always been a hotly discussed topic. The idea here is that, once cryptocurrency finds daily, regular use among mainstream populations, then the technology becomes so crucial to everyday life that it no longer becomes an alternative to money or finance, but a necessary component. Much like the internet is no longer a new or modern way of communicating or conducting commerce but a vital component that these sectors can’t do without. 

Finder.com recently found that over 27 million US people already own some form of cryptocurrency, with almost half of those owning Bitcoin. That’s just below 10% of the US population. So if almost 1 in 10 Americans own crypto, does that qualify as mass adoption? Perhaps if all of those owners actually used crypto for their various purposes. And you can always stand on different sides of the utility argument (after all, one doesn’t need to use email to be an email adopter, simply having an address would arguably qualify you as an email user) but it has to be said that full mainstream adoption is still some distance away.

For example, the access to using crypto as easily as fiat to pay for coffee or candy at any shop still hasn’t reached most locations even in countries with the highest rate of crypto owners. The Bitcoin logo simply isn’t as ubiquitous as the Visa or Mastercard logo when listed on mainstream sites’ payment page.

But when PayPal announced that you could finally buy Bitcoin through its platform – this signalled the beginning of Bitcoin mass adoption. Why? Simply because there are 392 million active PayPal users all over the world, using a system that has covered almost every single country on this planet. Of course, the fact that only certain countries can buy Bitcoin on PayPal, and the fact that users actually don’t have a real Bitcoin wallet (just an account balance so you can only buy and sell and not actually send) means that the utopia of Bitcoin in 392 million wallets is still some years into the future. But it doesn’t change the fact that the first steps toward Bitcoin mass adoption are certainly very much put into foundation.

Video games embodying the tech disruption

One problem with crypto adoption has been the habit of projects to overpromise and overhype. Blockchain and crypto have for years been touted as the gamechanger for industries, disrupting payments, banking the unbanked, and so on. But as countless crypto tokens and projects have shown, the majority of crypto applications are more theory than practice. Sure, you had a growing sector in decentralised finance or DeFi, but there are still just users numbering in millions, and most already are crypto users.

Few other industries actually showed non-crypto users picking up crypto – gambling has always been one. And gaming has always been the other.

And the key here has been the ability of various blockchain technologies to completely change the monopolist market of gaming consoles through decentralised servers, to blur the boundaries of game types with Dapps, to introduce the gamer as part of economic models with NFTs and making possible technological effects that are much needed for the metaverse concept of open-world gaming.

Like it or not (and there are plenty who certainly do), NFTs are going to be sticking around for a very long time. 

Yes, they’re currently in a downturn right now but so is much of everything else at the moment. Stock markets globally are in a pinch, real estate bubbles are finally popping, fiat money is inflating, and cryptocurrencies are facing months of recovery ahead.

Despite all of that, interest in NFTs continues to hold, particularly in the gaming subsector of blockchain gaming that employ some form of NFT technology – volumes are down and floor prices are down in the collectible NFT markets, but gaming projects and Dapps are still picking up on new users. Why?

When it comes to gaming, with proven use cases and strong arguments for their implementation, it’s also very difficult to see new games not considering NFTs – at least for when their utility makes for enhanced options games otherwise wouldn’t be able to display, such as with in-game item ownership and trading.

In fact, studies showed that up to 72% of game designers are now considering blockchain elements such as NFT for new titles – bearing in mind that some, if they’re not careful to base their decisions on player demand, will end up like the big gaming NFT fails discussed recently. And that’s not merely talking about the future either. The same study shows that more than half (58%) of video games already use some form of blockchain technology.

In fact, blockchain gaming has risen to the top of blockchain utility, with more than 55% of blockchain transaction volume all attributed to gaming, thanks to over a million digital wallets interacting with gaming Dapps every day.

So what does this tell us?

That more and more people are now picking up crypto. And not people looking to make money or people looking to invest – but people actually using crypto for the first time because they want to play games.

Bringing gamers into crypto isn’t just bringing a whole new customer base into the crypto economy. It’s about bringing a diverse group of people who participate in the global economy at all other levels. Generation X, Baby Boomers, Millennials, and Generation Z – all of these play games, and gamers are willing to use complex and new technologies, willing to try new things, and have open minds toward new ideas.

Children play games. Students play games. Parents, presidents (hey, there’s got to be some truth to House of Cards), soldiers, doctors, and bankers play games.

So perhaps crypto mass adoption will happen not because it has to convince the traditional finance world to adopt blockchain as we once thought. Perhaps one day, everyone will use crypto just as they do email… because everybody plays games.