Nikolas Sargeant
It’s getting harder to recall the days when most people in the world were not online. But it was only a few decades ago that most people didn’t know the first thing about the World Wide Web. As late as 1997, internet penetration was still incredibly low, with barely 1.7% of the world’s population online at that point, according to data from IDC. However, the situation has transformed, and the latest estimates put global internet penetration at more than 69%.
Today, the idea that someone could live without the internet is almost unfathomable, and in the future the same may well be said of cryptocurrency. The underlying technology that makes crypto possible is considered by many to be one of the most disruptive advancements of our lifetime, perhaps since the internet itself. Crypto is one of the foundations of Web3 and has the potential to totally transform how people trade, interact, invest, and take control of their wealth and assets.
During the 1990s, the early internet struggled with issues around ease of use and scalability, just like crypto is today. In order for crypto to achieve mainstream adoption, it’s necessary to make the user experience as simple as possible.
Keeping It Simple
Crypto is based on a lot of complex technologies that can be difficult to understand. A discussion of concepts such as blockchains, hash rates, decentralization, and consensus algorithms will go way over most people’s heads. Yet, a deep level of understanding of these technologies is not required for crypto to become much more widely used.
People don’t need to understand how crypto works to get started using it. After all, no one needs to know the inner workings of Gmail or Outlook to use email to communicate. All they need to know is that email is a fast and reliable way to send messages and files. They need an easy way to create an account and get started. That’s what services like Gmail provided, making the process intuitive, and very quickly billions of people started using it.
It’s the same with crypto. People just need to know the basics – like how to set up a cryptocurrency wallet and safeguard their private keys, and the process of purchasing crypto for the first time. Downloading a crypto wallet and buying your first tokens is a very easy process these days, and many people know how to do it
Why Use Crypto?
A bigger issue is that many people are still to be convinced of the advantages of crypto. Luckily, these advantages are becoming more apparent through innovation. A great example is Binance Pay, the crypto payment tool operated by the world’s biggest crypto exchange. With it, people can spend crypto in their everyday lives, and so it’s playing an important role in growing its adoption and utility. In addition to sending payments to friends and family, users can apply for the Binance Visa Card, which is a debit card that’s linked directly to the user’s crypto wallet. This makes it possible for people to spend their crypto savings at more than 60 million merchants worldwide, with the same simplicity of using a regular debit card. They can even use the card to withdraw cash from the ATM, with the funds coming from their crypto wallet.
By facilitating crypto payments in this way, Binance Pay helps users avoid the high transaction fees associated with traditional finance. Moreover, transactions are settled instantly, so users will always know exactly how much funds are left in their account. It’s also a great option for the unbanked, who are unable to get their hands on a debit card anywhere else.
Financial Freedom
The most compelling reason to use crypt is the freedom it can provide. With the recent global pandemic and spiraling inflation, people have come to realize that they have much less control over their finances than they originally thought. Traditional money is subject to many factors, such as government policies that are beyond the control of most individuals, and it’s not uncommon for people’s savings to evaporate overnight if their local currency loses its value.
With crypto, people have much greater autonomy over their finances, savings and investments, and there’s no risk of censorship. Crypto makes it possible to achieve a level of financial freedom that simply wasn’t available anywhere before.
