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This paper presents the situation of the cryptocurrency market at the end of 2017 and the challenges that the crypto community still faces. Thanks to its crypto friendly legal framework, Japan should be the country to watch in 2018. The currently high transaction fees of Bitcoin offers an opportunity for Japanese crypto assets to become the preferred payment method on the island and maybe in the world.
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Looking back, 2017 was a fantastic year for the crypto world. Investors enjoyed 20 fold returns on Bitcoin (BTC), 100 for Ether (ETH), 60 for Litecoin (LTC) and so on. It was hard to lose money in dollar terms.
This exceptional performance is the consequence of years of hard work from developers, exchanges, lobbyists, authors, etc. to make Bitcoin and the likes more known and accessible to the world.
The crypto market is becoming mainstream: institutional and retail investors are now together in this new asset class. The more, the merrier one could say.
Indeed, the influx of new joiners came at a benefit: the skyrocketing rise in value of crypto assets.
But it came at a cost too: Congested blockchains, rising transaction costs, crashing exchanges, etc.
While cryptocurrencies made a name for themselves this year, a lot must be done so that they leave their nascent state and become mature payment methods.
The time is now to scale.
On December 13, Vitalik Buterin, the Founder of Ethereum, challenged his followers on Twitter:
• “So total cryptocoin market cap just hit $0.5T today. But have we *earned* it?”
• “How many unbanked people have we banked?”
• “How much actual usage of micropayment channels is there actually in reality?”
Without a real use case in the daily life of people, 99% of cryptocurrencies and tokens will be remembered as a funny investment that turned out to be a mirage.
Bitcoin is here to stay.
It has the first mover advantage, the biggest network, fair incentives and its scarcity makes it the true digital gold. It’s the benchmark of all crypto assets. For these reasons, Bitcoin will survive and at least act as a store of value.
However, Bitcoin was also designed to be a medium of exchange but it is now too slow and too expensive to use. Being the first mover also has its flaws. Bitcoin blocks are 1 Megabyte big and occur every 10 minutes. That is not enough to cope with the thousands of new transactions happening every minute. Bitcoin miners include the transactions with the highest fees attached in the blocks.
This is how Bitcoin is no longer viable as a medium of exchange for small transactions.
It may be temporary though.
The introduction of the Lightning Networks (LN) solution to the Bitcoin network will make Bitcoin great again.
But when will that happen?
Will the community tear itself apart as it did when the Segregated Witness (Segwit) solution was launched this summer? Nobody knows. There may well be another 12 to 18 months of developments and hiccups along the way.
So what will happen in the meantime?
Now that millions of people have become aware of cryptocurrencies and that the Bitcoin blockchain is in limbo, there is an immense opportunity for an altcoin to become the preferred coin for transactions.
Let’s remember that the value of a coin mostly depends on the size of its network. The more people use it, the higher its value.
Also, the number of merchants accepting Bitcoin vs credit cards is still low worldwide. A successful altcoin could in no time take over Bitcoin as the preferred coin by merchants.
Therefore, this is no surprise that the Bitcoin cash (BCH) supporters are so vocal in the media. BCH offers lower transaction costs thanks to its 8 Megabytes block size. It could thus fill the gap.
Litecoin (LTC) is another contender. It’s a clone of Bitcoin with larger and more frequent blocks. It has Segwit too.
In the end, the users will decide which coin they endorse.
But the legal framework plays an important role here.
In most countries, the legal status of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is still unclear. Why would merchants accept cryptocurrencies that are uneasy to apprehend and that the government can ban overnight?
Japan gave cryptocurrencies legal tender status in April. This is a massive step for a rapid adoption by Japanese people and merchants.
Which coins are they likely to endorse for payments?
BCH? LTC? Probably not. These coins are known in Japan but probably lack the support of the local crypto communities.
And Japan has its own altcoins: NEM and MONA. They are very different in design.
NEM is similar to Ether as it enables the creation of NEM powered blockchains and smart contracts. There are 9 billion tokens that were premined. Transactions are validated by nodes, based on a Proof of Importance method.
MONA is a fork of LTC with more frequent blocks. It is popular with gamers and is even accepted by IT stores. Coins are mined by the traditional Proof of Work method.
Both coins enjoy strong local support and can be purchased directly against Fiat on the Japanese exchanges.
This is why Japanese altcoins shall be monitored closely in 2018.
Their adoption by local merchants shall be facilitated thanks to the clear legal framework for cryptocurrencies in Japan and the work of their communities.
Should they become widely adopted in Japan, the network effect could make them very popular in other parts of the world.
Calangaman
Published on Bitcointalk on 27 Dec 2017
Very good analysis. Japan is a strong supporting party.
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