Cryptos are gonna attract immense amounts of capital, and one consequence will be that the number of cryptos that prosper will be much greater than we thought even just weeks ago.
But what might the specific reasons for adoption be? Well, that subject came up in discussion among us IndiaMikeZulu guys; and I found myself clumsily categorizing those reasons:
Hyperinflation (which I’ll class as ‘political’)
Demonetization (political)
Capital controls (political)
War on Cash (political)
Anti-Government sentiment (political)
Remittance (economic)
Crypto-as-payment-method (economic)
Partnership-with-legacy-banking-system (economic)
Special Bonus Category One: Eurozone disintegration (political)
Special Bonus Category Two: increase in smartphone use (technological)
Hyper-inflation: the statistics seem a bit haphazard. However, Venezuela has 800% inflation; South Sudan’s rate is apparently over 400%; and Syria, Suriname, and Argentina are all over 40% -- which is definitely ‘on ramp’ to hyper-inflation.
[http://www.tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate ]. South Sudan’s hyperinflation may not shake the world, but Argentina’s economy is around the sixtieth-largest in the world, and Argentina’s population is 43 million.
Hyper-inflation is considered by CrazyPants.com journalists to be the ultimate economic problem, so this reason for adoption isn't going away anytime soon.
Demonetisation:
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/global-war-cash/Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, France, the U.S., Kenya, South Korea – the list is long and heavy duty. And India? One might almost think that the Indian government is secretly on our side!
Capital Controls/bail-ins (yes, the categories overlap): consider China, Cyprus, the Ukraine, and India. All have imposed capital controls, and in each case it boosted crypto adoption.
Note: very few folks know just how many nations have already legislated for bail-ins. That is, the powers that be obviously intend to increase the use of capital controls.
War on Cash: governments are gonna herd people to a fork in the road. People will then either acquiesce, and go down the path of all-electronic-fiat; or they’ll refuse/resist. Some resisters will go to bullion – but there are limitations there. Others will go to cryptos.
One thing is worth noting: many of those who do resist are libertarians; and if they do decide to adopt cryptos, they’ll do a good job of it.
Anti-Government Sentiment (yes, the categories overlap):
The first ‘political cryptos’ – Freicoin, Maza Coin, even the ‘country coins’ – fared poorly because the citizens of Planet Krypto forget to connect them to the outside world; but that was then, this is now:
http://www.coindesk.com/palestinian-government-bitcoin-currency/The Eurozone isn’t the only entity set to disintegrate. The era of Ever-Larger-Bureaucracies is over, and it’s easy to see how dissident groups of many types might find cryptocurrencies attractive; and I was amazed at the number of these movements that exist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_active_separatist_movementsNote again that such adopters will be highly motivated to use cryptos as currencies.
Remittance:
‘ . . . bitcoin powered remittances now account for 20% of the Asian remittance corridor between South Korea and the Philippines.’
https://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-remittances-20-percent-of-south-korea-philippines-corridor/Wikipedia lists 15 major remittance nations. The Philippines (with its 20%) is at Nos. 3. These guys --
https://www.javelinstrategy.com/coverage-area/bitcoin-and-global-remittance-market -- claim that the industry involves a half a Trillion bucks a year.*
And what IMHO should equally interest us is the potential here for creating ‘trading loops’ in the countries that the cryptos are being sent back to. Thus, an Indonesian maid in Saudi could send crypto to her mum’s smartphone, and her mum can use that crypto to buy stuff right there in their village!
Crypto-as-just-another-payment-method (economic): this angle has been well considered. One thought, though: we all recognize the crazy range of nations’ regulations concerning crypto currencies. We all know that the recalcitrant nations will end up with egg on their faces – imagine that some nation had banned emails in 1980, and stuck with the ban! So, the more crypto-positive nations will soon be siphoning wealth out of the less crypto-positive nations, and us GRS guys wanna make sure that, somewhere somehow, some adoption project is based on GRS.
Partnership-with-legacy-banking-system (economic): if cryptos are in any way popularised by being adopted by the legacy banking-system – a la Ripple in Japan -- so be it.
Ditto with Government e-fiats.
Ditto:
https://www.cryptoninjas.net/2017/05/08/ira-financial-group-introduces-cryptocurrency-ira-tax-deferred-gains/Ditto:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-one-easy-way-to-get-exposure-to-bitcoin-ahead-of-the-winklevoss-etf-2016-08-29Special Bonus Category One: Eurozone disintegration: it will be The New Fall of The Roman Empire, characterized by all manner of events that will reveal the worthlessness of banks and governments, and thereby the value of cryptographic currencies.
Special Bonus Category Two: ‘ . . . smartphone ownership rates in emerging and developing nations are rising at an extraordinary rate, climbing from a median of 21% in 2013 to 37% in 2015.’
http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/02/22/smartphone-ownership-and-internet-usage-continues-to-climb-in-emerging-economies/Practically all cryptos now have android wallets. They are better wallets than they were. More people have smartphones that can run those crypto wallets. More people know of and are prepared to use crypto currencies. More people are available to help others adopt via cryptos. Niiiiiice!
