Note: This post has been written by a WazirX Warrior as a part of the “WazirX Warrior program“.
Money has been an integral part of human history in many forms. From flowers to printer paper and from gold to cryptocurrency, money has always been the center of human trade and survival.
Money provides independence to live a good life but has always been controlled by people in power. Cryptocurrency is the only form of money that is not controlled by anyone. It provides the true freedom in hands of people.
Therefore, the aim of every crypto enthusiast is the mass adoption of cryptocurrency against fiat currency.
We are here to explain, what it takes for mass adoption in terms of time?
Let’s talk about the most basic household items first:
Starting from 1860 till 2020, the nature of adoption for basic household items has changed from night to day. From 1860 to the early 19th Century, there was no significant adoption of technology by humankinds. The 2nd half of 19th Century is where we see the real use of basic items. And if we see it more closure, the technology which started after 2nd half of 19th century had faster adoption than what started before.
Now, let’s have a look on lesser complex data and compare it with adoption of the INTERNET.
With the internet being exponentially adopted, we also see the internet based services caused an inverse impact on old technology. Example (Refer below), the use of SmartPhone/Amazon Prime has caused the decline in use of television. The same way, we will see higher adoption of cryptocurrency in future reducing use of fiat currency.
| Technology | Start | End | Absolute Change | Relative Change |
| Television | 96.60% in 1992 | 93.97% in 2018 | -2.63 pp | -3% |
| Social media usage | 5.00% in 2005 | 79.00% in 2019 | +74.00 pp | +1,480% |
| Smartphone usage | 35.00% in 2011 | 81.00% in 2019 | +46.00 pp | +131% |
| Refrigerator | 1.00% in 1925 | 99.70% in 1978 | +98.70 pp | +9,870% |
| Internet | 10.00% in 1993 | 88.00% in 2016 | +78.00 pp | +780% |
| Colour TV | 10.00% in 1966 | 96.00% in 2005 | +86.00 pp | +860% |
| Cellular phone | 10.00% in 1994 | 96.00% in 2019 | +86.00 pp | +860% |
| Amazon Prime users | 11.13% in 2014 | 36.58% in 2018 | +25.45 pp | +229% |
That being said, where does cryptocurrency stands in the path of mass adoption?
| Category | Value ($ Billions, USD) | Source |
| Silver | $44 | World Silver Survey 2019 |
| Cryptocurrencies | $244 | CoinMarketCap |
| Coins & Bank Notes | $6,662 | BIS |
| Fed’s Balance Sheet | $7,037 | U.S. Federal Reserve |
| Gold | $10,891 | World Gold Council (2020) |
| The Fortune 500 | $22,600 | Fortune 500 (2019 list) |
| Stock Markets | $89,475 | WFE (April 2020) |
| Global Debt | $252,600 | IIF Debt Monitor |
| Global Real Estate | $280,600 | Savills Global Research (2018 est.) |
So this is how cryptocurrency stands against the one it was built for:
- Silver * 5.5 = Cryptocurrency
- Cryptocurrency * 27.3 = Coin and Bank notes
- Cryptocurrency * 44.6 = Gold
- Cryptocurrency * 366.7 = Stock Markets
- Cryptocurrency * 1502 = Global Wealth
The real competition of cryptocurrency is gold and stock markets where we see crypto has a lot of adoption left. We also need to consider that, we are just 10 years into the crypto market and we are at very early stage. Being ahead of silver in 10 years is an impressive growth and we will soon see cryptocurrency ahead of gold, may be another decade or lesser.
To conclude, the cryptocurrency market is still a baby and needs more time to mature. With expected government regulations and listing of major crypto on the biggest markets for trading, we will see exponential growth both in terms of its use and value.
WazirX Warrior Author: Jay Tanwar
