Barriers in Crypto Adoption

I have little knowledge on crypto and blockchain technology, by little, I mean very little. But I have enthusiasm like a monk. It’s been almost 4 years I am with Hive and a bit of others. Still, I don’t consider myself even as a beginner in this sphere.

But, out of curiosity and for a specific purpose, I was trying to gather some data on Hive and its possible use cases for Tourism industry. As a part of my dissertation plan to be honest. Thought I could find adequate info to enlighten myself and amuse my supervisor in the process. Disappointed I am than ever thought. Not that there aren’t many sources, that too very limited though, I was disappointed knowing that my supervisor has very minimum idea on this awesome technology— even less than me and she said my topic is not very interesting.

Then I wondered, if the mainstream educators like my professor has almost no idea about the functionalities about Blockchain and crypto, and they discourage students to move forward, what can we expect from the commoners who barely think any alternatives to physical currency.

So, I proposed a research topic like usage of crypto as payment method in cross-country tourism industry where crypto holders can pay their bills using web 3.0 wallets. I thought she woud be interested as she had a PhD on tourism and destination. Instead of encouraging, she asked me if I have ‘better’ ideas. As I am very much willing to pass the dissertation, I simply agreed with her that there might be some more interesting ideas— my enthusiasm washed away in a splash of ignorance.

But I felt like I got this.

It still feels like a good idea to me as hospitality industries in some countries have initiated and accepting crypto as a medium of payment. What if we could find out more about how these process can benefit mass people in the tourism industry as you can replace local currency with them and don’t have to exchange money doing shopping in different countries.

But I didn’t stop venturing into the crypto usage in the UK which has some shocking statistics. To quote a few from Finder; a finance data comparison company, 71% of Brits don’t want to invest in cryptocurrency, ever.

Can you believe that?

The following is the direct quote from the website I stumbled upon.

1. 11% of Brits, or approximately 5.6 million people, have invested in cryptocurrency as of 2024.
2. Two-thirds (66%) of Brits who have invested in cryptocurrency are men, while around a third (34%) are women.
3. 9% of UK millennials have invested in cryptocurrency.
4. 70% of crypto investors are aged between 18 and 44.
5. Almost half (47%) of Brits who invested in cryptocurrency bought Bitcoin.
6. Around 1.3 million people owned Bitcoin in 2023, 2.5% of UK adults. A third (33%) of Brits who invested in cryptocurrency bought Ethereum.

_Source

While it may seem insignificant given the number (only 2000 people were surveyed), I woner how many years it might take to get fully (fully may never be possible, but a significant portion will do) decentralised if first world countries are demotivated like this. Although most Hive holders are first world citizens (I suppose), I am taking about mass adoption.

On another statistics, I found 41% of Brits aren’t interested in crypto at all, 17% thinks it’s a scam and 20% finds the system too complicated. It’s also from the same survey I mentioned before.

Now, I feel like crypto adoption is still slow as most people can’t think about a world without physical currency, although they are using digital money every day. Again, the infrastructure might be another issue demotivating people to get started, it takes effort to understand and get used to this monetary system.

Possibly, more attempts to educate mass people help crypto come in the front line. Although my knowledge on crypto verse is very limited, I feel like we cannot get the most out of it unless the think tanks start talking about it.

---

_{Photo by GuerrillaBuzz on Unsplash}