As much as crypto-enthusiasts would have you believe that blockchain interfaces are widely used, that’s far from the truth for the average person. Even if people interact with the blockchain, it’s often indirectly. While it’s true that the technology is transformative and revolutionary, its adoption has taken a rather long route. According to the Pew Research Center, 63% of Americans are not confident in the reliability and safety of cryptocurrency. Only 5% stated that they were ‘extremely’ or ‘very confident’ in cryptocurrencies. Why are so many people still skeptical? In this article, let us look at three potential reasons that are stopping blockchain from reaching its full potential.
#1. The User Experience Still Feels Complicated
We live in interesting times where people would rather use DoorDash because they dislike talking on the phone. The average person dedicates the least amount of energy possible to services that they need. In such a context, expecting people to set up a wallet, manage their private keys, and guard their seed phrases is way too much.
Moreover, the risks feel a little too serious for your local small business owner to stomach. “If I lose this string of numbers and letters, I can no longer access my funds?” Even if these concerns can be simplified, the average user has to learn an entirely new system and way of doing things. For instance, most users will not understand concepts like gas fees, transaction confirmations, or ‘bridging assets’ across different chains. They would pick the sort of seamless experience that comes with Apple Pay any day.
That said, these perceptions of blockchain being dense and messy aren’t impossible to change. A platform that uses effective blockchain PR packages can help make the world feel more relatable and easy to understand for the average user. BTCWire advises that you should think closely about your needs. Are you looking to gain more credibility? Or is it about exposure and getting the word out? With the right partner, it might be possible to win more people over.
#2. The KYC Requirements and Other Regulations
Blockchain interfaces started with primary goals like privacy and being a decentralized platform. However, every country has laws and regulations when it comes to finance, and each country has different approaches. For instance, the European Union has the MiCA framework, which hopes to standardize crypto-related regulation across all the member states.
Meanwhile, America remains a little undecided, with both the SEC and the CFTC disagreeing about how best to classify tokens. This type of inconsistent approach naturally makes global businesses a little wary about building fully on blockchain. Of course, some progress is happening. Recently, the GENIUS Act set up a uniform federal framework for stablecoins backed by the U.S. dollar. The law mandates that all issuers of stablecoins need to maintain high-quality liquid assets that match 100% of the value of the tokens in circulation.
#3. Scalability and Speed Still Lag Behind Traditional Models
As you might already be aware, blockchain stores and verifies transactions on a decentralized network. That’s a solid concept, but the issue comes from the fact that verifying every block across thousands of nodes can lead to bottleneck situations. This deficiency in speed is a problem and a big obstacle for large-scale adoption. For instance, Bitcoin processes around 7 transactions/second. Ethereum is faster, at about 15 to 30/seconds. Meanwhile, Visa handles over 65,000 transactions every second.
Almost every business wants to check out customers as quickly as possible. Having a 30-second wait time would be disastrous for profits. That said, Stablecoins, which are reportedly as fast as Visa or American Express, are reportedly one solution. There have been efforts by some parties to convince businesses to adopt them. Chintan Turakhia from Coinbase states that it takes 200 milliseconds to make the payment and have the money credited into the merchant’s wallet.
However, for other crypto options, it’s still hit or miss. Some would argue that Visa and Mastercard actually take more time to settle behind the scenes when compared to blockchain. However, the key factor is that they are still faster at points of sale. Thus, until blockchain can find a way to deal with these concerns, the average person might feel more comfortable sticking with Visa and Mastercard.
Essentially, there’s nothing inherently faulty with blockchain interfaces; it’s just that the barriers we discussed all feed into each other and make everyone cautious. If we want to see widespread use similar to Apple Pay, it has to find a way to overcome these challenges. How the industry hopes to achieve this remains to be seen.
nandbox App Builder
Platforms that make complicated technology easier for regular businesses and individuals to utilize could help speed up the adoption of blockchain. That’s where apps like nandbox App Builder come in. nandbox lets entrepreneurs, small enterprises, and startups make apps with plenty of features without needing to know how to code. Its drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to use. nandbox makes it easier to use new technologies by combining secure payment gateways, tools for engaging customers, and features that can grow with your business. If blockchain interfaces could think as nandbox does when it comes to app development and create a “seamless experience,” they would probably get rid of a lot of the things that make people doubt and hesitate right now.
