On the 10th anniversary of the publication of Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” on October 31, 2008, I thought it was time to revisit my first article on “Bitcoin and Business: Are We Ready Yet?”. A lot has happened in the crypto world over the last three years, and we are still only at the beginning.

In my 2014 article, I discussed the implications that bitcoin, or now more correctly blockchain technology, will have on the world of finance and the impediments to its widespread adoption. Now, nearly four years later, significant progress has been made in building industrial-class solutions to real-world systems. However, deployment challenges remain.

In 2014, I identified three key considerations that need to be addressed by the crypto community:

Perception of Volatility

The volatility of cryptocurrencies remains an issue with the adoption of these currencies for anything beyond a volatile investment. The rise of stable coins over the last 12 months is starting to address these issues and introduce new practical uses for cryptocurrencies. Over time, the rise of stable coins will bring stability to the other cryptocurrencies.

Pervasiveness

Until recently, the only pervasive use of blockchain technology has been in the international remittance space. Over the next few years, with the introduction of stable coins tied to commodities and traditional currencies, the use of cryptocurrencies outside the hardcore crypto world will expand dramatically. As new crypto derivatives products and the tokenization of commodities gains a foothold, cryptocurrencies will become more pervasive in the business world.

Trust

As parts of the infrastructure supporting cryptocurrencies become regulated, and as more concrete business is completed using blockchain technology, the trust level in the whole industry will increase. As shown by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), every new technology deployed to the mass market always goes through an evolutionary path that starts with illicit uses, such as money laundering or illegal drug purchases, and then progresses to supporting and dramatically altering whole industries. As the industry moves towards large-scale adoption, illicit uses as a portion of the total transactions rapidly diminish.

What I Didn’t Identify

One key consideration I did not identify four years ago was the need to bridge between traditional financing and the crypto world. This missing key has held the industry back from mass adoption across multi-national industries and from developing the ability to use cryptocurrencies to solve real-world problems.

As a licenced and regulated bank, EQIBank could be the KEY to bridging the traditional worlds of finance and those of emerging asset classes, enabling the infrastructure for rapid deployment of multiple large-scale initiatives around the world.

To express your interest in joining the EQIBank revolution go to www.eqibank.com to enter the queue to apply for an account.

Edwin Carlson

CEO, EQIExchange (a division of EQIBank)