There are a number of major roadblocks that are preventing Bitcoin from becoming a mainstream currency. Business Insider UK spoke with Garrick Hileman, who is a member of the University of Cambridge Research Fellow, about cryptocurrencies, and how Bitcoin could become a mainstream currency.He believes that there are two key factors that are holding Bitcoin back from becoming a mainstream currency, and would limit the ability for it to be used for everyday purchases. One of these factors is the high-transaction fees for every Bitcoin exchange. He writes; “It is used for payments but with transaction fees running as high as $20 per transaction that makes using Bitcoin for something like buying coffee prohibitively expensive…The transaction fee situation would need to improve with new technologies like Lightning, for example, that may be on the not-so-distant horizon.” The second factor is that it is incredibly volatile. The value of Bitcoin fluctuates much quicker than other traditional, and more stable currencies.“The volatility of Bitcoin is another thing that would probably prevent it from being a widely used currency and here you could look at the advent of stable coins as another potential solution to Bitcoin’s volatility problem.” Despite the above factors, he does believe that Bitcoin has the potential to become a more widely used currency, especially as it just continues to grow in popularity. He goes on to say; “With tens of millions of people using Bitcoin already as an asset and the rate of growth, if that were to sustain it wouldn’t take long for Bitcoin to get to a user base of 100 million or more…it can make it much more likely for people to start to use it not just as an asset but actually to settle payments with each other.” He believes that Bitcoin may have a future as an asset class – ‘digital gold’, and that it is certainly possible that it could become a currency.