Bitcoin dominance is on the rise, once again, reducing the market capitalisation of altcoins in the process. Obviously, until altcoins pick up pace and start to be taken seriously, Bitcoin will always hold the reins, trapping the markets into the conditions we see today, where Bitcoin sets the pace. Bitcoin leads the way and until then, the rest of the markets must sit in limbo, unable to take control of their own destiny.

Michael J. Casey, the Chairman of the advisory board at Coindesk has recently written an article for the Coindesk Weekly newsletter that discusses the concept of altcoins as immature, not in the sense that they are of low value but in the sense that they need to start being trusted, Casey argues that:

“The industry needs to advance to adulthood. Only with a self-regulating system, in which broadly accepted norms of behavior, modes of communication and business practices are encouraged, can the industry shake off a Wild West image of Lambo-loving scammers and move from the fringe into the mainstream.”

In essence, for as long as altcoins are ridden with scams, this fraction of the industry will never be trusted. In order to gain the trust that will see altcoins through into a more prosperous future, they need to grow up and seek some sort of maturity. They need to be less hipster, less underground and more mainstream, otherwise, how will the general population have access to use them?

How can this be achieved?

Casey believes there are two areas that can be addresses here, first of all, the education of authorities and policy makers and secondly, the education of the general populous. For as long as the general public are scared of cryptocurrency , altcoins will never flourish. Moreover, if regulators can’t get their heads around it, then they will just block it. The issue here is education, knowledge needs to be shared if altcoins want to stand a chance.

According to Casey:

“The best route to a constructive legal framework is to foster a reliable, structured system of self-regulation, which can be designed to soften the compliance blow for startups. Most of the responsibility for boosting public confidence in the technology should rest with industry participants rather than law enforcement, but fall within a predictable legal framework. We must develop standards of accountability, attestation, reputation and certification (decentralized or otherwise) that weed out bad actors from the market and do so in a way that gives regulators confidence that the social objectives that define their mission are being upheld.”

I would very much recommend reading the full article yourself, which you can do so,

here

.

Casey highlights some very important points in this, points that if not addressed, could eventually lead to the corrosion of trust amongst the general public and the crypto community. Iff altcoins do want to stand a chance, industry needs to sharpen up, otherwise Bitcoin might get too far ahead. If this happens, the shape of the markets will change and the thousands of altcoins will be forever held in Bitcoins shadow. A healthier alternative in this comes through adoption, which can only happen once people are as familiar with Bitcoin as they are with Dash, with Monero, and with Ethereum Classic et al.