Note: This post has been written by a WazirX Warrior as a part of the “WazirX Warrior program“.

Money has been an integral part of human history in many forms. From flowers to printer paper and from gold to cryptocurrency, money has always been the center of human trade and survival. 

Money provides independence to live a good life but has always been controlled by people in power. Cryptocurrency is the only form of money that is not controlled by anyone. It provides the true freedom in hands of people.

Therefore, the aim of every crypto enthusiast is the mass adoption of cryptocurrency against fiat currency. 

We are here to explain, what it takes for mass adoption in terms of time?

Let’s talk about the most basic household items first:

Starting from 1860 till 2020, the nature of adoption for basic household items has changed from night to day. From 1860 to the early 19^th Century, there was no significant adoption of technology by humankinds. The 2^nd half of 19^th Century is where we see the real use of basic items. And if we see it more closure, the technology which started after 2^nd half of 19^th century had faster adoption than what started before.

 Now, let’s have a look on lesser complex data and compare it with adoption of the INTERNET.

With the internet being exponentially adopted, we also see the internet based services caused an inverse impact on old technology. Example (Refer below), the use of SmartPhone/Amazon Prime has caused the decline in use of television.  The same way, we will see higher adoption of cryptocurrency in future reducing use of fiat currency.

Technology	Start	End	Absolute Change	Relative Change
Television	96.60% in 1992	93.97% in 2018	-2.63 pp	-3%

Social media usage	5.00% in 2005	79.00% in 2019	+74.00 pp	+1,480%
Smartphone usage	35.00% in 2011	81.00% in 2019	+46.00 pp	+131%
Refrigerator	1.00% in 1925	99.70% in 1978	+98.70 pp	+9,870%
Internet	10.00% in 1993	88.00% in 2016	+78.00 pp	+780%
Colour TV	10.00% in 1966	96.00% in 2005	+86.00 pp	+860%
Cellular phone	10.00% in 1994	96.00% in 2019	+86.00 pp	+860%
Amazon Prime users	11.13% in 2014	36.58% in 2018	+25.45 pp	+229%

That being said, where does cryptocurrency stands in the path of mass adoption?

Category	Value ($ Billions, USD)	Source
Silver	$44	World Silver Survey 2019
Cryptocurrencies	$244	CoinMarketCap
Coins & Bank Notes	$6,662	BIS
Fed’s Balance Sheet	$7,037	U.S. Federal Reserve
Gold	$10,891	World Gold Council (2020)
The Fortune 500	$22,600	Fortune 500 (2019 list)
Stock Markets	$89,475	WFE (April 2020)
Global Debt	$252,600	IIF Debt Monitor
Global Real Estate	$280,600	Savills Global Research (2018 est.)

So this is how cryptocurrency stands against the one it was built for:

• Silver * 5.5 = Cryptocurrency
• Cryptocurrency * 27.3  = Coin and Bank notes
• Cryptocurrency * 44.6  = Gold
• Cryptocurrency * 366.7  = Stock Markets
• Cryptocurrency * 1502  = Global Wealth

The real competition of cryptocurrency is gold and stock markets where we see crypto has a lot of adoption left. We also need to consider that, we are just 10 years into the crypto market and we are at very early stage. Being ahead of silver in 10 years is an impressive growth and we will soon see cryptocurrency ahead of gold, may be another decade or lesser.

To conclude, the cryptocurrency market is still a baby and needs more time to mature. With expected government regulations and listing of major crypto on the biggest markets for trading, we will see exponential growth both in terms of its use and value.

WazirX Warrior Author: Jay Tanwar

Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency is not a legal tender and is currently unregulated. Kindly ensure that you undertake sufficient risk assessment when trading cryptocurrencies as they are often subject to high price volatility. The information provided in this section doesn't represent any investment advice or WazirX's official position. WazirX reserves the right in its sole discretion to amend or change this blog post at any time and for any reasons without prior notice.