BitPay CEO Stephen Pair, in an interview on CNBC, said that mass adoption in the crypto space is still 3 – 5 years away.
Pair was generally very bullish on the prospects of crypto, though he did mention that it was hard to say anything regarding Bitcoin’s price valuation.
He did, however, state that speculation has been a major driver in the token’s valuation:
A very big component of the [Bitcoin’s] price is certainly speculation. It’s investors that are speculating on the future usage and adoption of this technology. I’m sure a small component of that price is the actual utility.
BitPay, headquartered in Georgia in the United States, offers both business and personal services, as well as a BitPay card. The company is doing its bit to a thorn in adoption, which is ease of use and accessibility.
It is universally agreed that until crypto use becomes more intuitive and less dependent on technical knowledge, the market will never grow.
Interestingly, Pair has pulled his timeframe for mass adoption closer:
I used to say 10 years, but now I think it’s more like 3-5 years until you can go into a restaurant, a retail establishment, and just everybody’s going to expect that that store will be able to accept a blockchain payment.
Pair’s prediction should elicit some interest, as the estimate has a bearing on BitPay’s particular goals.
Adoption First, Price Second
Adoption remains one of the biggest challenges for the growth of the industry and, in some sense, the problem is self-perpetuating: mass adoption is hard to achieve without clear regulation, but with no clear regulation, mass adoption cannot take place to its fullest potential.
A similar opinion about speculation is shared by other notable figures in the crypto space, such as Anthony Pompliano, who has said that the bear market has washed away all of the “tourist investors” who lack a fundamental understanding of the technology.
Still, we cannot be sure if this is the last of the turbulent cycles that the market is prone to experiencing, or whether it has achieved some sort of stability.
Bobby Lee suggests the former, though most investors would at this point prefer the latter.
Predictions in the crypto space are taken to be taken with lumps of salt, but the general consensus is that cryptocurrency and blockchain are both a few years away from establishing the kind of revolutionary impact that is anticipated.
