At USP, we’re nothing if not ambitious. We want nothing less than to have our coin held by – and spent by – everybody who holds or spends money of any kind.
We’re realistic enough to know that’s not happening today – and tomorrow morning isn’t looking good either – but we’ll be in position when that moment comes. And that moment will come when we reach the tipping point where people don’t make a practical distinction between crypto and fiat currency.
While there are many naysayers who denigrate the whole proposition of cryptocurrency, there were a lot more of them before the advent of stablecoins. There were even more before the market returned to growth after the “crypto winter,” and after all the dips and dives that affected the exchanges over the past dozen years. Crypto survived The DAO. It survived Mt. Gox. It’ll survive the current lack of investor appetite for anything resembling technology.
We didn’t really need a fresh shot of optimism about the pace of crypto adoption, but we got it anyway in the form of a global report from Gemini which describes 2021 as “crypto’s breakout year,” as market cap in the space hit nearly $3 trillion – or roughly 100 times the amount of traditional venture capital invested last year.
The world is catching on
One of the most hopeful signs we see courtesy of Gemini is that the gender gap is really disappearing. This at least doubles the opportunity for widespread adoption. If you accept the premise that even in traditional societies – or especially in traditional societies – it’s the women who control saving and spending, then the news is even more favorable.
“Among the crypto curious who plan to purchase crypto for the first time in the next year, 47% were women globally,” according to the report. “Among crypto owners, women in developing nations led the way with women representing at least half of crypto owners in Israel (51%), Indonesia (51%), and Nigeria (50%).”
Part of this, as you might imagine, stems from inflation, which is being felt almost everywhere. Here in the U.S. we’re a little spoiled. The only time in living memory it exceeded 10% per year – the late 1970s – it brought down a presidency and was quickly tamed by sound monetary policy.
But there aren’t a lot of Paul Volckers in the world, so inflation continued to plague most other nations. We never experienced the kind of hyperinflation you see in Lebanon or Venezuela, but we watch it on the news. It’s enough to get you to ask two questions:
- Do the central bankers there really know what they’re doing there?
- Might these countries be better served by no central bank rather than an incompetent one?
As more people ask themselves those questions, they become more amenable to the prospect of privately issued currency. And why not? Money originated as a convenient vehicle to serve merchants and their customers. It was around for 5,000 years before anyone thought to carve the king’s face on it.
Still barriers
Even so, it’s going to be a long slog getting to where crypto needs to be.
“Regulation is a concern globally,” the report says. “Among non-owners, 39% in Asia Pacific, 37% in Latin America, and 36% in Europe say there is legal uncertainty around cryptocurrency. In addition, for 30% of respondents in the Middle East, 24% in Asia Pacific, and 23% in Latin America, the tax complexities of owning cryptocurrency have kept them from investing in crypto.”
Even so, compliance is only the second-biggest barrier to crypto ownership, following education.
“Globally, respondents were nearly twice as likely to say that more educational resources on cryptocurrency would help them get started with crypto (40%), compared to recommendations from friends (22%),” the report states. “More than half of respondents in Latin America (51%) and Africa (56%) said that educational resources would make them more comfortable purchasing cryptocurrency. Forty-four percent in Asia Pacific and 42% of those in the United States said the same.”
Even so, these are barriers that can be overcome, providing both the crypto-curious and the crypto creators are motivated. It would appear the public already is. And, speaking for the entire crypto space, we’ve been ready for years.
U.S. Property Coin (USP), a project of real estate development and management firm Primior, anticipated to be the first Securities and Exchange Commission-regulated, asset-backed security token drawing underlying value from real estate, providing investors a complete, transparent, stable and highly liquid digital asset that has the potential to appreciate over time and deliver yield by default.
