Here are some thoughts about crypto and their future.
We are now entering a second phase of crypto era: The In-Between. The wild west is slowly coming to an end on one side, and on the other side KYC and countries / governments talking about regulations and even global cooperation to do what they do best tax and track properly. There are still lot's of great opportunities to be made, but also a lot of greed, scams, thieves.
Phase 2 is also the bubble phase, when everything gets out of control: too many coins, too many scams, and too much profit for too many people. That would be awesome, but unfortunately, it doesn't work this way. So one way or another, we will get a "crash" that will select the real / good / useful projects over the rest. When the bubble burst, money will reallocate in the strongest coins/tokens. A few giant will emerge, as well as maybe 50 to 100 other interesting projects, and as the time goes, the smaller projects will bet eaten by the giant.
The bubble crash will more or less mark the beginning of phase 3 with regulation in place (which will also be made much easier with less coins), and mass adoption. Scams as well as huge return for average Joe will be long gone. Crypto will be legit.
Now, blockchain is here to stay. But which coins / tokens will stick around for regulation and main street adoption ? That's the real question. Most of those thousand coins in CMC won't make it.
Unfortunately, the way it is going isn't the way most idealist hoped it could be. Bitcoin is great, but it can't be the main currency because of a supply too little and scalability problem (you can't realistically buy a coffee 0,00000015BTC with $10 fees and 15mn transaction time!). However it will most likely stick as a store of value, and maybe as a "bitcoin standard" on exchange (think gold standard but for crypto). Ethereum has the same scalability issue, and it is a DAPP platform, not a currency in the first place so it doesn't seem well adapted, and the supply isn't high enough in my opinion. It's sad to say, but ripple is very well placed to take the lead as the main currency in crypto world (maybe lightning network can prove me wrong).
So, the way I see it, we have 4 mains issues to solve if we want to keep the spirit of crypto:
1/ A credible alternate decentralized currency instead of ripple.
2/ Adoption of decentralized exchanges.
3/ Security, with safe wallet, safe network decentralization, and safe encryption with the rise of quantum computer coming.
4/ A way to make POW more environmentally friendly, or to find an alternative as good as POW.
What do you think guys ?
I agree with you, as per my view, when it comes to world wide adoption, this is what I think it's going to happen with crypto currencies in the next few years:
1. Slowly banks will start being more and more aggressive twards Bitcoin and crypto, due to this, the crypto community will be more fierceful to make crypto payments in much more stores a possibility
2. Governments will eventually start accepting crypto as tax payment
3. Slowly more and more people will get onboard, just by using their phone and we will have a main crypto, I think Bitcoin has good chances to remain the king here.