What is blockchain in seven words?
“A response to the Global Financial Crisis.”
On Monday, 29th January, Very Early hosted an information workshop for those looking to learn more about the crypto realm. The panel discussed a range of topics. Such as current blockchain trends, stablecoin applications, global adoption scenarios, and future directions for the technology. the challenges, exciting developments, and the potential impact on various verticals.
We have included the key takeaways from the session below:
- Stablecoins Reach Product-Market Fit:
- Use cases: facilitating trade in emerging markets where there are currency risks.
- Adoption: Stablecoins are the biggest application to come out of on-chain technologies. USDT (USD-backed stablecoin) is the largest stablecoin, with 71% of the market share and a $97bn market cap.
- Motivations: financially motivated activities, on-chain finance, and DeFi transactions.
- Global Adoption:
- Turkey: The inflation of local currency has increased crypto adoption. Demand for stablecoins such as USDT is being used as an alternative for USD, asset protection, and accepting USDT in exchange houses, enabling crypto transactions.
- Nigeria: Digital marketing using stablecoins due to unreliable local currencies, mitigating forex fluctuations.
- Opera Browser, an Example of a Global Market From Day One:
- Opera browser has built and integrated an in-app wallet for P2P (peer-to-peer) payments. The wallet (and browser) has gained quick traction due to the built-in solution and ability to handle small transfer amounts. 1.3 million wallets have been created since September 2023.
- Transactions are tracked on-chain, demonstrating real-world usage.
- Looking to the Future:
- Blockchain evolution has been compared to the early days of the Internet. The Internet wasn’t created to digitalize newspapers. As the internet grew, many more use cases emerged over time. If we draw parallels to crypto, there will likely be many more use cases down the line for Blockchain.
- Interoperability is a crucial element; blockchain solutions allow anyone to connect in a permissionless, frictionless way, empowering activity.
- V1.0 has been very public to date; the next stage could likely re-include stronger elements to protect user privacy.
- Predicting future applications is challenging, but advancements are already happening in Layer2s to address the limitations. E.g. bringing transaction costs down.
- Achieving complete decentralisation on the application layer is highly challenging. There must be a trust assumption included.
- Will stable coins replace fiat currencies…? It’s too early to tell.