Coinbase CEO: Solving these four problems will bring billions of people to crypto 🚨 This article is 5 years old...
Coinbase CEO: Solving these four problems will bring billions of people to crypto
2 min read
Updated: Apr. 9, 2020 at 6:42 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
There are currently thousands of cryptocurrencies all vying for adoption on multiple different fronts, with many being viewed as scams and fundraising schemes, while others cryptos with legitimate use cases struggle to garner any significant support.
From an investment standpoint, investors overwhelmingly seem to favor Bitcoin as the currency of the future, with its market capitalization being over six times larger than that of Ethereum – which is currently the second largest digital asset by market cap.
Despite this, because the crypto markets are still widely considered to be niche, one industry leader is now noting that there are a few key factors that need to be solved before crypto scales to household adoption.
He further goes on to note that the blockchain that is able to first do this will be best positioned to scale crypto to having billions of users.
Ben Horowitz: crypto and early-stage internet industry have striking parallels
In a recent tweet thread, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong outlines a discussion he recently had with A16Z founder Ben Horowitz, in which the prominent investor explained that he sees a lot of striking parallels between the early-stage internet industry and crypto.
He first points to Netscape and early protocols as non-scalable gateways to the internet that largely resulted in shoddily designed products that weren’t conducive to positive user experiences.
“At Netscape, they were working with early internet protocols. Things weren’t very scalable (dial up modems), you had to be somewhat technical to figure out how to get online, and early websites were pretty basic (static sites, looked like toys). Sound familiar to crypto at all??”
He further goes on to explain that slow internet speeds and early dial up models are similar to the current scaling problems that many blockchains are currently facing.
Armstrong: These are the four factors that will mark the best blockchain
Furthermore, Armstrong later goes on to identify what he sees as the four main development problems that the crypto industry is currently facing, referencing problems relating to scalability, privacy, decentralized identity, and developer tools.
He notes that he believes the first blockchain to “ship” solutions to these problems will be the one that helps usher in billions of users to the crypto industry.
“In conclusion: I think it’s still very much up in the air which blockchain will help get crypto from ~50M users to 5B. The chain that manages to ship some of these scalability, privacy, decentralized identity, and developer tool solutions will have a big leg up.”
Currently, there are a plethora of different platforms all vying to garner widespread adoption, but both retail and institutional investors alike all seem to currently think that BTC will ultimately win this competition.
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Bitcoin
$98,593.54
Bitcoin, a decentralized currency that defies the sway of central banks or administrators, transacts electronically, circumventing intermediaries via a peer-to-peer network.
Coinbase
Coinbase is a digital currency exchange and wallet service that allows individuals to buy, sell, and store digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.
a16z
Andreessen Horowitz (known as “a16z”) is a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley specializing in investing in seed, start-ups, early, mid-stage, growth, and late stage.
Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, stands at the forefront of the digital currency revolution.
