The Basel Committee, who act as a global watchdog for banks, has issued a statement about the potential disruptive effect that Crypto currencies could have on banks.Interestingly, JP Morgan said that "cryptos could be more of a partner than a threat to banks". It is difficult to see how Stablecoins, like the JPM Coin will make money for JP Morgan, although potentially the bank’s new Quorum platform could be licensed to third parties as an alternative to other blockchains. This is because Quorum does not have transaction fees, and third parties i.e. miners do not have access to trades prior to them being publicly available which is a major problem for public Blockchains like Ethereum, Wave, Stellar etc.
Meanwhile, we are seeing more retailers in different countries accepting Cryptos as a way to purchase goods and services. In Switzerland, the online retailers Digitec and Galaxu are now allowing customers to use Bitcoin for purchases and Birks Group, Canada’s largest and oldest jewellery stores, announced that it had begun accepting Bitcoin at eight of its 30 stores. In Japan Rakuten, Japan’s largest e-commerce website has intimated it will begin accepting Cryptos soon.
Starbucks however could prove to be an inflection point once they start to accept Cryptos which is rumoured to be in Q3 in 2019. In Australia, Binanace has established a venture with 1,300 newsagents to enable one to buy Bitcoin and closer to home in France you have for a while been able buy Bitcoin via a chain of tobacco shops.
A recent report from Finer, see below, found that 8% of Americans own Cryptocurrencies but discovered there multiple reasons why the other 92% do not own a Crypto.
The whole user experience on engaging and using Digital Assets needs to be made much easier and simpler to ensure more people start using them on a day today basis.
