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Hello to my fellow Steemians, it is another week, a new one that has come with a lot of opportunities for us to use. We had an interesting week last week and I know this week will be interesting as well. Without wasting much time, let’s get down to the business of the week. Cryptocurrency Adoption is the topic we are to discuss, it is about how we can accept cryptocurrency in our day-to-day life.

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Since the introduction of Cryptocurrency which its first was Bitcoin created in 2009, it has pioneered the way for other cryptocurrencies and other projects related to cryptocurrency. In just a short while after its establishment, it got famous as more brands, countries, and institutions have employed its system which comes with a lot of great advantages like security, transparency, and decentralization. Despite all these great features, cryptocurrency has its disadvantages that are drawbacks in making it a worldwide adoption.

Adoption in this sense means that we accept cryptocurrency in the financial realm. We can all see how cryptocurrency is gradually taking over the financial world in the number of transactions, market capitalization, and number of users, soon after its introduction.

We have seen from the onset of Covid-19 and this new technology era how businesses are going digital. For the improvement of the effectiveness, accessibility, and efficiency of the business it has to employ the use of the contemporary financial innovation (cryptocurrency)

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Governments of some countries around the world are adopting the idea of cryptocurrency. some countries employ blockchain technology to make their own stable coins, for instance, my country, Ghana has introduced its stable coin E-Cedi. Other countries like El Salvador and the CAR (Central African Republic) have adopted Bitcoin as a legal currency to be used in the country.

^{The stable coin of Ghana, E-Cedi} source

The picture below is evidence that some top institutions are employing the use of cryptocurrency in their business. We also have Burger King, KFC, Overstock, Subway, Pizza Hut, ExpressVPN, etc.

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Institutions and businesses that have a wide range of payment systems increase their accessibility to all kinds of people. All of these aforementioned companies have proven to be very effective and efficient, and I trust that other businesses that do the same will experience features that come with cryptocurrency like transparency, decentralization, security, etc., and that will improve the well-being of the business.

No doubt that Cryptocurrency is the fastest growing technology in the financial world with $800,000,000,000 in market cap from its idea conceived in 2009 and created in 2017. Today its market cap has grown exponentially in such a short span to over $1.135TN. This should hint that adopting cryptocurrency in your business will allow it to grow faster and will also increase the accessibility of your business.

The conventional currency we use in our countries can only be used within the borders of the country, they require intermediaries during transactions that add up to cost, stress, and time they are not protected by cryptography which makes them less secure and they are not decentralized. Cryptocurrency seeks to do away with all these problems with its P2P feature that traders to transact directly, a consensus mechanism that validates transactions without intermediaries, cryptography, and decentralization that protects transactions and gives users freedom. These are some of the reasons why I think it should be adopted. The world will eventually agree to a commonly adopted financial system, embrace a change just like how the world moved from the barter trade system to this system that we know, and I think cryptocurrency is next in line.

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Its decentralization will allow the business owner to have full control over the assets of the business. The business is boosted because there are no third parties like the government involved, the owner, therefore, has total control over the business.

Sometimes the convenience of transacting with the business determines how it develops. How easy is payment, how high is the cost of the transaction, how stressful is the transaction, and how safe is it, all these are factors in determining if one is willing to transact with your business. Cryptocurrency is safely convenient to transact with at a very low transaction cost.

One of the issues that most businesses battle with is tax payments, they are sometimes hefty and take a great toll on the business. Cryptocurrencies are not highly regulated as conventional currencies and therefore are not taxed. This is an opportunity for businesses to exempt themselves from some taxes.

A business that adopts cryptocurrency will have a guaranteed safety of its funds during transactions. Cryptocurrencies that are transferred are received without any hindrance or delay. This improves the trust the business owners have with their clients.

With cryptocurrency, transactions can be executed worldwide without any boundaries. They allow for cross-border transactions and also prevent burdensome bank operations and some strict rules and regulations from the government.

Adding cryptocurrency to your business increases accessibility and invites more clients. Cryptocurrency has millions of users which suggests how large its community is. So, a business that adopts cryptocurrency will be able to engage with a lot of cryptocurrency users who will be able to patronize their goods and services.

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Global adoption of cryptocurrency as a legal medium of exchange in our daily lives will be a great step towards a safe, convenient, decentralized, and transparent financial realm that we all need.

It will very helpful for inter-border transactions and this will allow the world to feel more togetherness as one society as there will be little or no financial boundaries at all, and families and friends can send and receive funds conveniently without having to go through stressful and long processes. This will help reduce the number of persons that form long queues at banks as users can transact conveniently from their homes. This will improve the general payment system of the world.

Cryptocurrencies are always available digitally unlike the conventional currencies which makes them easy to use. In some extreme economies of some countries mostly African countries have currencies that are performing poorly with rising inflation, cryptocurrency can help this situation by providing a hedge against inflation due to their restricted supply.

As I explained earlier, cryptocurrencies are a good way to do away with capital control and hefty taxes in countries with rigorous capital control laws and high tax charges.

Transactions around the world will be faster, safer, and very effective as there is no interference from any intermediary. There are no limits on transactions and the transaction charges are very low.

All points explained above are the reasons why I think cryptocurrency should be adopted globally.

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Volatility means unpredictable or unstable. Something that is unpredictable can go in either direction at any time, its movement is erratic. Cryptocurrency is known to possess very high volatility in relation to our conventional currencies. This is because the value of cryptocurrencies is determined by the forces of the market, Demand (buy) and Supply (sell).

Demand (buy) has a positive correlation with the value of the cryptocurrency which means the price of the cryptocurrency rises when the demand of the cryptocurrency rises and falls when the demand falls. It is the opposite for supply (sell) which has a negative correlation with the value of the cryptocurrency, this implies that when the supply (sell) of the cryptocurrency increases, the price of the cryptocurrency falls. The picture below is a BTC (bitcoin) price chart that shows how volatile cryptocurrencies are. The Greens are rises and the Reds are falls.

^{BTC price volatility} source

This unpredictable price movement is not likable in business as a great loss can cause a tragic bankruptcy. Due to the volatility of cryptocurrency, there is an issue as to whether cryptocurrency is a good way to preserve value, this is because a rise in the price of the coin can yield great gains and the fall of the price can cause a loss of funds. This makes cryptocurrency risky and that kind of uncertainty is not preferred in business as the business owner needs a sound mind to perform.

But this isn’t entirely a problem anymore as a solution has been put in place to take care of the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies. There has been an introduction of stable coins. The value of Stable coins is pegged or linked to real-life currencies so that they mimic their behavior. This reduces the volatility of the coin.

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Anti-cryptocurrency in some parts of the world: this is a speed bump in the global adoption of cryptocurrency. There are some parts of the world where there are strict rules and regulations that goes as far as banning cryptocurrencies with the claim of guarding their financial market and the funds of citizens. A prominent example of this situation is the banning of crypto in China

^{Banning of crypto in china} source

It is not only China, there are other countries such as Nigeria and India that are also anti-cryptos. They do this mostly because the government knows that it can be used to evade some taxes, can be used for money laundering, by-pass capital control, and other criminal acts. These actions by the governments do not only hinder the progression of adoption but also have an impact on the price as these kinds of announcements cause panic in the market. This deprives the citizens of the opportunity to experience the good things that cryptocurrency has to give.

What I think can be done about this situation is that the government should target the actual issues or problems with cryptocurrency and regulate those aspects. This will be a good thriving ground for cryptocurrency as this will allow the government and cryptocurrency to coexist peacefully.

There is also the issue of environmental degradation. The impact of mining cryptocurrency on the environ be easily seen around the world. Mining cryptocurrency is known to consume huge amounts of energy due to the high-tech devices that are used.

The Pic below shows the amount of energy consumed in mining bitcoin every year and it rises as time goes on. It can be seen that cryptocurrency mining consumes a lot of energy even greater than in some countries and that is scary.

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I think what can be done to curb this is to switch to less energy-consuming methods of consensus algorithms like the proof of stake, proof of capacity, etc. Also, less energy-consuming devices should be used instead.

The safety of the funds of users, cryptocurrencies anonymize the identity of their users. This has given an advantage to cyber criminals to hack cryptocurrency exchanges and depositories. Users lose their funds as a result. These attacks are unpredictable and difficult to track. This security issue causes people to fear and not adopt cryptocurrency.

^{some crypto hacks in history}

What I think should be done is for users to store their funds in decentralized wallets, they are more secure and gives the user the freedom to take care of their own security.

Volatility is also a factor that hinders the adoption of cryptocurrency worldwide this is an issue because it can make you instantly rich or poor.

Stable coins should be established and the price range for the cryptocurrency should be set at a certain interval which will prevent the price from falling out of. We can set a price for Seem Dollars (SBD) to $7-$10 this means the price cannot fall below this range. This will make people trust cryptocurrency.

Fake Media News this is another factor that hinders on the global adoption of cryptocurrency. the Media shows a lot of bad news about cryptocurrency which brings fear to the people who might be interested in adopting and thereby not engaging in it.

The media should be regulated on that front not to spread fake news to the people, however, they can help advocate for innovation.

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i. Transacting with cryptocurrency is very fast without any delay. Due to the absence of intermediaries, transactions are not delayed at all. This eases payments and allows the business to carry out a lot of transactions without any form of restriction.

ii. There is minimal cost involved in transacting cryptocurrency. When sending funds in cryptocurrency, there charge involve is very little in relation to bank transactions. This helps the business to save some funds they could have wasted on transaction fees and invest back into the business.

iii. The cross-border transaction feature of cryptocurrency can help the business owner to transact with clients worldwide. This is made possible with the Peer-to-peer transaction feature of cryptocurrency. The business can easily transact with clients and avoid long and stressful bank processes.

iv. Tax charges are liabilities in business that can be taken care of by adopting cryptocurrency. They are not regulated and therefore are not affected by government regulations that apply to the conventional currency. This saves the businesses some funds they can use for other matters.

v. The business can transact at any point in time throughout the week. There is no closing time for cryptocurrency unlike the services of our traditional banks that are not available mostly after evenings and weekends, this hinders the business to receive or send funds during those times.

vi. Transaction records are never lost and cannot be altered. In the case of any misunderstanding, the transaction records can be consulted with trust.

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i. Transactions are not reversible. if either the client or business owner sends funds to a wrong address mistakenly, they will not be able to recover those funds, and this will lead to great losses on either side. What can be done is to take extra caution and check out the receiving address multiple times and confirm that it is the right address before sending.

ii. The high volatility in the crypto market can cause the business to lose a lot of funds if there is a huge downtrend in the market. This can cause the business to go bankrupt and it may find it difficult to recover. This can be curbed by transacting in stable coins.

iii. Cryptocurrency is not widely accepted yet and many businesses do not accept it as a form of payment. Business owners will have to use fiat currencies with those businesses or not transact with them at all. This can cause the business to lose some clients.

iv. Cryptocurrency wallets are mostly decentralized, so users have complete control of their private keys. This can be very bad as when the private keys are lost, they cannot be recovered again and this will be a huge blow to the funds of the business.

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The adoption of cryptocurrency will in many ways help the financial realm that we currently have.

This long write-up talked about the adoption of cryptocurrency, and how cryptocurrency can help boost businesses where I mentioned points like the business can be boosted through the ease of transactions, the low transaction fees in cryptocurrency, security of funds, and many more.

Then I said my mind about the adoption of cryptocurrency worldwide, I think it will be a good thing to do. I continued the post by stating my mind on the effect of the volatility of cryptocurrency on the business owner. I then talked about the factors that hinder the global adoption of cryptocurrency, some of the points are; the banning of cryptocurrency in some parts of the world, environmental degradation due to high energy consumption, fake news, etc.

The last part of the post talks about some advantages and disadvantages of the adoption of cryptocurrency in businesses.

It is evident from this write-up that the adoption of cryptocurrency is very important and will do a lot of good to the financial realm. Though there may be some downsides the benefits significantly outweigh them.

I invite @phlexygee, @ronindboss, @wealthmary, @srrebullient to partake in this contest.