Both large and small companies are maintaining their crypto optimism despite the recent market correction in the evolving technology space.
According to Harold Bossé, Mastercard’s vice president of new product development and innovation, the mass adoption of blockchain technology and digital assets will happen sooner rather than later.
Today, there are millions of individuals consuming and sending digital assets around the world, Bossé noted a webinar during Avalanche’s Powering Business with Blockchain series on Tuesday. “They’re early adopters and new adopters, but we’ve moved into mass markets, [and] that will be a very important aspect for financial institutions to enter the space.”
However, there are currently a number of challenges holding companies back from entering the market, Bossé said: lack of understanding from senior management, commercial reasons surrounding scalability, cost and speed, and regulatory concerns.
“No one will use digital assets on blockchains unless they are absolutely certain that this money is good money,” Bossé said.
In recent weeks, there have been a number of market factors that have dragged the crypto industry down, including the demise of the defunct algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and cryptocurrency LUNA and concerns over the industry’s regulation. All of these factors – and more – indicate a greater need for security in the industry as bigger players get involved.
“It has to become invisible. I keep saying that and I sound like a broken record but it needs to fade into the background for users who don’t care – frankly my mom doesn’t care if it [centralized finance] or DeFi.” Harold Bossé
The truth, Bossé said, is that startups need to look at ideas that don’t exist today and create businesses enabled by these emerging technologies.
“Think of the advent of the internet; no one thought Amazon could even be a concept — you need the Internet to make Amazon work,” he said. “We’re in the same situation: how do we transform people’s lives and cater to demographics or groups of people who don’t really think about blockchain first, but think about their business problems?”
That thought, in addition to another trillion dollar question Bossé asked, was how the crypto industry is pushing companies to think about solving their problems in innovative ways through these new technologies, which allows them to charge for different services.
From there, they can monetize activities in a different way and go beyond what’s happening today, Bossé said. It’s about exceeding normal business expectations and building community in what could be an “uncomfortable zone” for some, he added.
