The adoption curve for crypto is thought to be in its early phases, and data from Wells Fargo suggests that it is remarkably similar to the early stages of internet adoption in 1990, providing a peek of how crypto might become a part of everyone’s lives as it becomes widespread.
“The Internet has transformed the computing and communications world like nothing before,” says internetsociety.org in a brief history of the Internet.
What would our society and portfolios look like if crypto is the next revolution, and many industries have already jumped in (financial, music, fashion, gaming, social media, etc.)?
90s Internet Vs Crypto Technology
A survey published by the Wells Fargo Investment Institute compared how individuals began to embrace the internet in 1990 to current bitcoin adoption rates.
According to the financial adviser, both internet and crypto usage started slowly, but because the former “reached an inflection point, and then steeply accelerated,” the crypto business could see a similar increase in the coming years.
According to the paper, “decades transpired between the actual breakthroughs and skyrocketing adoption rates” in the case of various technologies.
Despite the fact that the internet was invented in 1983, just 1% of the world’s population and 14% of Americans used it by 1995. Experts believe these figures are comparable to current cryptocurrency adoption rates.
According to Crypto.com, by 2021, over 3% of the world’s population will have become cryptocurrency users (221 million in June 2021). The most impressive aspect is how quickly the industry reached that percentage, considering that only four months prior, the number of users had been cut in half, to about 100 million.
The time it takes for many users to “figure out what the technology is, what it can accomplish, and how it can benefit them” is a prevalent aspect in how they engage new technologies in their early stages. According to research, crypto newbies in 2021 believed the space was still in its early adoption stage, “since many find the technology intimidating and application cases uncertain.”
The data in the charts below suggests that bitcoin adoption rates are following in the footsteps of “other earlier advanced technologies, particularly the internet.” As a result, crypto may soon reach “an inflection point of hyper-adoption” similar to these other technologies, in which case the upward trend has not slowed.
“For the internet, that point was the mid-to-late 1990s. After a slow start in the early 1990s, internet use surged from 77 million in 1996 to 412 million in 2000. By 2010, worldwide internet use had grown to 1.98 billion, and today it sits at 4.9 billion.”
The graph below compares the rise in crypto users since 2014 with the expansion of internet adoption from 1993 to today. Experts believe that “cryptocurrency use today may even be a little ahead of the mid-to-late 1990s internet,” indicating that “cryptocurrency adoption today may even be a little ahead of the mid-to-late 1990s internet,” indicating that “cryptocurrency adoption today may even be a little ahead of the mid-to-late 1990s internet,” indicating that “cryptocurrency adoption today may soon hit a hyper-inflection point.”
“It often takes many years for consumers to widely adopt new advanced technologies.”
Wells Fargo analysts predict that “cryptocurrencies will eventually follow an accelerated adoption path comparable to other digital breakthroughs,” such as wifi and cell phones. All of these developments are already commonplace in most people’s daily lives.
More investors are predicted to lose their fear of the crypto sector as adoption of this new technology goes into the early majority –and mass adoption–, and value is expected to rise as demand rises.
Furthermore, the lack of a clear regulatory framework for the industry, which drives investors and consumers away, is a significant concern that may hinder adoption. However, because governments cannot continue to look the other way for much longer, clarification is expected to arrive shortly, resulting in an increase in adoption.