This article was originally published on PERC360.
Since Friday I have seen a handful of polls on Facebook and Twitter asking if cryptocurrencies were discussed over Thanksgiving celebrations. Why is this news? Well, it seems to me like an overwhelmingly large proportion of dinners this year involved cryptocurrency discussions.
Over the past few months, we have seen the media presence of cryptocurrencies gain coverage exponentially. And with this, many prominent figures have tried to estimate what the future cryptocurrency adoption curve looks like (actual curves for some widespread items below).
Guesses for “time to mass adoption” of cryptocurrencies have generally fallen in the 5-15 year range. But what will it take to reach this “mass adoption”. I think it’s safe to say it won’t be a linear progression, rather, steady growth with a few inflection points.
I’m sure you can guess where I am going with this. I believe Thanksgiving this year was one of those inflection points with an abrupt jump in cryptocurrency notoriety. This was the first Thanksgiving where bringing up a Bitcoin or cryptocurrency conversation was likely to spark a discussion. In previous years most people either wouldn’t have mentioned the topic since it was too far “out there” or if the topic was brought up, there wouldn’t have been enough of an interest to spark a worthwhile discussion.
Last year, the word “Bitcoin” was not in the vocabulary of the average American.
This year, while most people still can’t explain Bitcoin or blockchain, they have at least come across the words. Whether it be the newspaper, CNBC, or social media, even those who haven’t decided to learn or invest in cryptocurrencies have at least become akin to some of the buzz. And that’s what I think was the pivotal difference this year.
Just check out the change in market cap since Thanksgiving day below (courtesy of CoinMarketCap):
We’re looking at a gain of approximately 13% over a three day period (technically two days since most Thanksgiving celebrations took place in the latter half of November 23rd). About $32 Billion added to the market cap.
Did your Thanksgiving involve a Bitcoin/crypto discussion this year? Would love to hear about it below.
