The Road to Mass Adoption: Major Milestones Hit by Crypto in 2021

A number of big-league players have made their entry into the crypto scene, and major crypto companies acquired newfound legitimacy on the traditional markets. Some events have put on display exactly how far the industry has come over the years, while others offered a glimpse into what awaits it in the future.

Let us take a look at the major events of 2021 that have helped put crypto onto everyone’s radar.

Crypto Market Reaches New All-Time Highs

That decline had only reversed in the latter half of 2020 when the prices reached their previous record levels — a dynamic that continued into 2021. After a relatively sluggish start this year, by September, the crypto market was well on its way to the new maximums.

While historical price data is not a good predictor for future performance of cryptocurrencies and, by extension, the pace of their wider adoption, it nevertheless does a fairly good job of indicating the popularity that they have managed to amass up to this point — which is more than they’ve ever enjoyed. As for actual cryptocurrency price and usage predictions for the next year, a number of industry analysts have come out with rather optimistic outlooks.

El Salvador Becomes First Country to Adopt Bitcoin as Legal Tender

Despite a major supporting campaign that included the establishment of several hundred Bitcoin ATMs and attention centers and an incentive of a $30 equivalent in BTC to every citizen who would begin using El Salvador’s own crypto wallet Chivo, the rollout did not go without a hitch: for one, the app had to be briefly disconnected due to being overloaded with traffic.

Another concern is Bitcoin’s volatility: the cryptocurrency’s surges and dips can routinely reach double-digit percentages in a single day and present a major financial and psychological hurdle for a lot of El Salvadoran citizens who depend on every single dollar in their wages for daily necessities.

Celebrities Become Really Into NFTs

NFTs have managed to grow from a novel, poorly-understood concept to an immensely popular, slightly better-understood concept among the general public, which is reflected by how popular they’ve become among both celebrities and large international brands.

First Major U.S. Bank Offers Clients Access to Bitcoin: Morgan Stanley

While he did extend a lukewarm acknowledgment that Bitcoin is “not going away overnight,” CEO James Gorman had said in November 2017 that the cryptocurrency did not deserve the attention it was getting, referring to the volatility of its price and its subsequent nature as a highly speculative asset.

In a reversal of that sentiment, Morgan Stanley — the sixth-largest bank in the U.S. by total assets — chose to offer its clients three different funds that enable investment into Bitcoin, starting in March 2021.

Although a clear sign of recognition by the mainstream financial industry, the decision was indeed more of a symbolic gesture than concrete proof of widespread adoption. The new funds will only be available to investors who have parked more than $2 million at Morgan Stanley and have a high risk tolerance — pricing the majority of retail investors out of the opportunity.

The requirements for accredited investors with brokerage accounts are even higher, with a minimum of $5 million under the bank’s management. Moreover, the amount of purchased Bitcoin is limited to 2.5% of any particular client’s net worth.

On the flip side, the actual usefulness of the bank’s new funds remains under question, as does the effect of their introduction on the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency; the doubts were reflected by BTC’s price movement: in the week following the announcement, the coin fell from a high of $58,870 down to about $52,774.

PayPal, Venmo Add Support for Crypto

Venmo’s customers can now use the app to buy, store and sell amounts of crypto worth as little as one U.S. dollar. The introduction of cryptocurrency support means that the app’s audience of over 50 million active users is now exposed to digital assets, although as much as a third of Venmo’s customers have reportedly already bought crypto via other means.

Perplexingly, despite being primarily a payments app, Venmo does not yet allow the transfer of crypto assets between users — only buying from and selling back to the company itself.

PayPal — the company that owns Venmo — has also introduced crypto to its users: in 2020, it enabled the 26 million merchants that use the service to accept the same four cryptocurrencies as payment for their products.

Crypto Exchange Coinbase Gets Listed on NASDAQ

For example, it is actually the largest exchange available to customers based in the United States due to the fact that its five larger competitors have so far failed to meet the exacting conditions imposed by American regulatory bodies on crypto businesses.

It should come as no surprise that Coinbase became the first crypto exchange to announce that it is going public in January and conclude a listing in April 2021 on NASDAQ, one of the largest American stock exchanges, second only to the New York Stock Exchange.

At the moment, Coinbase’s stock is trading at $280.27, about 14.6% below its opening price of $328.28 on Apr. 14, following disappointing third-quarter financial results posted by the exchange. Nevertheless, the company’s listing proves that Wall Street is becoming more welcoming to cryptocurrency firms that it used to treat with disregard or even outright hostility in prior years.

Meta (Formerly Facebook) Announces Metaverse

Moreover, Marcus said that the company is looking into implementing support for NFTs in its digital wallet Novi, which is based on Diem, which is based on Libra. A December tweet from Meta in response to the Pepsi Mic Drop — which we’ve already mentioned above — has all but confirmed that the company is very much interested in including NFTs into its Metaverse experience:

There are, however, concerns over Meta’s actual implementation of its VR environment. So far there has been little indication that Metaverse will be truly decentralized and user-controlled, making the introduction of blockchain-based assets, whose main advantage lies in the direct ownership they offer, seem almost a pointless gimmick.

Facebook’s terrible track record in terms of user privacy and data protection, among other issues, is likely to cast serious doubt on whether or not Meta is worthy of being entrusted with people’s identities, information and digital assets.