As usual with articles plugging crypto, there is so much wrong here. It right away goes south with the completely irrelevant and contradictory intro citing Aristotle and Abba. However, the title is about the “Top 5 Advantages of Cryptocurrencies”. You know to hesitate, when ever you see anything titled “The Top [choose-a-number] [choose a quality]” of anything. And that is the case here. What follows is an unperplexing guide to the “Top 5” in this article.

Financial Inclusion

This is pure silliness. The requirements for access to crypto are:

1. Access to convertible currencies to buy crypto

2. Access to the entire reliable technology stack and knowledge to avoid being swindled by counterfeit apps

3. Access to exchanges and up-to-date quotes and an ability analyze these to time purchases to avoid downward volatility vs. cost or value of goods

Virtually nothing in the real world can be purchased with crypto, which requires that crypto be converted back into a currency that is used in the real world. Even with crypto-to-crypto transactions, the valuation and pricing of goods will always likely acquire a trans-valuation in a stable currency.

Not exactly a set of conditions and circumstances that enhance financial inclusion. Or, certainly, fair and advantageous inclusion.

Easy International Payments

This, in theory, is true. However, without a legal infrastructure and restitution mechanism for when there’s disagreement, this will continue as today: 90% extralegal or illegal money movement.

Globalization

Again, in theory, there is an opportunity with digital identities for real-world assets. Again, the legal framework is absent as is any dispute, recovery, restitution framework. The cost and effort to put this in place on any significant scale will defeat almost all such efforts.

Digital & Disruptive Innovation

This is happening, as cited, in the case of M-PESA. However, the chief characteristic is that it is a mechanism to by-pass the currency of countries that suffer high levels of corruption and mismanagement. This may seem something positive, but in principle it is not. The most painful symptoms of living in a corrupt, poorly governed country are mitigated and thereby decreases the pressure (most of all from the elites) to improve governance. The mass of people are perpetually forced to rely on crypto and thereby on a volatile value store. The disruption that will likely come about by such countries adopting crypto will be to expand and further entrench the corrupt elites.

No Counterfeiting

With the advent of complex anti-counterfeiting technology applied to modern paper currency, counterfeiting succeeds now more by ignorance or complicity and is generally more of a problem for governments than for people. This is, however, kind of a bizarre issue to raise in favor of crypto, where the majority of its use is speculative, black markets and money laundering.

Conclusion

G20 countries and consumers in G20 countries will never adopt crypto for anything practical. This is beyond fantasy, it is delusional on the part of the crypto world.

Wall Street is always willing to take a piece of action on anything. Apart from that, forget about it.

Crypto has made virtually no inroads into the standard functions of currencies for the mass of people and never will in the G20 and only marginally elsewhere: buying and selling everyday things. And for very good reason and one that has almost no imaginable prospect of changing: volatility. Even if stores everywhere started to accept crypto, my guess is it would only marginally add to usage in stable, well-governed western democracies, if at all. It is beyond imagining that human behavior would change to accepting that their groceries could cost more or less, depending on what day or time of day they shopped. Add to this the business perspective of having to also contend with volatility and you have a recipe for a store of value that would massively increase costs of doing business and bring significant uncertainty in people’s day-to-day life.

In short, you can ignore prospect of crypto being a part of your life if not anytime soon, never in the G20.