Will Ethereum ever become a mainstream payment method?

Alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum is widely regarded as being the most popular form of cryptocurrency around right now. Both have illustrated dramatic growth in recent times which adds to many peoples’ view that we will soon be operating in a cashless world. Whether or not a cashless scenario will eventually unfold remains to be seen but there is no doubting that Ethereum is having a good time of it right now. 

Pascal Thellman, an expert at the Coin Telegraph, thinks that mass adoption isn’t too far away for Ethereum, comparing it to the emergence of the internet in particular. He recently said: “The internet didn’t go mainstream the moment Tim Berners-Lee developed the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It went mainstream when search engines like Google, social networks like Facebook and email services like AOL were introduced. We may be seeing a similar trend with the Ethereum network right now.” 

The signs are there 

The aforementioned trend Thellman speaks of is certainly in motion. In fact, the second most valuable blockchain behind Bitcoin is now being used by huge corporations for their respective transactions, all of which accompanies the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) which features the likes of Credit Suisse and Microsoft, with such companies having Ethereum experts within their ranks. We’re even seeing the emergence of options like this  Ethereum Casino  too, with casino gamers having the opportunity to experience the benefits of gaming at a cryptocurrency-based casino and the hassle-free package it provides. The need for Ether has certainly not subsided and its appeal is understandable. 

What is needed for Ethereum to go mainstream? 

For starters, price stability is vital. Prices in the cryptocurrency market fluctuate wildly on the whole which can, in turn, halt its overall progress in terms of becoming a mainstream payment method. A stable and essentially secure price will give investors more confidence and enable more and more mainstream services to adopt it. The emergence of stablecoins has helped solve this issue in some respects, although not fully. 

In terms of transactions being executed per second, Ethereum tends to come in at around the 20 second mark. The eventual goal, though, is to be able to handle 1000’s of transactions per second, although a variety of competitors, such as Solana, have similar ambitions. Should this type of scalability be achieved for Ethereum, though, then it could massively work in its favour. 

Finally, a number of usability options need to be explored before the world’s population fully grasp the concept of Ethereum – and other popular cryptocurrencies – as a mainstream payment method. For instance, for the average non-crypto user, the terms used around cryptocurrency might not necessarily make sense and can seem daunting on the whole. Put simply, people don’t understand crypto and the blockchain, and it’s fairly hard to explain it to someone. After all, if people fail to grasp the fundamentals of what it is that they’re buying, then they simply won’t purchase it. Hopefully, in time, the likes of Ethereum can be simplified.