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According to cryptocurrency founder, Vitalik Buterin. Speaking at the recent Tech Crunch Disrupt SF 2017, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the Ethereum cryptocurrency believes... Ethereum Could Match Visa In Scale In Just A Few Years

According to cryptocurrency founder, Vitalik Buterin.

Speaking at the recent Tech Crunch Disrupt SF 2017, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the Ethereum cryptocurrency believes that his cryptocurrency has the potential to one day match the likes of Visa, transaction for transaction in certain areas, and even be used to run game servers for games like Star Craft 2.

Ethereum Could Match Visa In Scale In Just A Few Years, Says Founder Vitalik Buterin (In Certain Situations)

What Ethereum would look like if it was a physical currency. But it isn’t, it’s digital, of course.

Earlier reports that Buterin claimed Ethereum would one day replace Visa and its ilk have proved to be untrue; which is a shame, because that would have made for a far more interesting story, which kind of sucks for me writing this right now.
But hey, that’s life, and Buterin did make some quite interesting other arguments to do with the future of Ethereum, and the future of digital cryptocurrencies.

HODL: What’s holding you back?

One of the key sticking blocks currently holding back digital currency such as Ethereum, is the speed at which blockchain transactions take place. Essentially, they are too slow, Buterin said. In a few years though, he claims however they wont be, and may be able to complete transactions at the same speed the likes of Visa can transfer and complete Fiat currency transfers now.

All power to the engines

“Bitcoin is processing a bit less than 3 transactions per second,” he said. “Ethereum is doing five a second. Uber gives 12 rides a second.” meaning that at current rates, “it will take a couple of years for the blockchain to replace Visa.” New technology will change that.

But another sticking point currently holding back mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency is that in the real world, most people may have heard of Bitcoin, but have no real idea what it actually is. “There’s the average person who’s already heard of bitcoin and the average person who hasn’t,” Buterin said. The Ethereum project apparently is working on changing all that. Blockchains need to do more, and Ethereum, he said, is at the forefront of that undertaking, adding more utility to the blockchain, and creating something that not only everyone will want to hear about, but want to use.

“Where Ethereum comes from is basically you take the idea of crypto economics and the kinds of economic incentives that keeps things like bitcoin going to create decentralized networks with memory for a whole bunch of applications,” he said. “A good blockchain application is something that needs decentralization and some kind of shared memory.”
Time will tell…