Citigroup Believes CBDCs Will Lead to Mass Adoption

奔跑财经-FinaceRun · 2023-03-31T11:05:27.000Z

Mass adoption will happen when more than 1 billion people use blockchain technology without their knowledge, Citi said. US banking giant Citigroup believes mass adoption will take another six to eight years and will be driven by central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and tokens for finance, gaming and real-world assets, according to the bank’s latest blockchain report cultural promotion. Citi compared blockchain innovation to early gasoline-powered cars or digital cameras, saying the world often doesn’t initially recognize the value and benefits of disruptive technologies. This factor is further complicated by the nature of blockchain, which, unlike cars and cameras, is a “backend infrastructure technology without a prominent consumer interface.”

Citi said mass adoption will occur when more than 1 billion people use blockchain technology without knowing it.
US banking giant Citigroup believes that mass adoption is still six to eight years away and will be driven by central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and the tokenization of financial, gaming and real-world assets, according to the bank’s latest blockchain report.
Citi likened blockchain innovation to early gasoline-powered cars or digital cameras, saying the world often doesn’t initially recognize the value and benefits of disruptive technologies. This factor is further complicated by the nature of blockchain, which, unlike cars and cameras, is a “backend infrastructure technology with no prominent consumer interface.”
However, Citi believes that mass adoption of blockchain technology will occur in the near future as it begins to gain a foothold in real-world use cases. Citi said:
“The momentum for adoption has shifted positively as governments, large institutions and enterprises move from investigating the benefits of tokenization to trials and proofs of concept.”
Citi’s Secret to Mass Adoption
According to the research report, mass adoption will occur when more than 1 billion people use blockchain technology without knowing it.
Lenders believe that as more governments begin to implement digital currencies in their economies, this will most likely be achieved through CBDCs. As of March, more than 20 central banks plan to issue or have already issued digital currencies - making digital currencies accessible to nearly 2 billion people in the coming years.
Citi expects the total market value of CBDCs in major economies to reach $5 trillion by 2030, and says about 50% of that will be linked to distributed ledger technology.
Citi noted that due to state backing, CBDCs would allow people to interact and experiment with digital currencies in a relatively safe environment, which is a good thing for the overall adoption of blockchain technology, although most central banks are not using it for their CBDCs.
Social Media Payments and Gaming
In addition to CBDCs, blockchain-based social media payments and tokenization of gaming assets will play an important role in driving the adoption of blockchain technology among the public, Citi said.
Almost every social media platform currently supports digital payments, and some, like Telegram and WhatsApp, have made considerable progress.
Telegram recently launched blockchain-based USDT payments, allowing users to send and receive stablecoins through messaging. The app has been a staunch supporter of cryptocurrencies and blockchain payments almost since its inception.
Meanwhile, tokenization of in-game assets is expected to drive adoption among more than 3 billion gamers worldwide. However, web3 games will reportedly need to be as good as non-web3 games to achieve this.
Citi said that gamers do not care about the technology used in their games, they only care about the quality of the game and will easily switch to their favorite web3 equivalent software (if one exists). The lender pointed out that even if only a small portion of the gaming community adopts blockchain-based games, it will still lead to a significant increase in the number of adoptions.
“With over 3 billion gamers worldwide today, we could see closer to 50 million to 100 million people adopting games that have some element of Web3 or blockchain by 2025.”
Furthermore, the lender believes that the tokenization of financial and real-work assets is expected to grow 80-fold in the private markets in the coming years and could also be a significant driver of mass adoption.