Current Situation

Currently, cryptocurrency isn't used that much in the Netherlands. There is a Dutch exchange, but only a few people have heard of that. We haven't heard of a single shop or store that supports crypto as a payment method, except for international companies or gift card shops (such as coinsbee.com). People are scared of the technology that is used and the complicated setup process. There isn't such a guide to explain how to set up your wallet, buy certain coins on exchanges, transfer and pay. Once you finally get the hang of it, doing all of those tasks seems like child play.

Big companies are working hard on integrating crypto as a payment method, even though you don't really notice big differences. We've noticed that most companies still sell their coins to USD right after receiving them to make sure they don't lose money on the exchange rate. We understand this, but that kind of people make the market volatile and hold progressions back. There are multiple networks (or blockchains) that all have their own "base" coin. For the Ethereum network, this is ETH and for Binance Smart Chain, this is BNB.

Every transaction has a "gas" fee. This is a small price you have to pay for using the network, this will be given to the miners as a reward. In the Ethereum network, this is a very high price. Most people don't even bother transferring coins or buying another token. The costs for a simple transaction can be as high as 250$. The total mining power influences the price of these transactions. Gas fees will be lower when more nodes are running.

Due to the high demand for Ethereum and its scalability, they are starting to transfer to a new network. This is going to be called ETH 2.0. They will be using proof of stake instead of a proof of work (or mining) protocol. Staking is locking a specific amount of coins (in this case 32) for a specific amount of time to make sure the price stays stable.

Here is a picture that describes the difference between Proof of Work and Proof of Stake:

a meme about the Ethereum gas fee problem

Also, NFT markets are becoming more hyped. Currently, they are only being used to sell and buy art but we think they have the potential to store and transfer NFTs such as gaming collectables or even legal documents. They can be signed and made sure they are the only legitimate copy.