One-Third of Cryptocurrencies Are Unspendable

There are multiple investors in the cryptocurrency market nowadays and this has not always been the case.

Cryptocurrencies are being traded speculatively, when you buy monero on an exchange, you’re paying a price that is based less on its usefulness today, and more on what it could be worth in the future, should mass adoption of cryptocurrency occur and privacy coins prosper.

“The investment information you are looking for is not anywhere to be found in the charts. Rather, it’s in one’s ability to understand and visualize the future of [the cryptocurrency] market.”

Cryptocurrency speculation is natural. In fact, such behavior is healthy, as it drives eventual adoption. But sooner or later, you might want to do something with the cryptos you deem as keepers, like move them off an exchange, spend them, or gift them to friends. And that’s where you start to run into problems. To gain an insight into the spendability of cryptocurrencies, news.Bitcoin.com set out to answer a simple question: How many of the top 100 cryptocurrencies can be sent to friends and family?

In addition to recording the number of cryptocurrencies that lack a stable desktop or mobile wallet, news.Bitcoin.com calculated the average age of these projects: two years and one month. Of these, 53% lack an iOS wallet, while the remainder lacks an Android and/or stable desktop wallet. For recording purposes, any ERC20 token was deemed mobile-compatible, even though many ethereum-based projects lack their own dedicated mobile wallet. A number of altcoins with their own blockchain have yet to receive proper mobile support, but Free wallet has done the honors for Android users, with varying degrees of success.

Having a mobile wallet isn’t the holy grail of cryptocurrencies, and many of the coins in the top 100 aren’t designed as outright currencies. But for them to be usable for whatever purpose they’ve been assigned – utility token; security; equity – they need to work reliably on desktop and mobile. For so long as users are downloading beta wallets from Github repositories, the cryptocurrency revolution will remain on ice. Only once cryptos become easily spendable, with a velocity to match, will real progress have been made. Store of value or medium of exchange, it makes no difference. 70% of cryptocurrencies currently pass the test. 30% must do better.