• Citi believes that mass adoption of blockchain technology will happen when more than a billion people are using it without even knowing.
• They expect this to happen through CBDCs, as more and more governments start implementing digital currencies in their economies.
• The lender also identified social media payments and gaming as other potential use cases for blockchain technology.

Citigroup Believes CBDCs Will Lead the Way to Mass Adoption

U.S. banking giant Citigroup believes that mass adoption of blockchain technology is six to eight years away and will be driven by central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and tokenization of financial, gaming, and real-world assets, according to the lender’s latest blockchain report.

Why Mass Adoption Will Happen

Citi compared blockchain innovation to the early days of gas-powered vehicles or digital cameras and said that the world usually does not recognize the value and benefits of disruptive technologies at first. This factor is compounded by the nature of blockchains, which are a „backend infrastructure technology with no prominent consumer interface,“ unlike automobiles and cameras. However, Citi believes that the mass adoption of blockchain tech will happen in the near future as it starts to establish itself in real-world use cases.

Citi’s Recipe For Mass Adoption

According to the research report, mass adoption will occur when more than a billion people are using blockchain technology without even knowing they’re using it. The lender believes this will most likely happen through CBDCs as more and more governments start implementing digital currencies in their economies. As of March, more than 20 central banks plan to issue or have already issued a digital currency — giving almost 2 billion people access to digital money in the coming years. Furthermore, Citi projects CBDCs to hit a combined market cap of $5 trillion by 2030 in major economies and said that roughly 50% of them would be linked to distributed ledger technology.

Social Media Payments & Gaming

Beyond CBDCs, Citi said that other potential use cases for blockchain technology include social media payments platforms such as Facebook’s Libra project — which has garnered interest from both retail users and institutional investors — along with gaming applications leveraging non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for ownership rights over virtual items such as rare art pieces or characters within video games like CryptoKitties or Gods Unchained cards game series on Ethereum network .

Conclusion

In conclusion, Citi noted that CBDCs will allow people to interact and experiment with digital currencies in a relatively secure environment due to state-backing — which is expectedly good news for overall adoption of blockchain tech despite most central banks not using it for their CBDCs .