Lackluster Adoption of Cryptocurrencies as a Consumer Payment Method in the United States—Hypothesis: Is This Independent Technology in Need of a Brand, and What Kind?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is potentially interesting. I honestly do not feel qualified to understand all the proposed steps. However, the article, as it is, it cannot be accepted for the following reasons:
- the abstract does not describe essential elements such as research methodology, the research aim, the research gap and the expected benefits and limitations.
- lack of research framework
- literature review absent
- absence of any discussions or comments on the results
I strongly encourage a complete resubmission to meet the minimum standards for a relevant publication. As it is it looks like a demonstration for a lecture instead of a research article.
Author Response
-I have added the words Hypothesis to the title, abstract, and the methods section to more clearly indicate that this is not an empirical study work, and that we do not have results yet.
-We have removed the draft survey questions in order to more clearly communicate that this is a hypothesis paper. It was one of the requested formats in the MDPI call for papers.
-We were not able to include survey results, charts, or discussion of the findings since this paper is only a summation of previous literature reviews and interviews, with a preview of future work, and it precedes the quantitative data analysis.
-Our research strategy is to conduct an empirical study built on top of the original TAM, with instruments and scales developed for TAM and from the referenced brand literature. We intend to perform a Confirmatory Factor Analysis on the data, test for parameter reliability (C.R.), and look at bias. I have added some of these previews to the paper to reflect your feedback. We will also use SEM, once the survey data comes it, but this is only a Hypothesis paper based on our own literature reviews and interviews with domain experts.
-We have added a section in Section 3, more clearly describing what our literature review unearthed, and highlighted specific gaps in the literature.
-We have changed the Abstract to more clearly state that the literature view conducted ONLY found adoption barriers related to usability, switching costs, and that influence of brand on crypto adoption was a clear gap in the research.
-I did make some changes when it comes to spelling, grammar, and style, but my 3 native speaking co-authors confirmed that the paper does not need to be submitted for a complete English rewrite by an editing service. I did run it through Grammarly, and a couple of other online services to further refine the language and style.
-I did add some recent news which might bolster the hypothesis, as it pertains to brand, trust, and cryptocurrencies (Facebook and FTX)
Reviewer 2 Report
This Paper forms a hypothesis around factors related to brand and wanders what kind of entity would need to back a new or evolved form of digital currency to increase its usage as a general consumer payment method. The Paper is well written; however, the following concerns should be taken care of.
- The abstract should be modified as per the hypothesis and survey outcomes. The current version is unable to provide the intended meaning and problem statement.
- There is no literature review or background section to discuss similar papers that focused on the same research direction and how this Hypothesis Paper is different.
- The author should add some pie chart results of their survey question, which support their hypothesis and analysis of results.
- The author should discuss more deep aspects in the conclusion sections, like: What kind of relations between existing brands and cryptocurrencies.
Author Response
Thank you for taking the time to review this submission. We have found a number of the comments to be very insightful and actionable. I am also responding to a few that could not be addressed, but hope the overall work still warrants inclusion.
-I have added the words Hypothesis to the title, abstract, and the methods section to more clearly indicate that this is not an empirical study work, and that we do not have results yet.
-We have removed the draft survey questions in order to more clearly communicate that this is a hypothesis paper. It was one of the requested formats in the MDPI call for papers.
-We were not able to include survey results, charts, or discussion of the findings since this paper is only a summation of previous literature reviews and interviews, with a preview of future work, and it precedes the quantitative data analysis.
-Our research strategy is to conduct an empirical study built on top of the original TAM, with instruments and scales developed for TAM and from the referenced brand literature. We intend to perform a Confirmatory Factor Analysis on the data, test for parameter reliability (C.R.), and look at bias. I have added some of these previews to the paper to reflect your feedback. We will also use SEM, once the survey data comes it, but this is only a Hypothesis paper based on our own literature reviews and interviews with domain experts.
-We have added a section in Section 3, more clearly describing what our literature review unearthed, and highlighted specific gaps in the literature.
-We have changed the Abstract to more clearly state that the literature view conducted ONLY found adoption barriers related to usability, switching costs, and that influence of brand on crypto adoption was a clear gap in the research.
-I did make some changes when it comes to spelling, grammar, and style, but my 3 native speaking co-authors confirmed that the paper does not need to be submitted for a complete English rewrite by an editing service. I did run it through Grammarly, and a couple of other online services to further refine the language and style.
-I did add some recent news which might bolster the hypothesis, as it pertains to brand, trust, and cryptocurrencies (Facebook and FTX)
Reviewer 3 Report
The proposed study, using “What if” scenarios is intriguing and the sample size of 300 should be sufficient to test the hypotheses. However, the authors should consider an additional angle tied to trust. The authors argue that ‘Lawrence Lessig’s “code is law”, or the fact that the technology itself provides the assurances is not enough.’ However, the authors should consider that this may not be true. Many of the issues identified, including losing private keys and being hacked relate to either failures of technology (poor phone security) or the complexity of the technology. One of the keys to wide-spread adoption of any technology is ease of use. The desire for a trusted entity, such as a bank in traditional finance, may not be because potential users do not trust a cryptocurrency, but rather because they do not feel comfortable with the underlying technology. This adds an additional layer of complexity in the crypto industry because anyone offering assistance in learning how to use cryptocurrency would need to be trusted.
The article focuses on general adoption and makes and important distinction between the motivations of many early adaptors. The study, once complete, will fill an important gap in the current literature. In this discussion, it was interesting to see that one constraint on usage is the perception by some consumers that crypto is “their most precious asset.” There is an irony that the perceived high value of cryptocurrencies by early adaptors may slow it’s wide-spread usage.
The title should be changed to make it clear that the focus is the United States. Adoption in developing countries, including the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tenders in El Salvador and the Central African Republic, is very different than in the United States. Also, statements like “Bitcoin is relegated to a few edge use cases” is not true for all parts of the world. Line 289 makes it clear the focus is the US and the surveys conducted focus on the US, therefore this should be reflected in the title.
It is also important to note a limitation in that cryptocurrency is a term broadly used to cover many types of assets. These can also include assets that ironically are not intended to be used as currency, such as governance tokens. It is clear the authors intend to cover assets that are meant to be used as currencies. However, even these assets vary greatly. Assets with a small market cap are less likely to be widely adopted and many of the top “cryptocurrencies”, such as ether, have a non-currency functional purpose (smart contracts). These assets could obtain wide-spread adoption via other means while not being used as a currency. As such, I recommend the authors focus specifically on Bitcoin. Not only is it the largest by market cap, it also does not have another primary use case. This also provides an interesting opportunity for the authors because although Bitcoin is centralised, the lightening network (the layer two solution to make Bitcoin fast and cheap) is argued by many not to be because there are several key companies involved. These companies may form the branding of Bitcoin in the coming years. If the authors decide to study all cryptocurrencies, they should at least state the limitation.
The hypothesis article is worth publishing and I look forward to reading the final study.
Author Response
Thank you for what was the most insightful, actionable, and useful review of our paper, by far!!!
-I have added the focus on the United States to the title, abstract, and the introduction. It was already in the methodology.
-I have added a clarification in the Method (7.1) and Discussion sections highlighting the focus on Bitcoin, and its adoption barriers. The bulk of the questions will indeed be focused on this most popular form of crypto. Potential for stablecoins, CBDCs, and even the smart contract governance tokens will now be included in a separate “what if” section of the survey.
-As a person trained in Human Factors and User-Centered Design I am a firm believer that ease of use should not be discounted as an adoption barrier. This is also tied to trust, if a particular entity were to provide onramps, training, or educate the public. I will therefore add a series of questions asking about what these trusted sources would be. Standard TAM elements about “Perceived Ease of Use” will inform us about the general perceptions. I have also added a paragraph about Usability in Section 4 posing some questions about the sources of trusted information.
-I have added a section to the introduction, where I mention that there are indeed regions where crypto is legal tender, and that the “edge use cases” should not be taken literally, and with a global implication.
-I have added mentions about smart contract government tokens, and they also have potential for mass adoption, although this may involve business to business scenarios first.
-I have improved the paper by submitting several changes WRT spelling and grammatical errors
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors narrowed the research aims, turning the article into a more feasible and meaningful project.
The reference to the most recent cases is appropriate, although underdeveloped (for obvious reasons), i.e., the FTX case is still under scrutiny.
However, my only concern is that the assumptions might still be biased since, based on analyses performed before the recent "crypto-collapse", I strongly recommend including this aspect in an essential paragraph "limitations", which is currently missing.
Author Response
This makes sense, thank you for this feedback. As instructed I have added a limitations section. It was actually needed for the FTX development, as well as for a couple of other use cases:
8. Limitations
There are several limitations we will monitor:
The collapse of the FTX crypto exchange is still developing, and we do not know what has transpired, and how it will affect consumer confidence in cryptocurrencies. We may need to revisit the literature review after the fallout.
Usability remains a challenge, and it may play a significant role as an adoption barrier.
Regulations are quickly evolving, and United States, European Community, and other regulators could radically alter the landscape and consumer perceptions of trust.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The author significantly improved the paper as per the comments. There are no further comments.
Author Response
Thank you for taking another look at the paper and accepting it for publication, conditional on another round of edits. We have made further changes and refinements, as requested by the academic editor. Namely, we have added 3 references from MDPI Journals, including one about value co-dependencies of six major cryptocurrencies (from Special Issue Recent Developments in Cryptocurrency Markets: Co-movements, Spillovers and Forecasting, Vaz de Melo Mendez 2020), the determination that Bitcoin is more closely tied to risk, as opposed to safe heaven assets (Wang 2022), and a new review of Bitcoin research which confirms our own literature review findings about the technical, versus social science focus of the research to date (Aysan 2021). We have also made further improvements to grammar, style, and corrected a few more spelling errors.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have addressed my concerns in this revision. This is an interesting article on an important topic that warrants publications.
Author Response
Thank you for taking another look at the paper and accepting it for publication, conditional on another round of edits. We have made further changes and refinements, as requested by the academic editor. Namely, we have added 3 references from MDPI Journals, including one about value co-dependencies of six major cryptocurrencies (from Special Issue Recent Developments in Cryptocurrency Markets: Co-movements, Spillovers and Forecasting, Vaz de Melo Mendez 2020), the determination that Bitcoin is more closely tied to risk, as opposed to safe heaven assets (Wang 2022), and a new review of Bitcoin research which confirms our own literature review findings about the technical, versus social science focus of the research to date (Aysan 2021). We have also made further improvements to grammar, style, and corrected a few more spelling errors.
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
The author(s) addressed my previous concerns.
Author Response
Thank you for taking another look at the paper and accepting it for publication, conditional on another round of edits. We have made further changes and refinements, as requested by the academic editor. Namely, we have added 3 references from MDPI Journals, including one about value co-dependencies of six major cryptocurrencies (from Special Issue Recent Developments in Cryptocurrency Markets: Co-movements, Spillovers and Forecasting, Vaz de Melo Mendez 2020), the determination that Bitcoin is more closely tied to risk, as opposed to safe heaven assets (Wang 2022), and a new review of Bitcoin research which confirms our own literature review findings about the technical, versus social science focus of the research to date (Aysan 2021). We have also made further improvements to grammar, style, and corrected a few more spelling errors.
