In recent years, the rise of cryptocurrency has disrupted the conventional financial landscape, redefining the way we perceive and engage with money. As digital currencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others continue to gain momentum, their impact on traditional financial systems and the global economy is a subject of significant discussion and debate.
Understanding the Impact on Traditional Financial Systems
Advantages:
Decentralization: Cryptocurrencies operate on decentralized networks, reducing reliance on traditional financial intermediaries like banks and governments. This offers greater financial inclusivity and autonomy for individuals worldwide.
Efficiency and Speed: Transactions with cryptocurrencies often occur faster and with lower fees compared to traditional banking systems, fostering quicker cross-border transfers and enhanced transactional efficiency.
Security and Transparency: The underlying blockchain technology offers a transparent and secure ledger, decreasing the likelihood of fraud and ensuring the immutability of transactions
Challenges:
Regulatory Uncertainty: The lack of standardized regulations across different jurisdictions poses challenges for wider adoption and can lead to market volatility and uncertainty.
Volatility: Cryptocurrencies are known for their price volatility, which can deter some individuals and institutional investors from embracing them fully.
Impact on the Global Economy
Advantages:
Financial Inclusion: Cryptocurrencies have the potential to provide financial services to the unbanked population globally, granting access to banking, loans, and investments.
Innovation and Technological Advancements: The development of blockchain technology supporting cryptocurrencies fosters innovation in various industries, offering new solutions and business models.
International Transactions: Cryptocurrencies facilitate cross-border transactions with reduced costs and time, potentially reshaping the international trade and remittance landscape.
Challenges:
Environmental Concerns: The energy-intensive mining process for certain cryptocurrencies raises concerns about their environmental impact.
Adoption Barriers: Limited understanding, technological barriers, and trust issues hinder the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Conclusion
Cryptocurrency’s impact on traditional financial systems and the global economy is a complex and ongoing process. While it presents several advantages such as decentralization, enhanced security, and potential global financial inclusion, challenges surrounding regulation, volatility, and adoption hurdles persist.
The evolution of cryptocurrencies will likely continue to shape the financial landscape, demanding collaborative efforts between regulators, businesses, and innovators to harness their potential while addressing inherent challenges.
For more in-depth understanding, it’s essential to stay informed and updated as this transformative journey unfolds.
References:
Nakamoto, S. (2008). Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
Swan, M. (2015). Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy.
Androulaki, E., et al. (2018). Hyperledger Fabric: A Distributed Operating System for Permissioned Blockchains.
Prompt used:
Discuss the Impact of Cryptocurrency on Traditional Financial Systems and Global Economy. Analyze the Advantages and Challenges Presented
In 2017 cryptocurrency exchange Binance created the first of a new kind of blockchain-minted digital asset: BNB coin designed to reward customers for their activity on their platform. For example, trading and referring friends. It was a perfect model for building a successful and effective cryptocurrency business.
“A model for building a scalable, and impactful cryptocurrency business,” heralded CoinDesk editor Pete Rizzo in 2019, after Binance moved the coin to its own proprietary blockchain. “Unbelievable brilliance.”
Today, the only amazing thing about exchange tokens, like BNB, is that they inflated to $10 billion in value and have become the foundation upon of which the fast-growing digital-assets markets rest.
The big failure in the crypto business of the former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s was his FTX’s own exchange token, which traded under the symbol FT. According to Reuters Bankman-Fried had lent his trading company, Alameda, billions of dollars in FTX customer funds, collateralized by these FTT tokens. Despite the fact that this tokens were essentially invented as a way to offer trading discounts and other perks.
Reuters:
Bankman-Fried showed several spreadsheets to the heads of the company’s regulatory and legal teams that revealed FTX had moved around $10 billion in client funds from FTX to Alameda, the two people said. The spreadsheets displayed how much money FTX loaned to Alameda and what it was used for, they said.
At the peak in 2021 FTT had a market value of $9.6 billion, but FTT does not represent any equity ownership in the FTX company. You can think of these exchange tokens as reward points you might get as a frequent customer of McDonald’s. They have a value, but it doesn’t mean that you can buy a car using this tokens.
However, this tokens trades in different crypto exchanges just as stocks do on the New York Stock Exchange. About a week ago FTT traded for $26 and had a market capitalization of $3.5 billion. Nevertheless, after Bankman-Fried’s rival Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s billionaire founder, post a twit to say that he was planning to sell over $500 million of FTT , it sparked the crypto equivalent of a bank run. Based on this, today FTT sells for near $2.7, , and given FTX’s recent bankruptcy filing, it is likely headed to zero.
Unlike Bitcoin ,FTT’s were created with pre-mining and destroys the whole idea of cruptocurrency!
“Effectively, all of the FTT tokens were owned by a collection of people and entities,” said Bankman-Fried.
Moreover, In terms of governance, exchange tokens, like loyalty reward programs, are completely under the control of the entity that issues or redeems them, even if they profess to stick to pre-arranged schedules for issuance or burning.
Here’s the 16 crypto and DeFi exchanges below created exchange tokens to attract and retain customers.
It’s a huge system thanks to which exchange earn big money every day. I hate this system and don’t think that it is normal that they trade like stocks and have a value of over $60 billion, none represent ownership in their affiliated platforms.
We are witnessing another brutal decline and increasing losses in the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin is breaking its ATH from the previous cycle from the top for the first time in history. A similar event has never happened before on Bitcoin.
The collapse on the cryptocurrency market affects not only the investors themselves. The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is slowing 18 percent of its workforce as cryptocurrencies have been in a retreat since last November. In recent days, however, the declines have intensified. Some cryptocurrencies started the week with drops by up to 20%. The most popular cryptocurrency – bitcoin – costs the least in a year and a half, reaching a rate below 20,000 dollars.
This crash is also influencing on cryptocurrency trading institutions. The New York cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced on Tuesday that it is firing 18% of their employees. Its CEO, Brian Armstrong, said in an open letter that the decision to lay off approximately 1,000 employees was “difficult” but was made to help the company survive the economic downturn.
Armstrong warned of a potential deepening of the cryptocurrency slump. “We seem to be entering a recession after more than 10 years of economic boom,” wrote Armstrong, adding, “The recession could lead to another cryptocurrency winter and could continue for a long time.”
Meanwhile, Coinbase shares have plunged around 80% this year. and 85 percent from IPO in April 2021. The company that used to be worth nearly $ 100 billion now has a capitalization of less than $ 12 billion.
Italian luxury brand Gucci will start accepting payments in cryptocurrencies in some of its stores in America.
Customers will be able to pay using a number of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. The service will be rolled out later this month at some of its flagship outlets, including Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles and New York’s Wooster Street.
Gucci, owned by France’s Kering, joins a growing number of companies that have started to accept virtual currencies. The firm said it will also take payments in Shiba Inu and Dogecoin – a so-called “meme” cryptocurrency that was originally created as a joke.
The brand said it plans to introduce the policy to all the North American stores it operates directly in the near future. Some of the world’s biggest brands now accept digital currencies, including technology giant Microsoft, US telecoms firm AT&T and coffee chain Starbucks.
From my point of view, it is a new step to the future and no-cash payments. All the companies should start to accept crypto.
Reading Time: 5minutes(Photo of “Bitcoin Beach on El Salvador by Kate Linthicum / Los Angeles Times)
El Salvador in September became the first country to accept digital currency (Bitcoin) as a legal tender. As a county in Central America, El Salvador has a hard time dealing with natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. It’s economy has also been hampered by government policies that mandate large economic subsidies, and by official corruption. Subsidies became such a problem that in April 2012, the International Monetary Fund suspended a $750 million loan to the central government. President Funes’ chief of cabinet, Alex Segovia, acknowledged that the economy was at the “point of collapse”.
In June 2021, President Nayib Bukele said he would introduce Bitcoin as a legal tender in El Salvador. It was said by Jack Mallers, (founder Strike which is a Venmo-like application that allows people to send bitcoin to each other almost instantly and allows them to freeze their money in a dollar amounts) that Bitcoin would help countries like El Salvador protect themselves against “potential shocks” of inflation for traditional currencies – as El Salvador doesn’t have it’s own central bank and is contigent on monetary policy of the United States. The Bitcoin Law was passed by the Legistalive Assembly on 9 June 2021, with a majority vote of 62 out of 84. Bitcoin officially became legal tender ninety days after the publication of the law in the official newspaper. Since then bitcoin, as well as the United States dollar, is the official currency of El Salvador. Also, what I think is interesting, in the law it is said that foreigners can gain permanent residence in El Salvador if they invest 3 Bitcoins into the country. It is also worth to know that as a resident of this country you don’t have to pay capital gains tax.
Is it an easy thing to use cryptocurrency in such country as El Salvador?
Critics have pointed out that the plan is very light on details and that Bitcoin is notoriously difficult to use as a day-to-day currency partly due to its volatility. In addition, there’s a good chance that a large number of businesses in the country won’t even be able to accept the cryptocurrency; El Salvador has the lowest number of internet users in Latin America (about 45% of population). Bukele (El Salvador’s President), however, has been pointing to a El Zonte where residents have been using Bitcoin for nearly two years as evidence that the cryptocurrency could help power the economy nationwide. But he didn’t mention the fact that people there also had a long introduction to the cryptocurrencies.
What is a bitcoin beach and how it’s gotten it’s name?
Playa El Zonte, also known as “Bitcoin Beach” is a beach located in El Zonte, El Salvador. It all started with an anonymous donation from an American donor. It is said that he had gotten rich while trading the cryptocurrency and believed it “was going to change the world.”
How the people from Bitcoin Beach were able to learn about Bitcoin?
The investors firstly were trying to convince older people that bitcoin is a good thing for them, they started to pay their children in digital coins to pick up the trash from the beach etc. Also the main factor that helped them to introduce Bitcoin was the pandemic and the fact that the tourism industry collapsed. The families from the city started receiving from Michael Peterson, a 47-year-old California native, about $35 in Bitcoin and when they wanted to cash the money, they needed and app which allows that. That’s how Bitcoin Beach Wallet was created. It is said that 18 months after the project launched, roughly 90% of El Zonte’s households are interacting with the currency regularly.
What are pros and cons of using bitcoin on El Salvador?
So firstly – 70% of the population is unbanked (according to study from 2017) which is an estonishing number. We can hope that introducing Bitcoin would increase a percentage of bank users, but also we have to take under consideration that only 45% of the population is using internet, so it might be not only a hard thing for them to learn, but it also might be hard to convince them that using digital currency can be good or even life changing. Reports indicate that some residents have struggled to access the payment system because of limited data plans and lack of access to more advanced smartphones.
We also have to think about the Bitcoin itself. According to the Bank of America bitcoin industry’s global CO2 emissions have risen to 60 million tons, equal to the exhaust from about 9 million cars. Considering the environmental impact it has, maybe there would be better cryptocurrency for everyday use.
In an interview with Roxana Valles, the 42-year-old proprietor of a small beachside grocery store she said that using Bitcoin has allowed her to invest for the first time. But what if the Bitcoin’s value drops like it happened in April 2021? One Elon Musk’s tweet about Tesla not accepting Bitcoin caused a big crush (about 50%) “I’d be very interested in seeing what happens if we enter a bear market,” says McCormack, the British podcaster. “If you’re a shop owner and you have $50 a day in Bitcoin sales and all the sudden that goes up to $60, that’s cool. But what happens when it starts going down to $40 or $30?”
Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Cato institute’s Troubled Currencies Project says that “Businesses tend to unload Bitcoin as fast as they can because of the fluctuating exchange rate. If you receive it in the morning, it could easily be down 5 or 10 percent by the close of business,” said Hanke. “Are you running a business in which you’re speculating in Bitcoin, or are you running a business where you’re selling clothes or shoes?” People on El Salvador simply need currency that they can either hold or sell without worrying about it’s value changing over night or even in hours.
How the Latin American nation reacted to Bitcoin being announced as a legal tender?
Since the day the Bitcoin Law went into effect — when the coin was valued at just $46,777 — the value of Bitcoin has already significantly increased. But this optimism is not shared by everyone. It’s a country where not only internet or bank access are hard to reach, but also an education opportunities are limited. Not everyone is open to cryptocurrency and people are not interested in learning about it. They have hard time accessing Chivo app, which is supposed to help them with receiving and paying with Bitcoin. Chivo wallet makes the transactions instant and almost costless.
SUMMARY
Making Bitcoin a legal tender in El Salvador is definitely a bold decision. Like every groundbreaking innovation it has it’s supporters and opponents. We will see in the future how it turns out for El Salvador’s economy. I hope it’s going to end up well for them, but personally I think there may be a better cryptocurrency than Bitcoin for them to use, possibly more eco-friendly one.
Since Mark Zuckerberg’s new Meta video, there has been a lot going around on this topic. Metaverse is full of controversies, many people have problems with perceiving actual value in the digital world. For many watching video games still is something new. How about Travis Scott’s massive online concert, which was held in a game called Fortnite? Which was attended by 12 million people. People could view his big 3d model rapping from the stage. Imagine having a model of yourself in the game. Wouldn’t it be fun?
Project Metahero might help you as their goal is to make visions from Steven Spielberg’s movie – Ready Player One possible. How is this going to work?
According to Metahero’s idea, scanning will be done in chambers that measure 2,5 m height and 4,2 m diameter, which will allow 4 people to enter at once. Sixty-four cameras will scrutinize your body once 120 seconds. This means up to 400 scans a day will be possible. The Chamber is built from 16 columns which as their website says “are mobile”. It will allow chambers to move around and let people scan themselves in different places. Metahero plans to distribute 12 of these chambers around the world currently with one already in Doha, Qatar.
How much will you pay for such a digitalization? Around 200 $ in Metahero currency.
What will be possible with your body scan? This we can leave to our creativity.
We could play any game as ourselves, or we could attend an online meeting just as how we look. Maybe we could sell our to other people and let them use it. Maybe we could use different avatars to go on an imaginary date with our favorite actor? Possibilities are endless.
Additionally, there will be a hero app, that will allow its users to track their investments and their hero’s inventory.
Metaheros’ plan is to take one part of metaverse services: scanning. In the same division, you can also find other competitors.
Seems like metaverse is slowly starting to take off with everyone taking their places.
Metahero is not an ordinary cryptocurrency. It launches 3D scanning and modeling technology that creates very realistic 3D avatars and virtual items for use in gaming, VR and social media. The technology allows you to create NFT (non-fungible token) from real art.
Metahero has partnered with Wolf Studio (the world leader in 3D scanning). Their cutting-edge technology has been extensively tested and used by large companies in this industry such as CyberPunk 2077.
The technology will be combined with the market and the HERO deflation token to offer users, artists, players and also entrepreneurs access to virtual resources of the future.
WHO IS THE FOUNDER OF METAHERO?
The CEO is Robert Gryn, known from the Polish Forbes. A few years ago he was hailed as the youngest millionaire in Poland. He is also known from creating and developing Codewise.
WHERE CAN YOU BUY METAHERO?
The number of places where we can buy this cryptocurrency is growing systematically.
Currently, you can invest in HERO on the Kanga stock exchange. It is a Polish stock exchange that allows you to buy it for cash without any verification. You can also find it on Gate.io. It is one of the largest stock exchanges in the world.
Metahero has released its application for smartphones, thanks to which we can track the status of our HERO account. We can also observe here how many tokens do we have at a given moment, and manage the entire ecosystem related to 3D scanning.
The HERO price is currently 0.162 $. From the moment of it’s debut, the value has already increased by over 600 percent. The HERO cryptocurrency itself is deflationary. It is designed in this way that each transaction causes the loss of a few percent of HERO irretrievably.
IS IT WORTH TO INVEST IN IT?
I definitely think it’s worth to invest in Metahero, because many people want to play as themselves in computer games. This cryptocurrency has developed very quickly and has great opportunities in the future.
You can become the Bitcoin owner in two ways. The simpler way is to buy it on one of the many cryptocurrencies exchanges for the US dollar, or exchange it for other cryptocurrencies. The more difficult way is to mine it. Many of you have probably heard about mining a bitcoin, in a nutshell, it is sharing the computing power of your laptop or PC, or other high-performance machines. Today, cryptocurrency mining on a laptop is unprofitable, and special mining machines are used for this purpose, that is computers consisting of a dozen or so graphics cards or more, as well as super-fast processors. The higher the equipment’s performance, the more dug-out bitcoins are.
“Computers” used for cryptocurrency mining.
The text above is an introduction to cryptocurrency mining. I just wanted to introduce you to the issue, because many people have heard about it, but no one knows how it works. Why am I focusing on this? Because probably many of you have already mined cryptocurrencies without even knowing about it. How is this possible? Thanks to the CoinHive plugin. This is a JavaScript code that website owners put on their websites. This code uses the computing power of the person’s laptop entering the site to dig cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Monero. As mentioned above, cryptocurrency mining on one laptop is unprofitable, but what if we use thousands of such laptops? Pockets of website owners will quickly fill up and we will not be aware of anything. The Pirate Bay has recently admitted such practices, and in December it was discovered that customers using WIFI in several Starbucks cafes in the US also unconsciously mined Bitcoins. Starbucks quickly solved the problem saying that it was the internet provider, who “hacked” café’s WIFI, and not the franchise owner.
Many website owners explain this with high server maintenance costs, or the desire to disable website ads in exchange for allowing them to mine cryptocurrency on your laptop while browsing their website. What do you think about such practices? If you have ever entered a simple website and your computer has started to reach high temperatures and the CPU fan has been running at full speed, you may have unconsciously been mining cryptocurrencies.
Reading Time: 2minutesWhen I first saw a movie In Time starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Sayfried last year, I began to wonder if it is possible to unify the global payment system. I am not talking about extending a person’s lifetime, as it is shown in the film, but one global currency. For those who like sci-fi and various visions of the future world, I strongly recommend this film. But let’s talk about cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin in particular.
In Time (2011)
Is it possible for Bitcoin to become world’s global currency? With the market cap of nearly $100 billion it surpasses its crypto competitors and is definitely the most popular one. Just imagine how convenient it would be, going abroad and not thinking about exchanging the currency, doing business with international partners and not worrying about the decline in the value of a particular currency against other. America will never accept euro as its own currency, eurozone on the other hand will never accept dollar as the local currency. The same is happening with other great powers and their currencies. And at this point a bitcoin appears. Cryptocurrency, which is decentralized, has no bank over it, and all transactions are extremely difficult to trace. Sounds beautiful? Unfortunately, it also has its disadvantages. Thefts are also extremely difficult to trace and decentralization has its pros and cons.
The questions is what Bitcoin holders are expecting it to be? Do they hold it just to sell it with profit, to speculate, or do they believe that one day it will become global currency, commonly accepted in all countries by all shops and institutions. Right now you can pay using Bitcoin in some restaurants and shops but still it is long way for Bitcoin to be widely used. On the other hand, we are seeing increasing interest from the states and institutions. The Swiss city of Chiasso has recently made it possible to pay taxes with bitcoin, state institutions see a profit in it and we hear more and more about the possibility of taxing all cryptocurrencies. European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi recently said that ECB has no power to regulate Bitcoin and that cryptocurrencies are not mature enough to think about regulating them. So we can breathe a sigh of relief, because in the near future politicians will not put their hands on it, but unfortunately investment banks will, Goldman Sachs is thinking about trading Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. If this happens it will just be another speculative asset.
