Cryptocurrencies
The world of finance is quickly changing in front of our eyes. The electronic payment systems of the PayPal type have long turned into reality, very convenient reality. They prepared the ground for gradual introduction of cryptocurrencies in our conscience and in then in practice.
Today many experts talk of a real monetary revolution. The systems like bitcoin with their ability to store all conducted transactions allow working with Big Data in real time, conduct cognitive calculations and utilize more flexible and effective algorithms for emission and control.
The electronic methods for controlling emission are pushing traditional financiers and representatives of business elites to the sidelines. They also allow to start using cryptocurrencies as a separate internal payment system within a new economy that is still in the making. The market is in chaos at present.
Here is the recipe for success in modern business: If you are bursting with energy but do know have any useful skills, come up with a unique name and call this creation a cryptocurrency. This is what really forceful people in the West are doing right now. 20-30 years ago they would turn into religious gurus, but today it’s more fashionable to announce yourself as a blockchain evangelist.
Consider the example of the failed Russian student and businessman Vitaly Buterin and his notorious cryptocurrency Ethereum, a second world cryptocurrency after bitcoin. Compared to other such creations, Ethereum is a serious development product. It is a powerful programming language, a quality that seriously expands its practical applications and spheres.
Compared to Ethereum, other projects seem much “smaller” but equally “loud”. Such is, for example, is the project of Patrick Byrne who announced about his new blockchain platform tZero and immediately sold tZero tokens worth 300 mln dollars. Patrick Byrne shocked listeners at the Miami Conference on blockchail related issues by his promise to destroy traditional Wall Street stock-exchanges and to recreate them on the basis of blockchains. Together with many other such entrepreneurs he believes that blockchain technology is much broader a concept than cryptocurrencies. However his primary focus remains on the financial markets.
Patrick Byrne is not alone in his attempt to dismiss Wall Street financial gurus and replace their routine financial tools with automatic or semi-autonomous actions. According to the research team from “Smith + Crown” blockchain analytics, only in 2017 primary offerings of ICO (Initial Coin Offering), a kind of IPO for cryptocurrencies exceeded 6.5 billion dollars.
Some entrepreneurs managed to raise millions of dollars from investors having provided nothing more than cleverly written internet-blogs with references to bitcoin exchange resources as a proof of their future success. Though virtual prices on virtual money dropped significantly, only in the first months of 2018 the sales of tokens reached 3 billion dollars.
Daniel M. Gallagher, former SEC commissioner with more than 20 years experience under his belt recently compared the ICO market with the Wild West many times over and the situation with cryptocurrencies with the amplified events in the 2013 “The Wolf of Wall Street” film.
Today it is fashionable to share personal predictions about cryptocurrencies. Someone talks of their unstoppable advance and revolutionary potential capable to eradicate poverty from the face of the earth. Others, for example, the regulators in various countries, are quite skeptical and compare the events with the virtual casino.
Whatever the case, it is clear that cryptocurrencies will in future occupy more and more market space in the area of the world financial system. The world is changes in front of our eyes.
