Everything Else Went Digital — Now Crypto Redefines Money

Everything Else Went Digital — Now Crypto Redefines Money

The global economy relies and thrives on continuous innovation and growth, and cryptocurrency — once the digital outlier — is becoming an integral part of the next wave.

The landscape is not just one of digital currencies; it’s a movement that mirrors and grows with relentless progress within our manufacturing and service sectors.

And as it integrates further into the broader economic fabric, its value in the world is not just a distant future but a present reality — and one that’s a joy to watch unfold.

 

Key Takeaways

  • Cryptocurrency, once an outlier, is becoming integral to global economic innovation and growth.
  • Its value is not just future potential but a present reality, merging with the broader economic fabric.
  • In volatile markets, cryptocurrency offers a hedge, showcasing its strength in geopolitical turmoil.
  • Blockchain technology extends beyond finance, enhancing transparency and efficiency in various sectors such as supply chains.

 

Cryptocurrency Helps Hedge Against the Winds of Change

In today’s financial markets, volatility is the norm, and stability is the goal — and nowhere is that more apparent than in crypto.

Its volatility, often misconstrued as a weakness, is, in fact, its greatest strength — when there is geopolitical turmoil, the low correlation of cryptocurrencies with traditional assets offers a hedge, a sanctuary from the storm.

It opens a door for investors in emerging economies to partake in a global asset class — free from the confines of regional economic constraints.

Cryptocurrency is no longer merely a speculative instrument but a legitimate asset class deserving of recognition in any diversified investment portfolio.

The Shape of Crypto Around the World

In the United States, the quest for growth beyond blue-chip stocks leads us to value-oriented sectors and small and mid-cap companies.

Cryptocurrency fits perfectly into this narrative, offering a decentralized alternative that captures value in ways traditional markets may miss. With corporate earnings and a strong economy, the integration of digital assets could add a new layer of strength, especially as a hedge against inflation.

Meanwhile, Europe’s struggle with structural challenges and a slow transition to renewables could find a surprising ally in cryptocurrency. The new digital asset class can complement Europe’s dividend stocks, offering investors a new perspective on value and a hedge against economic stagnation.

And Japan’s emphasis on domestic reforms and corporate transformations matches with the principles of blockchain technology — the foundation of cryptocurrency. The transparency and efficiency blockchain promises can bolster Japan’s corporate governance, making cryptocurrency a valuable asset in the nation’s economic arsenal.

China’s dual-circulation strategy, which focuses on boosting domestic consumption and reducing export reliance, reflects the self-sustaining nature of cryptocurrency. As China addresses regulatory reforms and policy risks, cryptocurrency offers the power of decentralized finance (DeFi), providing an alternative less correlated to traditional investments.

The Future of Currency is Global and Transparent

Our world is still anchored in traditional asset classes, yet it fails to capture the undercurrent of change driven by digital currencies. Cryptocurrencies are gradually gaining recognition from institutional investors and regulators, signaling their integration into mainstream finance.

It complements but also offers an alternative to traditional systems, which are often constrained by borders, regulations, and the pace of innovation. They offer a global, decentralized platform for transactions and investments, appealing in an increasingly connected world.

Moreover, the blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies is finding applications beyond digital currencies, including in supply chain managementhealthcare, and voting systems. This technology is fostering a more transparent, efficient, and secure digital economy.

The Bottom Line

Champion or skeptic, it is essential to recognize the quiet revolution that cryptocurrency is causing.

Its value as an asset is increasingly evident, and its impact on the financial landscape is significant. As we advance, cryptocurrency is set to become a more prominent and integral part of the global financial system, steadily altering the investment game for both investors and consumers.

This opinion piece is an invitation to investors to look beyond the chart and towards a future where cryptocurrency is not just an alternative asset but a foundational element of a diversified and modern portfolio.

The future is digital, and cryptocurrency is at the forefront, leading the charge.

 

 

Source: https://www.techopedia.com/everything-else-went-digital-now-crypto-redefines-money

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

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What Should Investors Do Now That The Price of Bitcoin Has Dipped

What Should Investors Do Now That The Price of Bitcoin Has Dipped

Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency, recently dropped to $42,000 in an unexpected drop that also impacted major altcoins and cryptocurrency investors.

 

Bitcoin recently reached an all-time high of $69,000, and enthusiasts were already calling for the next leg up for bitcoin to reach new heights, which is why this dip surprised many investors. The sharp drop in May, when cryptocurrencies lost 47% of their value in a week, was prompted by a clampdown on crypto-trading in China and a tweet by Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, saying that the electric-vehicle maker would stop accepting payments in bitcoin.

 

BigONE has decided to investigate the reasons for the latest Bitcoin price crash, to understand its longer-term prospects, as well as scope out alternative crypto investment opportunities to enable you to update your trading strategy for 2022.

 

Cryptocurrency analysts have cited several reasons as the cause of this 20% fall in Bitcoin’s value,  including FUD created by Gary Gensler, the SEC chairman, regarding cryptocurrency regulation in the US, the news of a new variant of the coronavirus called Omicron, unease in the markets after the latest US monthly jobs report sent mixed signals about the country’s economic recovery, which

 

“may have indicated to investors that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates sooner than planned, lowering the returns on riskier assets,”

 

according to the Financial Times (FT). In addition, President Joe Biden signing a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that contains tax ramifications for cryptocurrency investors in the US may have also played a part. All of these factors could have played a role in this cryptocurrency market decline, but one key factor has gone unnoticed, and it has to do with the influence of traditional financial markets.

 

The cryptocurrency market, which is typically regarded as an independent market from traditional financial assets, fell in value only hours after a storm in traditional financial assets. Wall Street, the epicenter of the world’s financial markets, experienced a volatile weekly close on Friday, December 3 in response to news of the spread of a new strain of the coronavirus.

 

Bitcoin’s drop has been traced back to these Wall Street events, which is somewhat surprising given that cryptocurrencies are classified differently than traditional assets. Speaking to the FT, David Fauchier, portfolio manager at Nickel Digital, linked the investors who sold off equities to many of the same people who sold off Bitcoin, causing the price drop so sharply, particularly because crypto is tradeable over weekends, unlike traditional stocks.

 

The future outlook for Bitcoin investors

Despite this drop, Bitcoin has proven to be highly resilient since its inception, always rising to new highs after each setback. The most recent occurred after Bitcoin reached its previous all-time high of $64,000 around April and fell by nearly 50% in May before recovering and reaching a new all-time high of $69,500 for the first time on November 10.

 

Bitcoin is currently trading at $49k, having recovered somewhat from its lows of $42k. According to Humphrey Yang, the personal finance expert behind Humphrey Talks, big price dips are nothing to be concerned about, instead, he avoids checking his investments during volatile market dips. “I’ve been through the 2017 cycle, too,” Yang said in a Time article, referring to the 2017 ‘crypto crash’, in which many major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, lost significant value. “I’m aware that these things are extremely volatile and that they can fall by as much as 80% in a single day.”

 

It’s also worth noting that in many cryptocurrencies a few big investors hold significant sway. For example, in the case of meme coin Shiba Inu, ten wallet addresses hold more than 60% of the total available supply of Shiba Inu. In other words, at least ten people have these wallet addresses, or all of them are held by a few people.

 

Even the Shiba Inu audit report, available on its website, shows that more than half of its total available supply is stored in four wallet addresses. Therefore, if any of these wallet addresses decides to sell Shiba Inu coins, the market will be seriously affected. While in the case of Bitcoin in 2020, less than 20% of the supply was actually traded with the majority of BTC held long-term.

 

As a result, trades can have a disproportionate impact on the market.

 

Based on its performance over the last decade, BigONE believes Bitcoin has the potential to recover from this latest pullback. However, investing in cryptocurrency involves risks, and BigONE thinks everyone should conduct their research before investing in any other cryptocurrency.

 

According to CoinMarketCap data from early November, there are currently over 13,500 cryptocurrencies in circulation. However, many of these cryptocurrencies are disappearing from the market daily for a variety of reasons. Investing in cryptocurrency can yield extraordinary returns, but it also carries risks, as do all investments.

 

Therefore, BigONE advises you to only invest in funds that you can afford to lose and to make sure that your crypto assets are part of your overall investment portfolio. You should also spend as much time researching and learning about the cryptocurrency you intend to invest in before making any investment decisions.

 

Other crypto investment opportunities

BigONE believes investors should take inspiration from the drop in the price of Bitcoin and investigate coins with utility in the growing metaverse market. The metaverse concept is becoming increasingly popular, with tech behemoth Facebook (now Meta) recently rebranding to become a metaverse company.

 

With the development of the metaverse, we can already see people using cryptocurrency to buy land and commodities in various existing virtual worlds, proving the viability of the “cryptocurrency-metaverse” combination. In 2021, Axie Infinity is one of the best performing cryptocurrencies with its highly engaged play-to-earn user base. So far, it has generated an incredible gain of more than 24,000%, and this play-to-earn game has inspired a slew of similar games.

 

Players can breed and raise cute and unique Axies, then sell them on the market for large profits. Other metaverse tokens worth a closer look include Decentraland’s MANA tokens which can be used to buy and develop the land.

 

As reported in Cointelegraph on December 6: “Although Decentraland ranked in second place for the total volume traded, the top 10 most expensive metaverse NFT sales during the past week, ranging from 225,000 MANA ($758,250) to 50,000 MANA ($220,000), were all on the Ethereum-based virtual world. Decentraland traded $6.6 million in volume for 399 assets over the past week.”

 

Other potential tokens worth investigating include layer-one solutions such as Solana and Fantom and layer-two solution tokens such as Matic, which can be purchased on the BigONE exchange.

 

Certainly, Solana has been a firm favorite with crypto investors, having risen in value by more than 15,000% on a year-to-date basis. A key reason for this, apart from its fast transaction rate and cheaper fees than Ethereum, is its ability to grow the NFT marketplace. “As we just pointed out, Solana’s low-fee, the high-speed network has proven to be beneficial for NFT investors looking to nab a popular piece of digital artwork,” confirmed a recent report in The Motley Fool.

 

Committed investors should consider these altcoins that have the potential to become blue chips in the longer term, and this dip is an excellent time to both investigate and acquire these tokens.

 

#AnndyLian says: “Volatility is built into the way crypto markets operate, which means your crypto position may be great today, but look terrible tomorrow. You should approach investing with this in mind, and sell if you need to and buy again when the time is right for you and your level of risk. Don’t get too stuck on one particular project or token, there are new opportunities opening up with the growth of the metaverse.”

 

 

Original Source: https://hackernoon.com/what-should-investors-do-now-that-the-price-of-bitcoin-has-dipped

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

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All I Got For the Holidays Was an NFT. Now What?

All I Got For the Holidays Was an NFT. Now What?

Amid exploding popularity, NFTs will be the gift of the moment this year. For the gift giver, it has several advantages: You don’t need to wrap it, you don’t need to carry it when you travel, it’s a really thoughtful gift as it can appreciate over time and it can be highly personalized.

Trading in NFTs climbed to $10.7 billion in the third quarter of 2021, an increase of more than 700% from the previous quarter, according to a report by blockchain analytics firm DappRadar. But not everyone’s into them, perhaps because of a lack of understanding, or just lack of interest.

Great. But what if you’re on the other end and not into them?

Anndy Lian, Chairman, BigONE Exchange and Founding Member of INFLUXO, told GOBankingRates that he, in fact, bought his staff NFT as holiday gifts this year.

“This is also because of COVID, I cannot see many of them personally. NFT becomes an ideal gift for everyone,” he said. “NFTs are here to stay, this year we may be talking about gifting an NFT as a collectible. Next year, you may be gifted an NFT that can be the actual key to a house in Manhattan. Always remember, what you see now for NFT is just the beginning. Its use case can be very broad.”

 

But first things first. What is one to do when gifted with an NFT?

“To receive NFT, they need a wallet and depending on where the NFT is residing. You may need an Ethereum, Polygon, Binance wallet. Just naming some of them,” Lian said.

 

Which brings us to the second point: How does one “accept” an NFT?

“NFTs are and can only exist on the blockchain in an individual’s wallet,” Dominic Ryder, CEO of vEmpire, told GOBankingRates. “This means unless you agree to set up a crypto wallet, you will and can never officially own an NFT,” he said. “Somebody can buy one and say it is yours for sure, but you only own that asset if you own the private keys to the wallet they are held in. So if you don’t want to accept an NFT, you don’t have to! Just don’t create a wallet or accept one to be made for you to store the NFT they have bought.”

However, he added that if you want to know how to accept the gift, he suggests creating an ethereum wallet via Metamask or Trust wallet.

“Make sure to verify any links you follow and enjoy the world of NFTs,” he added.

 

And if you’re really just not interested?

While NFTs are one of the biggest drivers of Defi growth and have been for some time, not everyone will want one or be interested in them, Grigory Rybalchenko, Founder of Emiswap, told GOBankingRates.

“But we can also agree that they are an excellent tool to prove ownership status on the blockchain. If you are a gamer, VR player, collector, or digital artist of any kind, then NFTs have the potential to give you something that wasn’t conceivable only a few years back,” he said.

However, Rybalchenko added that it’s also understandable that many people may not care for them because they may not be of use to them.

“In that case, if you receive an NFT that you don’t want to keep, you can reopen it for sale on a marketplace like OpenSea.io on Ethereum or AirNFTs on Smart Chain,” he said. “You can also transfer ownership to someone else, i.e., regift it. However, during all transfers, all details will be visible on the blockchain under the unique token ID or smart contact address.”

Anthony Georgiades, Co-Founder and COO of NFT marketplace Pastel Network, echoes the sentiment, saying that even if you receive an NFT that you don’t want, it’s still great news, as you can try to sell it on one of a growing number of quality secondary marketplaces.

“And if you want to keep it, well, what’s more, is that you don’t require a physical place to store them. It’s all digital and takes up no space, as opposed to those annoying piles of festive Christmas socks gifted to you by that random aunt or uncle,” he said. “And if you just want to forget about it, then your gift NFT can simply be held in your wallet, on the blockchain, for eternity while you conveniently forget you ever received it.”

 

NFTs are still better than an ugly sweater

Another positive aspect of being gifted an NFT you don’t really want is that “you have more options for putting it to use than you would with an ugly Christmas sweater,” Ivan Ravlich, CEO of cyber-infrastructure company Hypernet Labs, told GOBankingRates.

“An NFT isn’t a gift you have to shove in a drawer or reluctantly bring out and put on display for visitors – it’s a personal asset that can be traded for cryptocurrencies, staked or sold for cash without the need of a gift receipt or returning to a retailer,” he said.

Overall, crypto experts recommend holding on to them as they can turn out to be extremely valuable assets over time.

Josh James, Co-Founder and COO of NFT platform OneOf, said that whether or not you’re interested in NFTs, they are a valuable gift and appreciate over time “much more than the never worn Christmas sweater from your favorite aunt.”

“When iconic NFTs dropped, virtually nobody knew how popular and sought-after they’d become. If the NFT doesn’t hold any personal value for you, I’d suggest saving it for a rainy day, donating to charity or selling it to someone who really wants it. You never know — it could turn out to be a very valuable asset,” James added.

 

At the Very Least, NFTs Are Educational

Finally, as the giver of an NFT, you could simply preamble the gifting by saying it also has an educational component, enabling skills and knowledge that can be parlayed in crypto investing more broadly.

“Gifting an NFT is a trojan horse gift to learn how the blockchain works. If someone doesn’t want to receive an NFT I would recommend they still get one to learn about the space,” Garrett Minks, CTO of RAIR TECH, told GOBankingRates.

“The learnings about how wallets work, signing transactions, spending crypto are all invaluable lessons for the future as web3 and defi become more a part of our everyday lives.” Minks said. “When the tools are really easy to use years from now a majority of the alpha will be taken by people willing to learn. The best gift for 2021 is the gift of web3 knowledge regardless of what the NFT looks like.”

 

Original Source: https://www.gobankingrates.com/investing/crypto/all-i-got-for-the-holidays-was-an-nft-now-what/

Reposted on: https://news.yahoo.com/got-holidays-nft-now-182018474.html

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

j j j