Saturday, June 10, 2017

Will the new era of cryptocurrency usher a change as big as Search?

Last month I visited a casino and unfortunately lost some money! In a (smart) attempt to make up for the loss I invested $1000 in Ethereum. To my surprise, in just a few days, I not only recovered my losses but made a substantial profit (the stock is rising as I type!). I am by no means advocating investment in cryptocurrencies and I do know that the last two times the rising stock prices witnessed a bitter fall! However, I picked this topic as I ended up reading a lot about digital currencies, their incubation and probable (bright) future and wanted to share information. As a marketer,  I am curious to see how the use of cryptocurrencies evolves in our dynamic digital economy.

If you follow cryptocurrencies you've probably noticed that recently it surpassed $100 billion! The vast majority of these gains have come in just the last few months — on April 1st the total market cap was just over $25 billion — representing a 300 percent increase in value in just over 60 days.

It is interesting to see how such currencies are changing the digital economy; and the rising interest of governments and corporates is fascinating. Few analysts credit Japanese government's move to formally recognize the cryptocurrency, giving it greater legitimacy in Asia’s richest major economy, as a reason for market optimism. In developed countries like UK, big corporates are investing in bitcoin for ransomware payments whereas in US digital currency is gradually becoming an accepted form of payment. A very recent news that intrigues me the most, is Putin's meeting with Etherium's founder! These developments make me wonder how the role of cryptocurrencies will evolve further in the future. It definitely appears to be on a type of resurgence and may promise long-term benefits.

Post my readings, I was reminded of Brian Forde, director of digital currency at MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative, he is perhaps the closest to this dynamic industry and drew a great analogy. He said if the Internet has exponentially increased the frequency of our communication, cryptocurrencies will exponentially increase the frequency of our transactions with others...

Links:
Firms stockpiling Bitcoins ready to pay off ransomware crooks
Bitcoin Could Hit $1 Million – Thanks To Ransomware, Says CNBC’s Jim Cramer


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