Cryptocurrency — The Final Straw To Disrupt The Global Economy
Originally published on The Tech Brewery!
In the past few years, we’ve seen the fortunes of Cryptocurrency ebb and flow in the most dramatic fashion. Still, it remains a curious technology, one that everybody feels will have a say on the state of the global economy. That’s partially the reason why a large number of people continue to purchase and invest in Cryptocurrency. But the debate still rages on between two sets of people, one calling it a bubble waiting to burst and another calling it the next big thing in the world.
In all this ruckus, another crucial technology, that carries great potential to disrupt the global business world, losses out voice. Ideally, we’d like it to get more highlight but for now, Cryptocurrency owns the center stage. Scores of entrepreneurs are going down the ICO campaign route in an attempt to sell tokens and raise millions of dollars. Cryptocurrency has come a long way since its early days when Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin to the world. The object of this blog is to understand how Cryptocurrency is impacting the global economy.
A Direct Threat To The Dominance Of Dollar
The global economy is influenced immensely by the US dollar. As a result, any slight unexpected shift of normality in the US financial market has consequences for the rest of the world. The recession of 2008 is a perfect example to justify that situation. Countries far away from the American continent in Asia and Europe reeled under the crisis for a lengthy duration.
All this makes one thing clear — the global economy is interconnected in a way like never before. At the center of this web is the US dollar. A currency powerful enough to send the global economy into disarray. But that position is now openly challenged by cryptocurrency works under the concept of Decentralisation.
With the rise of Bitcoin and thousands of other Cryptocoins, financial transactions are now being decentralized at a grand scale. US Dollar has no bearing on these transactions whatsoever. That shift in the status quo has every possibility to disrupt the international trade and diplomacy.
Crowdfunding Gets A Whole Lot Easier
Now we can’t talk about Cryptocurrencies without mentioning the Initial Coin Offerings(ICOs). Not long ago, ICOs became the prime crowdfunding medium for tech-based startups. That made the developers and entrepreneurs world a whole lot easier, who otherwise had to go from door to door to convince venture capitalists, banks or angel investors to invest money in their startup. So practically, these days, once the idea has been conceptualized, it is tokenized the then sold away to the public straight away.
This has been nothing short of a miracle for countless tech-based startups that in a world without Cryptocurrency would have struggled to see the daylight. The painstaking development stage, where the majority of people used to come and get stuck is past now. An impressive number of startups are in active development and testing-phases with all the necessary investment safe and secured.
Doing Away The Middleman
International transfer transactions can’t be done without the aid of entities such as clearinghouses, banks, and SWIFT. The latter refers to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. This particular organization is responsible for providing a network for financial institutions all around the globe to transmit data to each other in a safe and secure manner. To put it simply, no international monetary transaction can take place outside of SWIFT network. Goes without saying, SWIFT charges transaction fees some transactions can take several days to be processed successfully.
The introduction of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Dash, Litecoin and is like throwing cat among the pigeons. Cryptocurrency possibly puts an end to the middleman that is SWIFT for authentication and authorizing transactions. It’s transaction fees are very minimal, even a couple of cents in many cryptocurrencies. Plus the user gets the sought-after benefit of privacy and anonymity. To top everything up, the transactions happen within a matter of seconds or minutes.
Behold! New Markets Emerge
Cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin are responsible for the emergence of various new markets that are controlled by absolutely no one. In a way, we’re looking at the rise of Cyberspace as the new entity that will oversee and manage such independent markets. The most inviting aspect of cryptocurrencies i.e. nigh zero transaction fee(based on the currency’s stability) is bound to make it vastly popular and challenge the traditional money in an all-out war. This, however, is only the beginning, the possibilities that exist in a Cryptocurrency powered financial world are endless.
Final Thoughts
Cryptocurrencies viz. Bitcoin, Ehereum, Litecoin among others, seem to be traveling on a super-fast train that’s visiting trends such as growth in price, market capitalization and impressive mainstream adoption as stoppages. These cryptocurrencies offer an array of features and functions that bear the potential to change what we do and how we do everything. It’s no longer a question whether or not they’re disrupting the global economy? There’s no debate as to Cryptocurrency’s potential to disrupt the economy. The real question is how far will the changes happen? As with most thing, we’ll have to wait and watch to find out the answers.
