The opening shots in the cryptocurrency revolution were fired in 2008 when a mysterious visionary attempted to establish the soundness of a blockchain-based digital currency in a whitepaper published under an assumed name.
The whitepaper led to Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency, which traded a year later at a price of about €0.0007 per coin. In 2010, a college student famously paid 10,000 Bitcoins for two large pizzas. Today, a single Bitcoin trades for more than €40,000.
Bitcoin is no longer the world’s only cryptocurrency. Thousands of digital currencies have been launched, all based on variations of the original blockchain-based distributed architecture.
Only a handful of the new coins are intended to serve as general-purpose currencies. Most have been created to provide specific benefits within defined niches. There are coins that work in fintech applications, coins that are made for gaming, and coins that help producers of music and films receive royalties for their work. Governments all over the world are working feverishly to define policy toward cryptocurrencies as millions of people adopt digital coins as an alternative to the rules, restrictions, and high costs of the financial transactions once handled by banks and investment houses. Today, crypto platforms like Europe’s Kriptomat support everyday people with easy-to-use advanced tools for establishing and building investment portfolios.
The world is digital
Cryptocurrencies have quickly become popular among professional investors and everyday people who lack access to an old-fashioned financial establishment that seems to be interested only in big institutional investors. For years, individual investors have lacked access to favorable transaction prices, advanced portfolio management tools, and the attention of finance professionals.
Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are democratizing the world of finance. They are taking steps now to establish a digital future in which every adult – not just big investors – will have access to banking services and investment tools. Crypto cuts out the middleman and the high costs of supporting big banks and investment houses. Crypto is poised to bring full participation in the world of finance to billions of unbanked individuals around the world.
Moreover, crypto technology is creating new opportunities and sources of wealth. Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, allow artists a way to capitalize on their creative work without supporting the expensive, controlling infrastructure of studios and publishers. Painters, musicians, and digital artists are selling one-of-a-kind digital ownership to fans. And a marketplace of unique digital collectibles has allowed collectors and investors to acquire and trade NFTs in an open market.
Meanwhile, decentralized financial applications, or DeFis, are allowing individuals to conduct transactions without relying on expensive banks to set up escrow accounts or facilitate transfers. DeFi apps can make financial transactions faster, more secure, and less expensive.
Our digital future
The crypto revolution has barely affected the world yet. In the next few years, innovations are going to touch the lives of billions of people around the globe.
Easy-to-use crypto platforms like Kriptomat will bring the benefits of full financial self-determination to hundreds of millions of people who currently don’t have or qualify for banking services. More than 1.7 billion people are currently unable to accumulate savings, participate in modern e-commerce networks, or grow their wealth by investing. The entire world will benefit as crypto empowers them to contribute their energy, creativity, and hard work to the global economy for the first time.
Crypto technology will make it simple to set up custom digital economies. In gaming, that could mean robust in-game marketplaces for trading unique assets or making in-game purchases. Ecosystems of compatible digital assets could mean that the sword you earn playing one video game could empower your character in another.
The blockchain technology underlying modern cryptocurrencies is ideal for establishing identity. Around the world, millions of people have been displaced from their homes without government-issued passports. Their property, financial pasts, academic achievements, and companies can’t be retrieved because they lack formal papers. If all of that were stored on the blockchain, individuals would always have access to their identities and their pasts.
Because the blockchain world is immutable, secure, and anonymous, it’s the ideal place to store medical records. Researchers are creating solutions that give each person ownership of their medical records, with access extended to physicians as necessary.
Cryptocurrency knows no borders. Today, governments are able to exercise control over the motion of cash and people across borders. Sending cash to a crypto user on the other side of the world takes just seconds. You don’t pay a percentage to an online delivery service and there are no legal restrictions. What will happen to those services and banks when their monopoly on control is dissolved? Who will pay for their services when everyone has full financial self-determination? In the future, the dignity and freedom of financial autonomy will be recognized as a human right.
It is this vision of dignity and freedom that is behind Kriptomat’s #EverybodyDeservesCrypto motto.
This slogan is shorthand for Kriptomat’s commitment to playing a role in the evolution of the world’s financial systems. Kriptomat intends to help create a future in which all people everywhere have access to financial services.
