WHY ARE THE WORLD’S TOP FINANCIAL POWERHOUSES INVOLVED WITH CRYPTO

11, September, 2022
By: Ikenna Uwakwe

INTRODUCTION:

Long after the advent of the Corona virus pandemic, the world’s financial marketplace has since transitioned the erstwhile ridiculed decentralized finance industry otherwise known as the crypto industry, from a less interesting niche to the center of focus of top financial powerhouses like; JP Morgan Chase, ICBC, Berkshire Hathaway, Bank of China, Goldman Sachs, AXA, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Santander, BlackRock to mention a few, as we are going to be looking into more of these firms later on in this video.

This highly anticipated marketplace – also referred to as the cryptocurrency market, although subject to fluctuating prices, with more downturns than upswings, has grown from a pushover into a multi trillion-dollar market in the span of a few years, since its introduction in 2009.

And to think that almost a decade ago, 10,000 units of the flagship cryptocurrency – Bitcoin – was traded for two large boxes of pizza, in what's now regarded as the first real world Bitcoin transaction, back when 10,000 BTC was worth a measly $40, goes to show how much potential this industry promises, going forward!

According to the world’s largest online encyclopedia – Wikipedia, no identical convention for bitcoin capitalization exists; whereas ‘some sources use Bitcoin, capitalized; to refer to the technology and network; and bitcoin, lowercase; for the unit of account.'

Nonetheless, the world's largest publicly traded corporations have been seen to put resources into the tech – known as blockchain – and get involved with cryptocurrencies in more recent times. Record has it that between September 2021 and June 2022 electronics giant and tech behemoths like Samsung, Alphabet, and venture capitalist firms like BlackRock has been rapidly involved in more developments in this space. What does that say about the future of crypto? Let’s find out in a few.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF DIGITAL MONEY:

The idea of digital currencies has existed long before the era of the discovery of cryptocurrencies. Virtual currencies like Facebook credits, game tokens, and gold coins all fall under the umbrella of digital currency. 

These are by and large centralized virtual currencies that are controlled, hence monopolized by a single, individual entities or organizations. However, since the advent of cryptocurrencies, and given it’s many advantages entailed by its fully decentralized nature, it has been the focus of not only leading financial powerhouses, but also, large corporations across various industries, and more importantly, it has continued to attract the attention of end users like you and I: Given cryptocurrencies are advanced form of cash that utilizes cryptography to secure its transactions, manage its supply, and validate it’s users - therefore, eradicating the need for such intermediaries and third-party agencies like banks.

Such cryptographic money like Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP are decentralized in nature. In simple terms; they offer users a high degree of privacy when sending or receiving payments.

You could think of the concept of cryptocurrencies as your money in the bank, in digital form: Only this time the bank is a decentralized ecosystem known as the blockchain.