We all know the numbers aren’t good. More than $2 trillion was lost in the collective market value of cryptocurrencies over 2022 and there is scant opportunity to feel positive about where we’re going next.
Well, unless you’re the World Economic Forum who has just released a blog post detailing exactly why the community (and mainstream audiences) can look forward to a golden age of crypto. It might just take a little while to get there, however in their words this is an inexorable rise.
“Millions of consumers and businesses lost money” the blog reads, continuing: “the fundamental trust in the promise of crypto-finance is waning.”
Not a great start, WEF.
“While the underlying technology of cryptography and blockchain is generalizable to all industries and coordinating activities.”
Much better, and entirely true. Supply chains and traditional finance, crucial potential adopters of crypto, may typically change methods at a glacial pace but we’re talking billions, if not trillions in savings across the global economy if and when they do.
The key is placing the technology in better hands than unscrupulous actors, such as a recent exchange boss who shall not be named and totally did not commit fraud on a massive scale.
“Cryptography and blockchains will continue to be integral parts of the modern economic toolkit, despite the great harm these tools may have caused when wielded by the wrong people.”
Not so subtle shade thrown in a certain frizzy-haired direction, yet it marks the critical problem with crypto so far: profiteers and bad actors are making the most money while retail investors are left holding the bag.
Returning to the underlying fundamentals of blockchain, that is decentralization and thus power to the people as well as a way to streamline processes and cut out the middlemen.
This is what will usher in mass adoption, when solutions help people en masse, whether they are a rice farmer in the Philippines or an American shipping magnate. Cryptocurrencies do not discriminate unless those in power rig the game to make it so.
