Cryptography was not destined before I was accused of being vigilant. Rumors of the cryptocurrency Armageddon are highly exaggerated. The provocative title is taken from a cheeky ad that Coinbase, the world’s largest cryptocurrency company, declared at the US Super Bowl earlier this year, “Cryptocurrencies are dead, long-lived cryptocurrencies.” Other crypto companies will fight for their lives as they dismiss their people and withdraw their offer letters. The crypto market has sunk to one-third of its peak and some major players have stopped Bitcoin withdrawal as an urgent liquidity measure. Completely skeptical. Foretelling the advent of crypto, blockchain, and Web3 as the next arrival, tech experts have begun to tweet about their imminent death. In my view, crypto is not dead and does not predict the eclipse of the technology behind it. Blockchain.
Before explaining why blockchain is more powerful than ever, let’s take a quick look at the crashed crypto house. Many experts have fixed this crash to the entire geopolitical and economic situation. It’s an intensifying war, supply chain and labor disruptions, and a surge in inflation. But what confuses people here is that these are exactly the kind of mess that cryptography, especially Bitcoin, was supposed to act as a hedge. Like gold, Bitcoin was what you bought when real-world countries and economies faced problems. In theory, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies should be rising, or at least almost stable. Interestingly, the massive crash began not because of economic or political uncertainty, but because of another real-world financial phenomenon: the presence of fraudsters and advertisers. Terra Luna, the so-called stablecoin that makes up 3% of the total market, was found to have been built on the foundation of hype and brilliantly collapsed to zero. This caused a crisis of trust in the crypto world, and the economic turmoil only burned its fire.
This is nothing new. In 2000, the dot-com bubble burst, and hype companies got angry and destroyed the entire dot-com industry. But these companies weren’t the Internet. Not only did the online business survive, but today it dominates the world as a social network, with map platforms, e-commerce and mobile payments supporting our economy and our lives. As Maria Bustilos wrote in the New York Times, “Cryptography is just one side of the larger blockchain universe … and its skeptics and fans likewise make it technical, not just explicit fraud or speculative paths. Eight years later, big banks collapsed under the weight of exotic mathematical means like collateralized debt (CDO), dreamed of by bankers living in their own parallel world. The 2008 crash was estimated at about $ 10 trillion. The current crypto meltdown is one-fifth of that. After that, many banks did not survive, but banks survived. Crypto and The same is true for blockchain. There were nearly 20,000 crypto coins, of which only a few survived. “Uncertainty between new technology and regular money, not because of the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies. The crypto market is very volatile, often because of dangerously unstable junctions, “says Bustillo.
While Arclight focuses on Bitcoin and crypto, Blockchain has been working to solve problems in the less attractive supply chain, financial services, large corporations and energy worlds. It is used by shippers and retailers to unravel complex supply chains. Blockchain-based solutions can reduce the pain and expense of remittances for traveling workers who have to remit money to their homes. Blockchain experiments to certify education and other qualifications can reduce the hassle of storage and sharing and make education loans more affordable. Blockchain-based energy grids are trying to supply cheap energy to poorly serviced areas. The government is testing the technology of secure identity systems. Tamper and fraud prevention transaction records may be enabled. The decentralized nature of blockchain is used in decentralized business models such as helium, which is “people’s Wi-Fi” that is not owned by carriers but is collectively shared. Blockchain is striving to reward online art and creativity with NFTs, empowering parallel (if not proven) worlds like the Metaverse and laying the foundation for a “creator economy”.
The world of cryptocurrencies is shaking, and some of its biggest structures seem to be collapsing. But this is not the end of the world, it just slips and slips on the structural plates of the infrastructure as it seeks to release its creative energy. Blockchain and crypto are alive.
Jaspreet Bindra is the founder of TechWhisperer Ltd, a digital transformation and technology advisory practice.
