Cryptocurrency is a digital coin that exists only in a computer program. That program is designed by, controlled by, and can be changed by human programmers. While the coin and its trading database (a blockchain) are protected with hard-to-hack cryptographic techniques (hence the “crypto” in cryptocurrency), the digital coin isn’t guaranteed or regulated by any official authority. If the humans who built the program want to change the rules to their advantage and to the disadvantage of market participants, they can. While you can trade the digital coin, this isn’t money. Some merchants will allow customers to pay for goods using cryptocurrencies, but they’re not widely accepted, and the majority of merchants use service providers to convert the coins into fiat currency before they receive their payment. If you owned all the bitcoin in the world, you’d have nothing. In this sense, cryptocurrencies are speculative assets, more akin to tulips than to a productive commodity. On the cover of the August 2022 edition of Fortune, the visage of Sam Bankman-Fried beatifically beamed forth: “the next Warren Buffett.” That was the top of the cryptocurrency market, and it’s been an ugly slide through crashing prices and US Marshals since then. Two questions stand out: “Why did the bubble get so big?” and “Is there a future for unregulated digital coins?”
Full opinion : Cryptocurrency For CEOs.
