Page 152 - Bespoke Issue

PL: So Chris, what brought you into the crypto environment?
CD: Well, actually a number of factors. Firstly, we are a nance investment house and investing into new and emerging technologies has always been of great interest to us. What better than today’s crypto market. Secondly, my own observation was crypto market being a deregulated environment was a little like the wild west, and in great need of maturing with stops and measures to streamline the industry and counter much of the risk within in. This is where I feel I can nd opportunities.
PL: For many of our readers, they are in the dark on what a cryptocurrency is?
CD: That is the big question and it’s not just your readers but many people that have invested into cryptos that don’t really understand it. Let me try to enlighten them a little. A cryptocurrency is a form of payment that can be exchanged online for goods and services. Many companies have issued their own currencies, often called tokens, and these can be traded speci cally for the good or service that the company provides. A good example of this is to think of them as casino chips. You’ll need to exchange real currency for the casino chip to play....and this is exactly what you need to do to acquire a cryptocurrency, which in turn allows the
crypto owner to access the goods or services.
Cryptocurrencies work using a technology called Blockchain. In lay person’s terms, Blockchain is a decentralized technology spread across many computers that manages and records transactions. Part of the appeal of this technology is its security.
PL: Just how many cryptocurrencies are out there, and what are they worth?
CD: From my own research as of January this year, about 1,400 cryptocurrencies were trading hands, and they continue to proliferate, raising money through initial coin offerings, which are generally referred to as ICO’s. Now here is what is amazing, by the rst week of December 2017, ICOs had raised $1.38 billion in the fourth quarter, on top of the third quarter’s $1.74 billion. These are signi cant numbers and turning heads around the world. This data is according to research conducted by Token Report. And both dwarf the approximately $100 million ICO haul in 2016. It is an extraordinarily fast industry growth.
But this new fundraising doesn’t include the value of longer-lived currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum that have already gone public. As of March 31st, 2018, the total value of all Bitcoins, the most popular digital currency, was pegged at $121 billion. The
second-most popular, called Ether, was valued at $40 billion. The total value of all cryptocurrencies is about $265 billion, according to Coin Market Cap. Its easy to see why there is all this excitement around.
PL: Yes, it is exciting, but why are they so popular?
CD: Well, simply, cryptocurrencies appeal to their supporters for a variety of reasons. I believe that some of the most popular reasons are that:
Supporters see cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as the currency of the future and are racing to buy them now before they become more widespread and presumably more valuable. History has already clearly shown us how these popular products rise, and fall, in value. But over the term of their life to date, they have substantially risen in value.
Some supporters like the fact that cryptocurrencies are off the banking system so avoiding all the cumbersome compliance that the banking industry has evolved. Transactions are quick and globally borderless. One of the reasons that the banks feel threatened about their future.
Some supporters like the technology behind cryptocurrencies, the blockchain, because it’s a decentralized processing and recording system and
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