Bitcoin & Other Cryptocurrencies Shaping Future Economy, Capitalism Morphing

Money has shaped our modern economy. We have gone from using grain and cattle and even salt as currency to using metal tokens (coins) and paper. However, paper has the habit of sticking and it has been around ever since the Chinese introduced it during the Tang dynasty. We have grown comfortable using paper currency and no one can deny that it has had its usefulness. Now we are approaching another era in which bits are playing the same role that paper did. Digital currencies are no longer something that will happen way into the future, they are here. How will the advent of digital currencies like Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum and etc affect the future shape of the economy?

Is it the end of Capitalism?

Ed Finn wrote an article in the Guardian asking, “Do digital currencies spell the end of Capitalism?” Finn’s article covered the DAO issue and how Ethereum community dealt with the hack. He examines the very nature of digital currency and ponders the questions surrounding ‘programmable money.’

In the end, he succinctly concludes:

“If what counts, and how we count, is measured in processor cycles instead of human exchange, it will change the rules of the economy as surely as driverless vehicles will change transportation. What we value is fundamentally a question of belief, and it’s increasingly unclear what we believe in more: billfolds or bits?”

So what will change if we move to digital currencies, surely these currencies change the nature of money as they are not issued by a central monetary authority or backed by the promise of the sovereigns.

These currencies are an organism of their own kind. They open the doors to people issuing their own tokens and creating their own monetary policies. This could radically change the financial system as individuals could potentially fund their own enterprises with their own currencies. They also remove the vagaries of the interest rate cycles associated with government issued money and break the nexus between big businesses and the government.

The era of financial empowerment

Digital currencies have opened doors which were firmly shut. These currencies hold the promise of distribution of wealth like never before. Not only have they brought in the technology to transfer money in a blink of an eye at minimal costs around the world, they have also brought access to ‘money’ for people who never had it before.

As Dominik Zynis of the WINGS Foundation says:

“Digital currencies will allow anyone, be it person or community, to be included in the economy by self regulated credit expansion enabling trade people who previously lacked access to requisite mediums of exchange.”

Creating trust among people

At the moment people have no choice but to trust the sovereign's money. It is after all, a promissory note. Digital currencies put the trust fact squarely among the public. People who choose to use a particular digital currency, do so because they recognize it as money. Not because they were told to use it as money. The use of digital money or programmable money opens the doors for applications like smart contracts. Smart contracts within digital money can revolutionize the way ‘deals’ are done. Escrow can be inbuilt so that a transaction is only completed when certain parameters are met. This removes the need for having intermediaries in financial transactions, property transactions etc.

Capitalism is about to morph

The present economic system that we live in has reached its peak potential. We need a new era of economics if we are to develop further. In an era where the planetary resources are increasingly dwindling, we need a system that places less emphasis on profit and more on developing human resources. Virtual currencies or digital currencies can usher in an era of entrepreneurship and development. They can also transform how we do business today and remove regulatory bottlenecks out of the system. While capitalism might not come to an end immediately due to ‘programmable money’, it is certainly about to evolve into something different. No one can deny though that we are at the crossroads.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

       Crypto Capital Markets To Save Mankind From New Global Financial Storm

Nick Ayton our London Correspondent, the Sage of Shoreditch looks beyond the current system at Crypto Capital Markets 2.1, a new world of finance and capital markets. The current Fractional Reserve banking system that few trust is failing, creaking at the seams. Will crypto economics be the only thing left as the global economies collapse under massive debts hidden from sight behind the media’s fake news?

With Bitcoin, Ethereum and crypto-currencies there is no concept of debt. In crypto capital markets bubbles stay in the glass.

Bubbles generally pop

It comes as no surprise that many predict another financial bubble that has been building since 2013. The West, Middle East, and Asia – nobody will be able to duck it. In the West, cars loans are the new subprime, student, and household debt is rising and credit worthiness is falling. And when it hits it will be worse than 2008. We are all victims of a dangerous game that is being played out by central bankers that have artificially kept interest rates at historic lows, so the pretense and promise of economic recovery can be maintained. There is no transparency, the truth is hidden from view, there is no trust left.

According to Business Insider,

“Interestingly, rates aren't just low within the context of American history. They also happen to be at the lowest levels in the last 5,000 years of civilization.”

Half truths

Everything is censored because if everyone found out the banking system would collapse. The issues are real, they are not going away and it is time for a new economic model. However, unlike 2008 we have a chance to create a fairer system, a system that will be more difficult to manipulate and impossible to create new ‘bubbles’… Is it time for the people to embrace crypto economics and get in early before they miss the opportunity.

Alternative

Crypto Capital Markets a rapidly maturing and fast growing alternative to Fractional Reserve Banking and failing Capital Markets. A system that is rapidly being put in place by the Libertarians, free thinkers, and crypto entrepreneurs so that everyone can still trade what value they have, after the next collapse.

A new system free from tampering and manipulation, a system without censorship, open, fair and transparent.

And yes Bitcoin and other native Blockchains will become the new norm, they will be all that is left.

Financial panic

We are already seeing inflation rising in many economies and currencies under pressure. The central banks have gone too far, printing too much money that has fed the hunger to borrow more and more. With a mountain of debt that cannot be repaid and will never be repaid, an alternative is needed. A world of worthless paper currencies, called fiat, no longer backed by solvent governments, where the US Dollar will devalue fast, pulling other currencies with it. Europe will collapse first as banks like Deutsche bank remain 40 times overleveraged and will fail the consequence it will strand the Euro as a currency without sovereignty, pushing southern European countries into bankruptcy.

The Yuan will fall further, the net effect of failing currencies will be pushing the people to look for the safe haven of crypto-currencies.

Storm Approaching

When the next financial crisis hits, 2017/18 Crypto Wallet adoption will pass 500m users in just months and rise to one to two bln by 2019. The world’s forgotten people, the unbanked are already embracing a new humanitarian banking economy like Humaniq. Across the globe capital markets and financial centers are overleveraged. Housing bubbles are growing and stock markets are reaching new highs are hugely overpriced. Debt is stockpiling, the Fractional Reserve Banking is off the grid as having more than 20 central banks in negative interest rates demonstrates. They believe the taxpayer will end up bailing everyone out. Again. But not this time.

Safe haven

Brexit and the Trump effect was a voted not for the ethos or the people involved, it was a vote by the people, for the people that have had enough. Where banks have overreached, governments sit back and the one percent most wealthy play with people’s lives and manipulate markets.

Our future is Crypto Capital Markets for which we already have the infrastructure such as exchanges, coins/token, wallets and markets.

2008 was the start when people started to say ‘no more.’ The Satoshi Nakamoto paper – a peer to peer electronic cash system was aimed at ensuring governments and bankers cannot destroy value laying the foundation to a new Capital Markets 2.0 originally designed to cut out the banks. It may become the only thing we have that works.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Apple Accepts Zcash as Legitimate Cryptocurrency

Jaxx, the multi-cryptocurrency wallet platform which supports Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and Dash, has recently introduced Zcash support for mobile users on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms. Apple’s rigorous and extensive approval process of iOS applications and updates is familiar to most developers. In particular, Apple is sensitive toward services and applications targeted to serve users of cryptocurrencies and whichever cryptocurrency Apple perceives as unfit for its iOS ecosystem, app developers are not granted the permission to develop apps around it.

Rapid development of the Zcash ecosystem

In September of 2016, the Jaxx development team and the firm’s CEO Anthony Dilorio were requested by Apple to remove a privacy-focused cryptocurrency called Dash from its iOS application. The removal of Dash consequently reduced the financial privacy of Jaxx users on iOS. Understanding the strict requirements and high standards of the Apple and iOS development teams, engineers of Jaxx and Zcash underwent a long development period to integrate Zcash into the Jaxx mobile application.

Developers of both companies collaborated to ensure that Zcash is approved and accepted by the Apple development team. Ultimately, Apple approved the integration of Zcash into Jaxx and accepted Zcash as a legitimate cryptocurrency built on top of proper cryptographic work and technology. With the introduction of Zcash to hundreds of millions of iOS users, Dilorio reaffirmed the importance of financial privacy and the necessity of anonymity which Zcash offers. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Zcash CEO Zooko Wilcox also noted the significance of financial privacy for all iOS users and the rapid development of the Zcash ecosystem.

“It is very important to provide platforms that, like Jaxx, are easy to acquire and easy to use. I'm delighted that Jaxx and other companies and open source volunteers are extending the Zcash ecosystem. Privacy is essential to all commerce, whether buying a cup of coffee, taking care of your family's needs, or executing major business deals,” Wilcox said. Furthermore, Wilcox expressed his excitement over the integration of Zcash into a widely utilized multi-cryptocurrency wallet platform. He explained that the simple and user-friendly interface of Jaxx on both iOS and Android will allow Zcash users to send and receive transactions with ease and full anonymity.

Wilcox added:

“I'm delighted that now anybody with a smartphone (iPhone or Android) can send, receive, and store Zcash right on their phone. It is delightfully easy to send "Internet money" with this simple app, whether across a table or around the world. We were delighted when Jaxx decided to support Zcash, and we offered them free technical support.”

Zcash projects in 2017, including Ethereum

One of the highly anticipated projects eagerly awaited by the cryptocurrency community is Zcash on Ethereum. On January 19, Christian Reitwiessner of the Ethereum Foundation released an update on the joint initiative between the Ethereum R&D team and the Zcash Company. According to Reitwiessner, the project was established to share the advantages and strengths of Zcash and Ethereum networks: programmability and privacy.

Reitwiessner wrote:

“One of the goals of the Zcash company, codenamed Project Alchemy, is to enable a direct decentralized exchange between Ethereum and Zcash. Connecting these two Blockchains and technologies, one focusing on programmability and the other on privacy, is a natural way to facilitate the development of applications requiring both.”

In addition to various ongoing projects including Project Alchemy, Wilcox told Cointelegraph that five new features will be released to the public in the near future. Two of these features include payment disclosure and user-issued tokens, which allow users to reveal information about a specific payment and issue unique tokens for particular projects.

For a company or a project raising funds in unique Zcash-based tokens, revealing the amount raised during the crowdfunding or funding round and sharing the allocation of funds in a transparent manner will be made possible with the payment disclosure feature. As the Zcash development community grows and the ecosystem expands more interesting features, applications and integrations will be introduced to the community.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor