Cryptocurrency and Token Landscape

Bitcoin, started in 2009 on the back of the financial crisis, is the earliest widely used cryptocurrency. It was designed to be a virtual currency capable of facilitating peer-to-peer transactions within its network, without the middleman of a financial authority. This decentralized architecture distinguishes bitcoin from e-commerce and is seen by many as an innovation to the traditional money system. However, from alternative monetary and transaction functions, digital currencies have gained importance as a wealth store and speculation. Some proponents of Cryptocurrency also believed digital assets to be an effective diversifier, because it has weak correlations with other assets.

This report is timely because although this market currently shows high volatility, with the potential of a major downturn, the mid-to-long term opportunities will abound. In a certain way, this phase is salutary as it will consolidate around better projects and weed out the weakest (or fraudulent). But with the massive investment and inflow of initiatives and talent, it has also created a new set of digital asset infrastructure, software and general practices, which will be used in the next innovation phases.

The number of initiatives and the exponential growth of crypto and digital assets, demonstrate the innovative and disruptive nature of these concepts, as well as highlight the underlying technology.