At the beginning of 2016, the Washington Post newspaper published a note titled “RIP Bitcoin, It's time to move on” (“RIP Bitcoin, it's time to move on”). In December of that same year, Newsweek magazine wondered if Bitcoin was doomed (to disappear). These are just two of the examples given by 99 Bitcoins.com , a website that has dedicated itself to documenting the number of times in which forecasts about the end of cryptocurrencies have been published (in articles but also in tweets and television interviews). since the year 2010. So far there have been 469 times.
Beyond the somewhat satirical tone of the intention, the review of the failed forecasts can be taken as an exercise in reflection on the evolution of "blockchain" technology and on the high volatility that characterizes most cryptocurrencies. Are all cryptocurrencies the same? What do the crises of confidence that have been unleashed from time to time mean? Will cryptocurrencies end up becoming popular when there is more education about it?
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts believe that there is a lot of potential although they admit that there are challenges to face. That is the case of Daniel Kuhn who wrote on the specialized site Coin Desk : "Cryptocurrencies have a vision of the future and their innovations imply long-term changes (learning about the self-custody of assets, rethinking what money is, creating new forms of collective action). And while today we are faced with all the ways in which cryptocurrencies can fail, there are still many lines in which they can succeed.”
The key question of support
Although they never seem to come true, the prophecies about the end of cryptocurrencies resurface with each crisis that shakes the sector. The most recent occurred in November when FTX, one of the main crypto asset exchange platforms globally, collapsed. On that occasion, the price of bitcoin fell sharply, dragging down almost all other cryptocurrencies.
Although the magnitude of that collapse was undeniable, different analysts agreed to interpret it as a realignment of the market rather than a terminal crisis . For Alex Konanykhin, CEO of Unicoin, the events around FTX revealed "the extreme volatility and vulnerability of the first generation cryptocurrency market" and highlighted the problems derived from the lack of backing assets for most of the cryptocurrencies. cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. Currently, the Coin Market Cap site lists more than 22,000 cryptocurrencies, although few of them are asset-backed and have been designed to avoid high volatility.
Interest and curiosity in cryptocurrencies, meanwhile, continue to rise according to search trends registered at Google last year.
0Comments