Second Rough Draft

There are certain assumptions regarding the cryptocurrencies which I’d like to address in detail. 1) Bitcoin is the only crypto that matters There is a very widespread misunderstanding that bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency created. Bitcoin is prominently the trend setter and de facto standard for cryptocurrencies but there’s so much more one needs to know. The field of cryptocurrencies has expanded dramatically since Bitcoin was launched over a decade ago, and the next great digital token may be released tomorrow. There are more than 4,000 cryptocurrencies in existence as of January 2021. While many of these cryptos have little to no following or trading volume, some enjoy immense popularity among dedicated communities of backers and investors. We’ll examine a popular few. ETHEREUM: The first Bitcoin alternative is Ethereum, it is a decentralized software platform that enables smart contracts and decentralized applications to be built and run without any downtime, fraud, control, or interference from a third party. The goal behind Ethereum is to create a decentralized suite of financial products that anyone in the world can freely access, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or faith. This aspect makes the implications for those in some countries more compelling, as those without state infrastructure and state identifications can get access to bank accounts, loans, insurance, or a variety of other financial products. The applications on Ethereum are run on ether, its platform-specific cryptographic token. Ether is like a vehicle for moving around on the Ethereum platform and is sought mostly by developers looking to develop and run applications inside Ethereum, or now, by investors looking to make purchases of other digital currencies using ether. Ether, launched in 2015, is currently the second-largest digital currency by market capitalization after Bitcoin, although it lags behind the dominant cryptocurrency by a significant margin. As of January 2021, ether’s market cap is roughly 19% of Bitcoin’s size.

In 2014, Ethereum launched a presale for ether, which received an overwhelming response; this helped to usher in the age of the initial coin offering (ICO). According to Ethereum, it can be used to “codify, decentralize, secure and trade just about anything.” Following the attack on the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) in 2016, Ethereum was split into Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC). As of January 2021, Ethereum (ETH) has a market capitalization of $138.3 billion and a per-token value of $1,218.59. In 2021, Ethereum plans to change its consensus algorithm from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. This move will allow Ethereum’s network to run itself with far less energy and improved transaction speed. Proof-of-stake allows network participants to “stake” their ether to the network. This process helps to secure the network and process the transactions that occur. Those who do this are rewarded ether, similar to an interest account. This is an alternative to Bitcoin’s proof-of-work mechanism, where miners are rewarded more Bitcoin for processing transactions. Ethereum borrows heavily from Bitcoin’s protocol and its underlying blockchain technology, but it adapts the tech to support applications beyond money. Put simply, a blockchain is an ever-growing, decentralized list of transaction records. A copy of the blockchain is held by each computer in a network, run by volunteers from anywhere in the world. This global apparatus replaces intermediaries. • The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM): The part of Ethereum that executes the rules of Ethereum, and makes sure a submitted transaction or smart contract follows the rules. • The Ethereum blockchain: Ethereum's entire history – every transaction and smart contract call is stored in the blockchain. • Ether: Ethereum's token, which is required to make transactions and execute smart contracts on Ethereum. • Proof-of-work: This is Ethereum’s consensus model, the glue holding the whole system together that ensures everyone on the network is following the rules. • How do users interact with Ethereum? • Using smart contracts and using Ethereum apps requires money in the form of ether, Ethereum’s native token. Ether is needed for doing just about anything on Ethereum, and when it’s used to execute smart contacts on the network it’s often referred to as “gas.” The ether can be used to call smart

contracts: For example, a contract could trigger a post on Twitter (or an alternative), or it could trigger an account to begin borrowing coins on an Ethereum-based lending platform. LITECOIN (LTC): launched in 2011, was among the first cryptocurrencies to follow in the footsteps of Bitcoin and has often been referred to as “silver to Bitcoin’s gold.” It was created by Charlie Lee, an MIT graduate and former Google engineer. Litecoin is based on an open-source global payment network that is not controlled by any central authority and uses “scrypt” as a proof of work, which can be decoded with the help of consumer-grade CPUs. Although Litecoin is like Bitcoin in many ways, it has a faster block generation rate and hence offers a faster transaction confirmation time. Other than developers, there are a growing number of merchants that accept Litecoin. As of January 2021, Litecoin has a market capitalization of $10.1 billion and a per-token value of $153.88, making it the sixth-largest cryptocurrency in the world. Litecoin was designed to be used for cheaper transactions, and to be more efficient for everyday use. In comparison, bitcoin was being used more as a store of value for long-term purposes. The coin limit market cap is much higher on litecoin than bitcoin, and the mining process far quicker. This means transactions are faster and cheaper, although generally smaller in size. Utilising blockchain technology, litecoin can be used to transfer funds directly between individuals or businesses. This ensures that a public ledger of all transactions is recorded, and allows the currency to operate a decentralised payment system free from government control or censorship. Litecoin involves the creation and transfer of digital coins via an open source, cryptographic protocol. It uses blockchain technology to record a decentralised, public ledger of all transactions. Litecoin has a much smaller market cap than bitcoin, but is still one of the most traded cryptocurrencies. When you buy litecoin on an exchange, the price of one litecoin is usually quoted against the US dollar (USD). In other words, you are selling USD in order to buy litecoin. If the price of litecoin rises you will be able to sell for

a profit, because it is now worth more USD than when you bought it. If the price falls and you decide to sell, then you would make a loss. With CMC Markets, you trade litecoin via a spread bet or contract for difference (CFD) account. This allows you to speculate on its price movements without owning the actual cryptocurrency. You aren’t taking ownership of litecoin. Instead, you’re opening a position which will increase or decrease in value depending on litecoin’s price movement against the dollar. CARDANO(ADA): is an “Ouroboros proof-of-stake” cryptocurrency that was created with a research- based approach by engineers, mathematicians, and cryptography experts. The project was cofounded by Charles Hoskinson, one of the five initial founding members of Ethereum. After having some disagreements with the direction Ethereum was taking, he left and later helped to create Cardano. The team behind Cardano created its blockchain through extensive experimentation and peer-reviewed research. The researchers behind the project have written over 90 papers on blockchain technology across a range of topics. This research is the backbone of Cardano. Due to this rigorous process, Cardano seems to stand out among its proof-of-stake peers as well as other large cryptocurrencies. Cardano has also been dubbed the “Ethereum killer,” as its blockchain is said to be capable of more. That said, Cardano is still in its early stages. While it has beaten Ethereum to the proof-of- stake consensus model, it still has a long way to go in terms of decentralized financial applications. Cardano aims to be the world’s financial operating system by establishing decentralized financial products similar to Ethereum as well as providing solutions for chain interoperability, voter fraud, and legal contract tracing, among other things. As of January 2021, Cardano has a market capitalization of $9.8 billion and one ADA trades for $0.31. POLKADOT(DOT): is a unique proof-of-stake cryptocurrency that is aimed at delivering interoperability among other blockchains. Its protocol is designed to connect permissioned and permission-less blockchains, as well as oracles, to allow systems to work together under one roof.

Polkadot’s core component is its relay chain that allows the interoperability of varying networks. It also allows for “parachains,” or parallel blockchains with their own native tokens for specific-use cases. Where Polkadot differs from Ethereum is that rather than creating just decentralized applications on Polkadot, developers can create their own blockchain while also using the security that Polkadot’s chain already has. With Ethereum, developers can create new blockchains but need to create their own security measures, which can leave new and smaller projects open to attack, as the larger a blockchain, the more security it has. This concept in Polkadot is known as shared security. Polkadot was created by Gavin Wood, another member of the core founders of the Ethereum project who had differing opinions on the project’s future. As of January 2021, Polkadot has a market capitalization of $11.2 billion and one DOT trades for $12.54. 2) Cryptocurrency is an illegal form of digital money and is used for criminal activities. You’ll often hear people say that using cryptocurrency is dangerous, a lot is at stake and is illegal but it’s all false. People confuse the unregulated aspect of cryptocurrencies with being illegal. Cryptocurrencies are not illegal; anybody can buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies. It’s unregulated; we do not have a regulatory framework to govern its functioning for now. Despite starting just a decade ago and being one of the highest yielding financial assets, cryptocurrencies have had a difficult journey. The ambiguity surrounding this digital currency has led to many myths and misconceptions, due to which many people think twice before investing in it. This narrative has been further strengthened by cryptocurrency critics who say that it can disbalance the traditional financial ecosystem. But like most other consequential disruptions, crypto has now managed to gain public favour as people slowly shed their inhibitions and insecurities around this digital currency. To add to this disruption, exchanges like Coinswitch

Kuber are becoming popular, allowing the public to invest in any cryptocurrency, including bitcoins, for as low as ₹100. 3) Cryptocurrencies are volatile so blockchain must not be reliable. This is a partially true assumption. Now let’s understand why. First let’s address if cryptocurrencies are volatile. The cryptocurrency market has been volatile from the very beginning, but the last couple of years have been a particularly wild ride for millions of investors around the world. Many have made millions on the big upswings, and yet many have lost large and small investments in the bursting bubbles and sudden market downturns. So yes. In simple terms, cryptocurrency is volatile. Despite all of the media attention that cryptocurrencies have had over the years, the size of the market is still minuscule compared to fiat currencies and gold. This relatively small market size means that smaller forces can have a larger effect on price. If one group of investors decided to sell $500 million in gold, it would barely create a ripple in the price of gold. If the same happened to Bitcoin, it would be enough to destabilize the whole market and crash the price. Most cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are purely digital assets and aren’t backed by anything physical like a currency or commodity. That means that their price is set entirely by the laws of supply and demand. Since the supply of many cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is fixed or predictable, the price is dependent on how many people want to buy Bitcoin right now. There is no physical asset to back the value of the major cryptocurrencies or governments to enforce their use as a currency. That means their value is backed entirely by faith. If people no longer believe that the value of Bitcoin will hold or continue to rise, they’ll likely sell. This can reduce the price and convince others to sell too, so a cycle forms and quickly plunges the price downwards. The opposite can also happen to shoot prices up and form over-inflated price bubbles. Plus, the technology is still developing. Blockchain and other alternative crypto technologies are still in their early stages of development. It’s barely been a decade since the idea of cryptography-based decentralized currencies was published in the Bitcoin whitepaper, so it will be a while before the market matures. Now let’s understand why blockchain could be an unreliable technology.

blockchains store data using sophisticated math and innovative software rules that are extremely difficult for attackers to manipulate. But the security of even the best-designed blockchain systems can fail in places where the fancy math and software rules come into contact with humans, who are skilled cheaters, in the real world, where things can get messy. People have found creative ways to cheat. Emin Gün Sirer and his colleagues at Cornell University have shown that there is a way to subvert a blockchain even if you have less than half the mining power of the other miners. The details are somewhat technical, but essentially a “selfish miner” can gain an unfair advantage by fooling other nodes into wasting time on already-solved crypto- puzzles. Another possibility is an “eclipse attack.” Nodes on the blockchain must remain in constant communication in order to compare data. An attacker who manages to take control of one node’s communications and fool it into accepting false data that appears to come from the rest of the network can trick it into wasting resources or confirming fake transactions. Hackers can, for instance, break into “hot wallets,” internet-connected applications for storing the private cryptographic keys that anyone who owns cryptocurrency requires in order to spend it. Wallets owned by online cryptocurrency exchanges have become prime targets. Many exchanges claim they keep most of their users’ money in “cold” hardware wallets—storage devices disconnected from the internet. But as the January heist of more than $500 million worth of cryptocurrency from the Japan-based exchange Coincheck showed, that’s not always the case. “secure” ends up being very hard to define in the context of blockchains. 3) Tokens and coins are the same thing. Coins refer to any cryptocurrency that has a standalone, independent blockchain — like Bitcoin. These cryptocurrencies are bootstrapped from scratch, and the broader network is designed explicitly to achieve a certain goal. For example, Bitcoin exists as a censorship-resistant store of value and medium of exchange that has a secure, fixed monetary policy.

The native token of Bitcoin, BTC (i.e., bitcoins), is the most liquid cryptocurrency in the market and has both the highest market cap and realized market cap in the cryptocurrency sector. Coin projects typically draw inspiration from past technologies or other cryptocurrencies and fuse them into an innovative network catering to a specific purpose. Another example of a coin, Ethereum’s Ether (ETH) is the native coin of a smart contracts platform for creating general-purpose computer programs that run on a decentralized blockchain. Rather than focusing on financial data, Ethereum focuses on arbitrary program data that can cover anything from games to social media. Ether is used for sending/receiving, managing assets, paying gas fees, and interacting with decentralized applications (dapps) on the network. Tokens are a unique outlay of broader smart contracts platforms like Ethereum that enable users to create, issue, and manage tokens that are derivatives of the primary blockchain. For example, the ICO craze of 2017 was fueled by Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard, which is basically a protocol for creating tokens (besides ETH) on the Ethereum blockchain that can be exchanged with each other. Projects would announce or build an application on Ethereum using smart contracts, and issue a native token for use in that application, raising funds directly from investors in ETH in the process. Tokens occupy a unique corner of the cryptocurrency market where they function as “utility” tokens within an application’s ecosystem for incentivizing certain behavior or paying fees. For example, the popular ERC-20 token Dai is part of the MakerDAO dapp on Ethereum. MakerDAO is a way for users to access credit instruments like lending/borrowing using Dai, which is designed to be stable. ERC-20 tokens like Dai can be exchanged for any other ERC-20 token or other Ethereum- based standards (i.e., ERC-721), including the ETH coin. As a result, tokens exist as application-specific tokens within a coin’s broader cryptocurrency/blockchain network, like Dai existing within Ethereum’s ecosystem. Other tokens besides Dai include Maker (MKR), 0x, Augur (REP), Komodo (KMD), and Golem (GNT).

Coins need to be exchanged with each other through cryptocurrency exchanges because they are built on different, non-standardized code protocols. Conversely, tokens on Ethereum (e.g., ERC-20) can be exchanged through internal applications amongst each other with minimal friction because they are built on standardized code protocols. Hypothesis: Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are concepts that can only be understood by people majoring in finance. • Cryptocurrency has become a global phenomena in recent years, although much is still to be learned about this evolving technology. Over the years it has been observed that the cryptocurrencies have been highly volatile and component, especially the Bitcoin. This volatility mainly depends on the decisions taken by the United States' financial regulators on the usage of Bitcoin. • With its increasing popularity, Bitcoin users predict that by 2024, almost 94% of different types of Bitcoin will be released • A forecast by Jeremy Liew, Snapchat's first investor, estimates Bitcoin to hit a staggering $500,000 by 2030. • The popularity of this form of currency is expected to grow exponentially, as it is decentralized, safe, and anonymous. • The fact that a huge section of technology-savvy individuals and companies are favoring the decision of using different form of encrypted currencies clearly indicates that the future of Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies as a whole is going to be bright. When cryptocurrency is created, all confirmed transactions are stored in a public ledger. All identities of coin owners are encrypted to ensure the legitimacy of record keeping. Because the currency is decentralized, you own it. Neither government nor bank has any control over it. The ledger ensures that all transactions between “digital wallets” can calculate an accurate balance. All transactions are checked to make sure that the coins used are owned by the current spender. This public ledger is also referred to as a “transaction blockchain”. Blockchain technology ensures secure digital transactions through encryption and “smart contracts” that make the entity virtually not hackable and void of fraud.

With security like this, blockchain technology is poised to impact near. There are over two billion people with access to the Internet who don't have rights to use to traditional exchange systems. These individuals are clued-in for the cryptocurrency market. A year ago, the Indian government decided to take harsh measures against “black money”, funds earned on the black market on which income and other taxes have been evaded, and tax evasion by removing two of their highest value banknotes from circulation resulting in removing over 22 billion banknotes in circulation. As a result, citizens worried about losing their savings, switched to cryptocurrency to preserve their funds resulting in a trading volume spike of cryptocurrency. Since cryptocurrency is decentralized, Indian regulators are currently working on a legal framework regulating cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as well as the central bank of India is developing their own blockchain resulting in its very own cryptocurrency that will be called “Lakshmi”. Blockchain technology has also enabled companies to change the way they operate digitally. Through Initial Coin offerings (ICOs) companies are offering their digital tokens for sale. While many companies raising funds through ICOs are unregulated and lack validity, companies such as 1World Online, an established Silicon Valley company, already have a working product. cryptocurrency could completely take over in the next 50 years. Just because it’s about money and keeping up with statistics and numbers does not mean that its knowledge should be limited to finance, Economics and Business majors. Every individual should be aware of cryptocurrency and how it could be the next big thing because you don’t have to be an Econ major to invest, anyone can invest and cryptocurrency already has a major amount of people investing in it. Every person needs to show interest in understanding how crypto works because in turn it is going to prove to be beneficial to them itself.

VARIABLES: Stock exchange index: crypto10 index trading The Crypto10 Index, also known as or the B10 index, as it is also known is provided run by a company named BITA. It, represents the performance of the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies in the market, based on market capitalisation. By monitoring the top blockchain projects in the industry, the Crypto-10 Index is widely considered as the benchmark cryptocurrency index for the cryptocurrency the crypto market. By tracking this index, global investors can quickly gauge the volatility and sentiment of the overall cryptocurrency market. The BITA10 Index 10 was first introduced on the 20th of September 2018, by BITA, a Germany-based Fintech company that is responsible for providing enterprise-grade indexes, data and infrastructure to institutions operating in the investment space. The Crypto10 Index is calculated in US dollars (USD), and it is calculated daily, with no exceptions. This calculation takes place between 00:00 and 23:00 UTC. The B10 Index was launched with a standardised baseline value of 5000 points and its value has since mirrored the performance of the overall cryptocurrency market. Ultimately, this index can also be used as a benchmark for a wide variety of financial and non-financial products. To calculate the price of the Index, BITA uses data from a variety of sources, including trading platforms, regulatory agencies, token issuers, real-time data from approved 3rd party sources and any related data from service providers. The B10 Index is measured in points and it tracks the prices of the top ten tokens in the market based on trading volumes and market capitalisation, which is, the token price multiplied by the number of units in circulation. In order to be included in the index, the following conditions must be met: • A coin or token must be traded on at least two exchanges in order to be considered. Tokens traded in multiple exchanges are often accredited with market acceptance. • A coin or token must have been traded for at least 3 calendar months. • A coin or token must have, at some point, been in the top 200 tokens by market capitalisation.

• Due to the composition of the Crypto Market Index 10 and the general nature of the crypto market, various factors may impact its price level. The crypto market is headline sensitive and will particularly react to loud news from regulatory agencies, such as the US’s SEC and China’s CSRC, as well as other relevant headlines, such as hacks on major crypto exchanges. Other news that may impact the index’s price are mining and trading legislation in different countries. • The index will also be heavily impacted by significant price shifts of one of its constituent components, especially Bitcoin. Bitcoin acts as the gold standard of the cryptocurrency market, and it usually provides the cue for price direction for other coins and tokens. • Bitcoin is often known as a safe haven asset. This means that much like Gold when markets are in turmoil and all of the money is running away from the US dollar and the stock market in a “risk on” environment, it tends to run towards the safe haven assets, Bitcoin included. If you look at Bitcoin on a price chart in comparison to the USD, you will often see it inversely correlated. This is not a hard and fast rule, however it is common. Bitcoin like Gold is a good store of wealth and due to anonymity can be a great way for people to get money out of a restrictive country quickly. When this happens, it pushes up the price of the Bitcoin.

CASE STUDY: Will cryptocurrency have a future? Investors, financial institutions, organizations, etc. are making new amendments with respect to cryptocurrency holdings and encouraging crypto transactions. Goldman Sachs is now making Bitcoin funds available to some high-end clients, Paypal has allowed users to leverage cryptocurrency holdings to pay its online merchants internationally, etc. This clearly indicates that cryptocurrency in the future will surely impact business operations. cryptocurrency has also gained a lot of attention from regulatory bodies. However, the administrative field is still trying to speed up with regard to major players in the virtual currency field. Yet, there have been enforcement activities and an updated focus around the regulation of crypto activities and users. One of the serious criticisms of crypto is that there is no inherent worth. In fact, the worth it has is the worth that the world gives it. Nonetheless, experts believe that this is applicable for global fiat currencies as even they have not received any gold standard. Solid supporters for holding gold knew for quite a long time that outrageous printing of money would cause a devaluation in the currency. Since gold has a generally limited inventory and has truly been viewed as significant, they use it as a fence against inflation and a method for keeping the government away from their bank accounts. Joseph A. Grundfest, Professor at the Stanford Law School also adds that cryptocurrency is a trustless system. Since it is not directly related to any government or state, people have a hard time trusting cryptocurrency. Irrespective of what people say, many countries have started adopting and legalizing cryptocurrencies. This indicates a positive attitude towards cryptocurrency as well as the future of crypto looks promising. In India, the Supreme Court overturned the crypto ban, yet regulations will soon come into the picture.

Not just India, many other countries that have effectively adopted cryptocurrency have put regulations in place to ensure economic viability and progress, without harming the interests of the public Just like we have heated discussions of how important it is to regulate artificial intelligence to ensure AI is used ethically and responsibly, similarly, regulations on cryptocurrency are vital too. It’s time we use each technology responsibly as recently a lot of legal challenges are piling up on tech giants like Amazon, Google, Apple, etc. on the grounds of antitrust issues. There is no crystal clear clarity as to what cryptocurrencies would look like in the next decade but that’s for any asset, you will never really know what it’s worth could be. At the current pace, of course there is a heavy scope for a good growth, especially for bitcoin. Currently it’s at its inflection point, where we're either going to see Bitcoin accelerate into mass adoption or not. You're either going to see it really start gaining traction or go the other way. I really think it's a very binary outcome. When you hear about all these projects being done on the blockchain and things like that, like MasterCard, and Visa, and all these other fintechs have their own blockchain divisions, that are developing blockchain finance programs and things like that, generally that's on the Ethereum, it could have more staying power than Bitcoin. In the scenario of cryptocurrencies, it’s advisable to keep an open mind because the possibilities are endless. It is still very early to predict something solid about how digital currencies will play out. Most investors are predicting on the extremes by saying that it will either sky rocket or lose its value going ahead and it’s all in the air because of its fluctuating values. Even in India, crypto currency exchanges are urging the government to define cryptocurrencies as digital assets and not as currency. As per industry experts, this

would help the government address all its legitimate concerns with regards to financial risks associated with crypto. In India, growth-wise, the crypto industry has grown from four-five million people in 2018 to 15-20 million investors now with more than $1.5 billion invested. This has in part been driven by the superlative returns given by cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ether and dogecoin over the past three years. There are many people who say that fiat money will become obsolete and people will store money on their mobile phones. Cryptocurrency will take over Rupee and Dollar or paper money but it will very certainly continue to be a part of our life in the future, whether in the shape of money, investment choices, commodities, assets, or some other form. In general, there are two groups: one believes that all virtual currencies are a hoax that can burst at any time, and the other believes that they are all scams. The second group believes that it has a promising future and will soon replace real money. At this point, it is unclear who is correct and how these technologies will develop in the future. There is, however, little dispute regarding the underlying technology, which is blockchain. Cryptocurrencies are unquestionably growing in popularity as a result of their exponential returns in a short period of time. Apart from cryptocurrency’s appealing features such as low transaction fees, fast transaction times, expanded payment options, simple currency exchange, and decentralized architecture, it also has some drawbacks that must be addressed before cryptos, can be legalized, such as price volatility, anonymity, cybersecurity, environmental impact and the lack of a refund or cancellation mechanism. Bitcoin has risen 193,639.36 % since 2012, despite all of these certainties and uncertainties. The user index for 2021, according to Binance Research, has 97 percent confidence in cryptocurrency. The future is uncertain but it’s certainly bright knowing how technology is only advancing everyday. In my opinion there is also a probability for a cryptocurrency alternative that some tech head could come up with. It’s very difficult to predict future for something that is so volatile.

CONCLUSION: After assessing so many articles and reading on opinions from regular investors, this could go two ways. Either cryptocurrencies will be booming in the next 10 years and will become the go to every individual and there will be an exponential rise in the usage of digital currencies or it might see a major downfall because people will still heavily prefer using fiat money over getting acquainted with digital currencies. Within the cryptocurrency community, one of the most popularized goals is the total replacement of banks and other centralized financial intermediaries. Although such institutions may never be fully replaced by a democratized network, their role (and associated profitability) may steadily diminish with rise of cryptocurrencies, hopefully leading to the prevention of future financial catastrophes on the scale of the 2008 crisis. Although cryptocurrencies have the possibility to replace functions of the existing financial infrastructure, their greatest potential may be in incorporating with other technologies to facilitate a true revolution. The blockchain model is ideally suited for Internet of Things (IoT) transactions, which require both efficient simplicity and robust security. For example, imagine if every time you needed to fill up a car with gas, your car could pay the gas station automatically. In addition to revolutionizing the financial system, the blockchain technology of underlying cryptocurrencies has the potential to expand across nearly any industry that involves large-scale record-keeping. Blockchain could be a massive boon to proponents of effective protection of intellectual property rights, such as with music and film. New companies such as Ascribe are pioneering methods for creating secure limited copies of digital media, in order to ensure that artists are properly compensated for their work, instead of being financial damaged by pirate. Other examples include the growing \"Sharing Economy\" (including AirBnB) which can use blockchain to ease identity and reputation management, and \"Smart Grid\" utility companies which could use blockchain to introduce efficient microtransactions for energy consumption.

Crypto has its equal share of pros and cons, it’s risky but the feeling of knowing as to how it could be the next big thing keeps investors on their feet. Doing your research and trusting your instincts plays a big role if you plan on investing in cryptocurrencies. Think through but don’t fear the unknown because as I mentioned earlier, the possibilities are endless. BIBLIOGRAPHY: www.investopedia.com www.ibm.com www.daviescoin.com www.thesoftwareguild.com www.101blockchains.com www.coindesk.com www.cmcmarkets.com www.technologyreveiw.com www.blogliquid.com www.ledger.com www.analyticsinsight.com www.data.oced.org