What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger: Why Crypto Isn’t Going Anywhere

Crypto winter is here once again and with it, fear seems to be the prevalent emotion among crypto investors. With the bear market already having lasted months, some experts are claiming it could last as long as 2 years. As doubt grows, denouncing crypto as a scam or a completely speculative pyramid is becoming the norm. Those making such claims seem to forget a simple truth: Crypto is more than just an investment tool.

Back when Satoshi Nakamoto published Bitcoin’s whitepaper in 2008, he described Bitcoin as a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system”. This definition would define the nature of cryptocurrency for years to come, leaving the potential applications of the network supporting it to play a secondary role. 

While many projects tried to give blockchain technology a primary role, it wouldn’t be until 2015 when Ethereum would achieve such a feat. Sure, the network’s cryptocurrency would become an instant hit but Ethereum would show that blockchain was a transformative technology by itself. Ever since, crypto would be just another aspect of a much larger ecosystem that captivated developers and organizations alike.

Crypto’s history is similar to that of the internet itself as both started as a niche technology that would eventually rise to popularity. Once this happened and investors saw their potential, uncontrolled speculation took place with the acquisition of domains and cryptocurrency. As time passed, the inevitable occurred: a bubble formed and eventually burst. 

Despite many experts predicting that the internet would fail as a result of the bubble, the internet persevered and became one of the most defining technologies of the time. Just like the internet, crypto is more than just the speculation that takes time around it, and, hopefully, its applications will be enough to prove detractors wrong.

The success of blockchain and crypto seems to be a given when taking a look at the current trends in the tech world and other industries. Web3, NFTs, decentralized finance, supply chain management, distributed cloud computing, and many more are just gaining ground by the day. No matter how chilly the crypto winter goes, blockchain technology is one of the hottest things.

The relevance of blockchain technology and crypto in different industries was the topic of conversation of one of the panels at Grit Daily House during Consensus 2022. Titled “Chilly This Winter? Cozy Up to these Crypto Plays and the Tech Behind Them”, this panel saw Forbes’ John Ellett sit with some of the experts shaping the industry.

If you want to know what Laguna’s CEO Stefan Rust,  Veritone’s Product Manager Victoria Dickson, and Jsquare’s Co-Founder & CIO James Wo, have to say about the tech behind crypto, this is the panel for you. You can watch this panel below and find our other panels on Grit Daily’s official YouTube Channel.