In the Shadowrun pen and paper role playing game the currency was called credit, a name that quite hits also what our real world money is. Money lent out by the central banks to companies holding a banking licence that will pass on that cash into the financial markets from enterprise financing down to consumer credits and of course that sweet little house in the suburbs.
In the dark future games that money is of course all digital and given out by private companies instead of state legalized central banks.
Currently, we are in the gold rush times of Crypto currencies and BitCoin kicked it off. As dodgy as BitCoin most of those currencies are, but they all go through the roof now.
There is good use for secure digital easy to exchange and transfer money, especially for internationally operating enterprises operating with millions in different currencies constantly. Like the Euro within the EU it will end exchange rate insecurities and give the legal bookies a much better day and the finance department better nights, because the slide with the either Euro or Dollar main currency is gone and cant be outdated by any unforeseen market slide.
BitCoin is dodgy because nobody knows for sure who actually started it. Someone is claiming responsibility, but another someone analysing the forums post of that someone made clear that the someone has either weird work ours or is from a different time zone, all of which was doubted by other someones. So, nobody knows and they pretty much all stay in the shadows of the real world known as the internet forums and blog universe.
BitCoin claims to be based on a limited amount of entities called coin which is a concept of getting money to the market from the mid ages that worked and dates back to the Egyptians. The lord in the castle gave out coins to his people so they spare on his fortress protected market place to look for the guy that offers a chicken, but he wants some Tulips and them having only a sack of potatoes they try to swap for chicken in the first place or was it Tulips that get the chicken???
The Egyptian society created along the Nile and agriculture was depending on the flood periods of the Nile. In the flood period the Pharaoh let the his people build the Pyramids and for that work paid in gold coins, because the gold mines further up the Nile were all under his control. Slaves building the Pyramids is a wide spread misconception even so there is a strong possibility that the lower tasks had been executed by slaves and here I do not want to get into the differences of slavery from a Roman Empire first citizen mistress in Rome to dark future electronically surveyed slaves on drugs and artificial hydration and nutrition injections.
Looking at BitCoin it quickly turns out that the coins can be divided and technically that creates another entity of the coin and therfore another coin itself, even so called a fraction of a coin. That gold coin back than was not be divided and those that did were called forgers creating counterfeit money. In the German language there is even a special word for it “Falschmünzer” which I haven’t heard in a while but was used for a fraudster in the past.
And than, the only thing to be bought at this point with BitCoins is stuff from the DarkNet or a speculative plus in the wallet.
Like in most industries from Automobile to the Internet the current incredible amount of different Crypto currencies will go down in the future. Beside those controlled by classic central banks most likely those with most backing by its users will survive and considering the huge demand and turn overs in the dark net, BitCoin might have a good chance to keep floating in the crypto currency market water for some time to come, beside that bad boy image.
Other currencies backed by major companies will be the competition for average Joe crypto investor and quite possible many corporate credit slaves will find themselves on their business trips with an amount of coins to be spent in affiliated shops, restaurants and even bars called expenses, because it makes the booky happy and a happy booky makes the investors happy which will be a major bank and its investment department. That department somewhere in a posh top floor in south Manhattan will be also running the crypto currency throughout all its portfolio and everybody is happy. Happy shiny Crypto people.
Corona makes the short term difficult to estimate, but an economic crisis is overdue for years and the only option the central banks have to avoid a major crash creating even more unrest than Corona by creating heated minds sitting at home in house arrest like back in their childhood when they were caught using drugs back from the party they were not allowed to go to in the first place...and now again...no party...no drugs...the government is mummy!!!...and mummies mean brother the central bank will create more money to be spent for ... BitCoins.
As a matter of fact most classic investment channels are at their limits. Real Estate is high, Precious Metals are high, Stocks are Up, Bonds are not so, but they can't even there was a rush on them and now there is Crypto.
Crypto has it all. It is actually quite useless, because most people cannot buy anything with it, it is online and looks like a video game, no further explanation here, everybody receiving cash wants it, as for now promising high profits easily, and gets it, in opposite to that limited edition VIP customers only watch, and gold rush.
Crypto is also from all investment channels that one that has the highest acceptance within young people from Hipsters to Gangsters and pretty much all are in or at least pretend to. There is a chance that Crypto is the way that the cash wave intended to be spread across the people by the banks actually gets there taking a detour, but than straight into those market participants with a high tech affinity that are today, just a bit older, already the super rich and that wont change.
The more troubled waters are the more difficult the ground is to be estimated, but I think that’s also where the bear catches the biggest fish and I just love the sound and smell there.
