Everyone is down on Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency has been hovering around $10,000 for a long time, occasionally popping up and then dipping back down below. The roller coaster valuation is troublesome, but it is more in line with historical commodities. The original cryptocurrency is just going through what many financial instruments have gone through over their life spans, from invention to adoption to mainstream acceptance. The bubble fears could be real, but that can happen with any currency or security or financial product.
The key is to manage the short term volatility while still staying hip to the long game. The underlying value of Bitcoin is in the blockchain technology. And its uses will evolve greatly as we see the market create new uses for the tech and the tools emerge from behind the shiny new toys.
Blockchain can be a very effective tool for organizing and verifying digital rights management. That could offer a great new way of creating and monetizing media. When you combine private key cryptography with the right incentives and a shared, distributed ledger, you can keep track of ownership in a very secure and efficient manner. That has all sorts of ramifications for creating media, keeping the ownership benefits with creators and making sure that the network is protected from outside forces.
Bitcoin dreamers will believe till the very end. The idea of a decentralized currency with no fiat properties and a viable transaction speed may be a pipe dream. But the process of working towards that and the market doing its work will result in tools and technologies that otherwise would not have existed. That is the process that the growth of the world wide web and digital tech has revealed to us. There is always going to be a use that others did not think of.
Staying on top of the Bitcoin news cycle can be valuable for traders and for enthusiasts. If you are looking to take advantage of the ongoing volatility, you can keep track of the markets and how the various cryptocurrencies react against each other. That can give you profitable insights that might not hurt your bottom line. The key is to be familiar enough with the various exchanges and be able to move money around without incurring too many excessive fees. Day trading crypto is possible, but it is harder than day trading more traditional financial products.
Popular culture has a complicated relationship to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Many in the entertainment industry regard the markets with skepticism and thinly veiled contempt. That is often how people that don’t’ understand the nuances tend to regard new things. A popular comedian on HBO recently compared Bitcoin to Beanie Babies and gambling, capitalizing on the association with unsustainable valuation and improper risk management.
While that may be funny to some, the truth is that Bitcoin can be the beginning of something much more substantial. Learn as much as you can about the blockchain, so you can be ahead of the naysayers and the skeptics.
