PEORIA MAGAZINE October 2022

Bitcoin can be used to buy goods and services through financial services firms that offer traditional credit cards. However, because the price of Bitcoin is considered to go up significantly … Bitcoin maximalists are more likely to hold the currency in hopes it will multiply in value. If you bought a pizza in 2011 for five Bitcoin when Bitcoin was equal to $1, those same Bitcoins would have been worth $325,000 at the peak of 2021. The acronym adopted by investors in Bitcoin is HODL: Hold On for Dear Life. Other forms of digital gold are from projects that are supposedly tied to traditional currencies … called “stable coins.” … Network coins : Eth is the native coin of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereumisdifferent fromBitcoin, as theEthereum Network will allow collection of fees from computers in the network to run applications. This means that the value of Eth is directly related to the desire to use these applications on the Ethereumnetwork. While Ethereumwas the first blockchain to introduce compute functionality … there are now many competing networks wanting to be the next currency to power the internet. Application coins : Another category of cryptocurrencies come from the blockchains that allow for compute. Some applications create their own cryptocurrencies … backed by the application designer. This is where we get coins like Shiba Inu. The application creator controls the supply and any uses for the coin that might drive demand. For example, the carmaker Tesla will accept payment for its vehicles with Shiba Inu coins … PM: No one has a crystal ball, but do you foresee digital currencies replacing traditional currencies? JK: Predicting the future is what blockchain enthusiasts love to do! The technology that financial institutions use today is outdated. Cryptocurrency provides so many more benefits than traditional currencies that it is hard to imagine a world where they do not get adopted. The big question is if the digital currency of the future are CBDCs controlled by a central government, currencies within a distributed and open network, or some combination … Personally, I think there is room for everything. I can see a world where there are multiple cryptocurrencies … depending on the need of the individual. If you need currency that is safe and dependable, you will use the government CBDC. If you needmore flexibility to innovate or simply want a reserve currency independent of government interests, you’ll use an open, distributed cryptocurrency. Even beyond digital currencies, blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with digital assets, including our personal data. Eventually, these technologies will be incorporated into the applications we use in a seamless manner that simply provides consumers with more convenient money management in the digital age.

92 OCTOBER 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE