In the middle of the so-called “crypto winter,” investors are reconsidering whether cryptocurrencies can actually be considered a good store of value or a useful hedge against inflation.
Cryptocurrencies have been on a spiral in recent months, shedding $2 trillion in value over the past year amid a larger market downturn, and leaving the finances of thousands of crypto users stranded in frozen accounts.
The downturn has led many amateur investors to turn their backs on virtual currencies altogether. But even if cryptocurrencies may not be as uncorrelated and disconnected from larger market forces as once thought, it doesn’t mean they have no use value at all, according to Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges.
He argues crypto and the blockchain system they operate on can offer users clear advantages in three key areas: virtual payments systems, investments, and online social media platforms.
Virtual payments
Bankman-Fried pointed out that traditional virtual payment systems involving cash or credit cards can be either time-intensive or inefficient, due to delays in transfers getting to recipients and extra fees tacked on by banks.
This can lead to time spent without accessible funds or even to money becoming “stuck in the middle, waiting for you to rescue it somehow,” Bankman-Fried said. But with cryptocurrencies, he counters, these processes become significantly downsized and simplified.
To illustrate his point, Bankman-Fried created two virtual cryptocurrency wallets and initiated a transfer between them, which took around 15 seconds to complete at a fractional transaction fee.
Less risky investments
Another way Bankman-Fried sees crypto as superior to traditional money and finance tools is in making investments, specifically ensuring they aren’t wiped out because of delays concerning stockbrokers and financial middlemen.
Bankman-Fried referred to last year’s stock rally at video game retailer Gamestop as well as several other companies, which came to be known as “meme stocks.” When value was soaring for companies like Gamestop, traders were on more than one occasion shut out of the market, unable to buy or sell shares.
Bankman-Fried wrote that traders were getting locked out because of rising “settlement risk,” the possibility that one or more parties involved in a transaction or a loan deal does not meet its contractual terms.
Traditional markets normally require having to go through multiple banks, stockbrokers, and other middlemen to make an investment. Settlement risk and the potential of something going wrong can exist at any point during this process, and Bankman-Fried says that cryptocurrencies are ideally equipped to avoid this scenario.
Social media
The last area where Bankman-Fried says the structure behind cryptocurrencies tops traditional systems is in social media and online communications.
He wrote that current online communication is “fractured,” scattered across a number of different apps which are owned and managed by a small group of “pseudo-monopolies.”
But if using a social media platform based on blockchain, Bankman-Fried says, messages from different platforms can become instantly retrievable on a public chain. New platforms could also easily join the chain at any time, which Bankman-Fried says would lead to a greater “diversity of opinions” and “real competition.”
The catch
While Bankman-Fried says that these applications of cryptocurrency and blockchain could technically already be a draw over traditional finance tools, they are far from being popularized just yet.
“How many of these areas has crypto revolutionized so far? I think the answer is ‘not really any of them.’ It’s starting to impact some, but not in a widespread way yet,” he wrote.
Many of these applications still require further regulatory clarity, better technology, and wider adoption of cryptocurrencies by more users, Bankman-Fried said.
But attracting more users will likely be difficult as long as the crypto winter rages.
The number of active crypto users shrunk by around 50% between November 2021 and last May, according to a recent estimate by Bank of America analysts, who also found that crypto assets now make up less than one percent of financial assets in U.S. households, meaning that cryptocurrencies still have a lot of ground to make up before Bankman-Fried’s vision can be realized.
