The price of the world's largest and most popular cryptocurrency has skyrocketed 162% in 2017. Once a buzzword that was understood by few and used by even fewer, bitcoin has come to dominate this year's financial media headlines. In addition to attracting more of our collective attention, bitcoin is also beginning to create actual business value.
Several of the world's largest companies are already deploying bitcoin or other blockchains as a way to improve internal transparency and efficiency. But what are we to do as investors?
There are surprisingly few choices today for those eager to gain exposure to this fledgling technology that many believe could change the world. You can buy bitcoin directly on a variety of new exchanges, like Coinbase or Bitstamp, but many of these charge elevated transaction fees.
However, the options available to investors are expanding quickly. As bitcoin and blockchains continue to steamroll forward in popularity and utility, here are two ideas and one warning that investors should know about and prepare for before buying bitcoin.
1: It's not just all about bitcoin
There are now more than 870 publicly available cryptocurrencies, which altogether are worth around $111 billion. Even though cryptocurrencies have been around for less than a decade, they already collectively command a greater market capitalization than Mastercard. The growth rate of the industry has been truly exponential.
There are many cryptocurrencies now available. But it will be the creation of business utility that will ultimately decide which of them remain relevant and sustainable.
2: Find companies actually using blockchains
Utility means different things to different people. But to make things more down-to-earth and understandable, here are a few real-world use cases of how blockchains are already being used.
In the global shipping industry - Maersk is using blockchains to optimize logistics planning -- replacing the signing of manual paperwork with Smart Contracts -- which they believe will save them millions of dollars of efficiency in their supply chain.
In financial services, more than $11 trillion of credit derivatives are traded among 2,500 trade firms in 70 different countries (read that last sentence again, just to let those numbers sink in). DTCC is implementing blockchains for transparency into credit default swaps, which could help investors better understand what financial assets are worth and their risk profiles
In the energy industry, ConsenSys is building a consumer energy platform based upon blockchains.
The warning: Beware speculation:
significant amount of speculation built into the price of cryptocurrencies right now. There's a huge amount of uncertainty surrounding how blockchains can and/or will be used in the future, and what that will be worth for consumers and businesses.These huge uncertainties lead to a wide range of outcomes in fundamental analysis, which is meant to define the intrinsic value of what cryptocurrencies are actually worth.
The safest way to invest in the rapidly changing payments space is in large enterprises that can save billions in efficiency and share those savings with shareholders. Think of large organizations that could benefit from reducing transaction, inventory, or processing costs.