Ever since the Bitcoin made a path for the other crypto currencies, the crypto world has seen many new faces over the period of 8-9 years. We have seen many new tokens make their mark. Some trying to compete with Bitcoin and some have their own usages.
Bitcoin is still the king of the market and every other crypto currency has the BTC pairing. It is what paper money is to the real market. Sadly the transaction speed of BTC is still not as fast as some of the other tokens in the market.
Ethereum is the closest competitor to Bitcoin. As Bitcoin is used for the trading pair, so is Ethereum. But as we know that ETH can be used to write smart contracts and this makes it unique from BTC. But there are many other cryptos that are now having the smart contract features.
Current Number of tokens into the market:
According to the data of CoinMarketCap, there are currently 1106 tokens into the market and it's huge!! And the overall market capitalization of the Cryptos is: $158,975,690,714. $158.9 Billion is in no way a small amount. Out of all, there tokens 868 tokens act as currencies. Even the Paper currencies are not that many currencies.
The top 10 Currencies at the time of writing the article are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Litecoin, NEM, Dash, IOTA, Monero and Ethereum Classic.
Problem with the increasing number of ICO's and tokens:
As more and more token started coming into the market, the things started crowding out. And some were never seen in the crowd or some made their mark in the market. Ethereum became the base for all the ICO's taking place.
But the Problem does not lie in that, but the problem is what value do they provide to the eco-system.
Today anyone can start their own ICO and make money. You could say this token does this or that but at the end, they all end up in an exchange where traders make money out of the trade period. Well, most of them end up as "Pump and Dump".
And while China announced the Ban on the ICO's and considered it to be illegal. It made a significant change in the market and we saw almost all the tokens going red. Most of them were the Chinese tokens. Today the market seems to be in green. But the tokens that were valued earlier like NEO has dropped drastically.
What could China be doing in the future?
This gets interesting as we know that Bitcoin is accepted by the Chinese markets. What we could expect is that the Chinese government could soon make rules and regulations relating to ICO's and they may have to register with the government to conduct an ICO. We may see certain aspects being controlled by the govt.
The crypto market is still a baby and has a long way to go to mature.
We wouldn't want to see the Government control the cryptocurrency as the main reason behind the value of the token roaring is the fact that it is decentralized.
Effect of the Cryptos on the countries Economy:
As we know that the tokens do not really provide the value in the economy, it also could hinder the economy. For the countries economy to boom, you need to keep the money circulating. The money creates many more possibilities in the economy. But when the money goes into the crypto market it creates a gap in the economy. But it is good for the crypto economy.
Here's what the CEO of Euro Exim Bank Limited said.
A Cyclist is a disaster for the economy:
- He does not but a car and does not take a car loan.
- Does not buy vehicle insurance
- Does not buy fuel.
- Does not make use of the Car repair or car spas.
- Does not need the paid parking.
- Does not become obese
- Yes, and well dammit! Healthy people are not needed for the economy. They do not buy drugs, nor do they go to the private doctors. They do not increase the countries GDP.
On a contrary, every McDonald's outlet creates 30 Jobs:
10 Dentists, 10 Cardiologists, 10 weight loss experts.
The Bright Light:
The usage of the token is just not restricted to the digital economy. In fact, today Bitcoin is used by many companies and recently, Lamborghini has started accepting the CryptoCurrencies. And freshly, someone bought a house with Bitcoin. This is just the beginning and many bright steps lie ahead of the crypto world. What we need is value creation in the economy and not restricting the usage in the crypto exchanges.
Steem is the Best Example.
Not that we don't know what steem platform is, Or we wouldn't have been here. This platform is actually creating a value to our economy. We may use our earnings to buy other cryptos, but there are many of us here to make a living and you wouldn't deny that right. It has helped many bloggers, musicians, entertainers make extra income that they wouldn't have made even with working hard on YouTube or other platforms. Facebook and other social media are a joke in front of steemit. They don't even pay you anything for what you do. With the earnings of steem, you may have spent it in some supermarket of somewhere to buy something right. This platform does create a value to the crypto space and the economy.