Some seem to question whether governments will get rid of cryptocurrency or will they allow it to continue. Others state that governments cannot stop if even if they wanted to.
I tend to fall into the latter camp but, at this point, it is becoming a moot point. We are simply seeing too much progress in the right areas, from a government standpoint, for this to even be a consideration.
We know about the approval of Bitcoin Spot ETFs. This was a major step in legitimizing bitcoin as an asset class, at least for the general public. We are also getting the release of Ethereum Spot ETFs in the United States, probably by the end of Summer.
The potential for large institutions to involved themselves with bitcoin, as least as an asset class, is there. Of course, this is only one component to the industry.
We also have to deal with the infrastructure side of things. Here is where we see something else happening.
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Major Companies Getting Involved
The reason why the discussion of government cancelled is a moot point is due to the fact too many large companies are getting involved. Some of the biggest names within a nation are getting in on the action.
One is Deutsche Telekom.
Deutsche Telekom, Europe's largest telecommunications provider, has announced plans to mine Bitcoin, marking a significant expansion of its activities in the field of cryptocurrency and blockchain.
We already saw mining being done, for the most part, by large mining pools. This is something we can see simply by looking at the publicly traded companies. The revenue is open for all to see. At the same time, we can see the shareholders. Here is the likes of Blackrock and Fidelity enter.
Now we have something even more direct. A telecommunications company is entering the fray. It is likely they are setting up their own equipment to mine bitcoin.
This is no shock since the company already had ties to the largest cryptocurrency.
Röder explained that Deutsche Telekom has been operating a Bitcoin node along with Bitcoin Lightning nodes since 2023.
It also is involved with other networks:
Deutsche Telekom's involvement in the crypto space extends beyond Bitcoin. The company operates nodes and invests in various blockchain networks, including Polkadot, flow, and Celo.
Does this start to open the floodgates? Is this the only telecommunications company looking at this? Not likely. There are a number of carriers, globally, who dwarf Deutsche Telekom. Could they be entering the game?
Cryptocurrency: Big Time Money
The numbers are moving into the trillions. This does not only apply to market capitalization.
When we look at investment, this is starting to enter the big leagues. The amount of venture capital money was already into the billions. It will only keep growing. When major firms start to invest, we see the numbers get large very fast.
This is on top of what all the individuals and smaller start ups are doing. Couple this with AI integration and we can see how this is an industry transforming.
In my view, we are seeing a split.
It is something that should not be much of a surprise. This is a pattern when dealing with open source and large companies who tend to use their size for control, often proprietary. software is a prime example of this.
Does this mean big always wins?
The answer is no. There are examples where the open source community was able to establish the standard and became the norm. Could cryptocurrency follow a similar pattern?
To do this, decentralized databases would need to grow in utility. This is the underlying premise of cryptocurrency since blockchain is the foundation. If we see a massive conversion of "public" data to this types of networks, then we are looking at a different environment.
One issue for major entities, as I see it, is the fact they look at cryptocurrency as a financial asset. They overlook the fact that it is a technology. At the same time, it is tied to another technology that evolves along with other digital innovations such as compute.
Nevertheless, the appeal is going to keep driving the numbers into the trillions.
Web 3.0: The Innovation Drive
All of this is part of Web 3.0.
We are seeing a massive amount of money invested into energy, AI, robotics, biotech, and mixed reality. All of these could be factors in this shift to Web 3.0.
I believe cryptocurrency is going to be what captures all asset classes. It was formed in the digital realm. Thus, as we more deeper into that world, it is only natural this takes over.
Actually, the masses are starting to wake up to tokens. Each time someone does a chatbot prompt, they see how many tokens were used (at a minimum, the tokens per second). This shows how tokens are not a novel concept. They were a part of the computing environment for a long time.
Society is going to be massively transformed by Web 3.0. I think that Web3 is a core component. Blockchain is not going away and will only expand in utility over the next decade or two.
As with the monetary system, the question comes down to who controls the network. Here is where we see the likes of Deutsche Telekom starting to assert themselves.