Having qualified in B Tech from the Bundelkhand University of Jhansi, Abhijit Shukla has an experience of 5 years in the banking and finance industry. Abhijit has closely worked with Government projects on many sensitive and important projects like the Ministry of Panchayat Raj, National Asset of Directory, Actions of GPDP, Swamvitva Project, etc. as a lead computer scientist. During COVID, he thought of collaborating technology with finance and helping common people to get the best of technical services at the tap of their phone screens.
The world is taken over by the crypto currency storm. What seemed like a highly speculative gamble is turning out to be one of the most profitable investments this world has seen in a long time. Today, the crypto market is worth almost US $1 trillion. What started with the just crypto currency has ventured into many complementary verticals like Metaverse, NFTs, Private and Public Blockchains etc.
Like every other financial industry, the most important aspect for the product is the ease of access to the money. The user must be able to deposit and withdraw the crypto currency of his/her choice without any hassle. The primary concept which works as a catalyst for making the smooth deposits and withdrawals is the liquidity. If a currency is highly liquid, users as well as the providers will have an easy access to it.
An optimal liquid economy is the bedrock of financial stability.
If we take the case study of 2008 financial crisis, we can observe the lack of liquidity as the trigger point of the chaos which in turn led the whole world into recession.
Talking about crypto currencies, the current deposit and withdrawal functionality is very lucid. The players can use any centralized and decentralized wallets and buy/sell any crypto currency from thousands of exchanges available. Industry also provides the option to trade one crypto currency with another at relative ease. The whole system seems like a harmless and efficient process. But as with every other invention or discovery, there’s always yin with the yang.
For the centralized wallets, the risk associated is similar with the one in the traditional markets. Reason for the same being the lack of trust in the counterparty. In case of centralized wallets, the whole system is controlled by a single entity, which can default on its commitments to safeguard user’s deposits. The decentralized wallets are a much safer bet in that aspect. But there’s always a technical and operational risk associated with the companies operating such platforms.
The crypto industry seems to be plagued by twin problems – Over Interference by the Central Banks and absence of solid backing for crypto tokens. The first problem can be witnessed in almost all the parts of the world. Central Banks and the governments are highly intrusive in the crypto market. There are unreasonable regulations and compliance requirements. It’s a fact that crypto industry is a novel concept and has the potential to be used in anti-civilised activities, but government being paranoid is not helping the matter. Rather governments around the world must spread awareness and literacy related with the crypto instruments.
The second issue is a major drawback for the industry. Although we have seen exponential returns for the coins like BTC and Eth, but there have also been cases like Luna where hard earned money of users have gone down the drain. This is a point of concern. There’s a very high volatility in the crypto instruments because they are not backed by any tangible instruments. Its too early to suggest alternatives for the backing, but I believe the crypto industry and its stakeholders should start thinking in the direction to address this issue.
To sum it up, cryptocurrency and its allied products are a great opportunity for the humans to rethink about the concept of money. World is working on the traditional fiat money concept since ages, and still we have witnessed countless recessions, depressions, frauds and scams. The commonality in all these chaotic events is the identity of the sufferer. Be it the 1929 depression or the 2008 crisis, the sufferer has always been the common man/woman. The actors responsible for such chaos end up receiving a ‘Get out of the jail free card’ with the aid of their monetary or political connections. After a long time, there seems to be a financial alternative which empowers the common man/woman. Cryptocurrency has the potential to address all such loop holes present in the system. The need of the hour is to keep an open mind while dealing with this new financial revolution and striving to make changes/improvements where ever it seems necessary.