Cryptocurrency — it’s the talk of the decade. You can’t go a day without hearing some sort of cryptocurrency news flashing up on your timeline.

This might tempt you to “ape-in” and attempt to go “to the moon.” But cryptocurrency isn’t just some kind of hype train. It’s a serious financial investment that can reap you serious rewards.

To understand cryptocurrency, you have to understand the latest cryptocurrency trends. This article will walk you through some of the best ones to look for in 2023.

Regulation

When Bitcoin was founded by Satoshi Nakamoto, it was invented largely as a way to reduce regulation. However, the increasing popularity of Bitcoin is making it unavoidable in the public eye. This expands to lawmakers as well.

Currently, there are not many laws in place to regulate cryptocurrency. We predict that this will start to change in 2023.

The government claims this is for the safety of investors. There’s no doubt that many cryptocurrencies out there are volatile. Heck, even Bitcoin and Ethereum, the most trusted cryptocurrencies, are very volatile investments compared to others.

Regulation is also coming in due to the rampant cybercrime that’s happening due to cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency exchanges’ secure and anonymous nature makes them perfect and clean ransom money for criminals. They don’t even need to wash it in any sort of way — it’s already untraceable.

As the BBC noted, crypto makes it difficult for law enforcement to “follow the money” and find the perpetrator.

These regulations will also make it easier for investors to report their crypto transactions. This is a positive when it comes to the world of honest dealing and trading. However, this can seem like unwanted government tampering in private affairs for some.

Some people have speculated that we might even get a central digital bank currency — basically a digital version of the U.S. dollar. This would be a currency controlled not by independent holders but by the centralized large banking system.

This goes against the original ethos of crypto as anti-regulation. However, people might feel safer investing in crypto if it’s regulated and controlled.

Love it or hate it, regulation is going to shake up the cryptocurrency world very soon.

NFT Explosion

NFTs have risen in their public profile in the past few years. The sale of internet artist Beeple’s collage for $69 million represented a huge shift in the public perception of NFTs.

The anonymous artist Pak also made a significant step forward in this market. Their project, “The Merge” sold for $91 million — it was sold to multiple people but gets calculated as a similar purchase because of the way the mint was set up. The digital design of this NFT is just as much a work of art as the image itself.

But as the year rolls on, we wouldn’t be surprised if people started to understand what NFTs really are and start finding new uses for them.

Now, we understand that the NFT market crashed pretty hard in 2022. But we believe this is just growing pains for the new technology. After all, the technology of Uber existed before it finally revolutionized the world.

NFTs never lost a lot of popularity in the world of gaming. Many of the greatest developments in CGI technology have come from the demands of gaming, so this is no small feat. What right now might seem like a way to make some people’s “silly games” play better could evolve into a revolutionary way to approach technology.

“Sorare” is a company specially designed to take NFTs further. They use blockchain technology to create fantasy sports cards, throwing a level of speculative investing and value into fantasy sports.

Institutions Adopting Crypto

At the beginning of the crypto story, not a lot of people wanted to get involved. It was tough to open a crypto wallet, find a community that encouraged you to use crypto and buy crypto in the first place.

Now, people know the value of crypto, and it’s not uncommon to find people helping you out all over the internet. In fact, some people are so overwhelmed by choices that it worries them. How are they supposed to pick the right one with so many options?

Colossal brands like Disney, Microsoft, Google, and Apple are working on ways to work with crypto and the metaverse. You might have heard of “Web 3.0” — this is largely relevant to the development of crypto, as both represent steps forward for the technological world.

In the past, we’ve seen high-profile apps like Robinhood making it easy for people to get involved with crypto trading. We expect more apps like this to arise in 2023. One of these could be Mudrex, a similar platform for trading cryptocurrency.

Climate Impact

Much has been made about the blockchain’s impact on the climate.

The blockchain works by logging a serial number for every single transaction that happens. It logs each interaction as a “block” in a “chain” — and secures the info behind a complex cryptograph.

This is what allows the blockchain to prevent bitcoin duplication and theft. It’s also key in the development of blockchain for other types of businesses.

Effectively, every stage of a transaction would be able to get logged, so that problems can get traced back to their route almost instantly.

To secure each transaction, someone checks the work and solves these cryptographs. This job is outsourced to whoever can do this the fastest. The person — or more often, the intuition — who does this is rewarded with money.

However, it takes a lot of computing power to solve these complex cryptographs, expending billions of megawatts of electricity every year. More disturbing than this is the amount of energy wasted.

“Mining” as this process is called, is a zero-sum game. All of the reward money goes to the group that solves the cryptograph first, with everyone else receiving no cut. This means that all of the energy used by all of the high-power computers that didn’t quite make it to first is energy wasted. 

However, Ethereum has taken steps to reduce the energy spent. This might not be enough, however. We might see the federal government shut down certain crypto exchanges if the ecological situation can’t improve — especially as activist groups catch wind of it and begin to protest.

Because of this, however, many other crypto platforms have made an effort to create greener forms of consensus mechanisms.

Challenges From AI

However, crypto hasn’t been without its fair share of institutional criticism. 2023 has seen the rise of a high-profile AI application — ChatGPT, a language processing tool that’s frighteningly accurate. Now more than ever, people understand the practical uses of AI and don’t just see it as a science fiction concept.

Nvidia, who works on chips and is a big advocate of AI, has famously said crypto doesn’t bring anything beneficial to society. All you can do with it, they believe, is buy things. They believe that crypto is just a fad and that AI is the way forward for the world.

Indeed, in 2023, we might see the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector challenged by AI for its place at the center of the cultural conversation about technology. This might draw investors away from the world of artificial intelligence and attract top scientists to develop the world around AI.

Crypto in International Conflict

Did you know cryptocurrency had a place in the war between Russia and Ukraine? This is another strange side effect of the decentralized and anonymous nature of these new forms of currency.

Russia saw widespread backlash due to its actions. This resulted in a lot of boycotts that threatened to hobble their economy. Because of this, they turned to cryptocurrencies to try to get around some of the regulations.

Keep an eye out for this. This is another reason why some people are going to want stricter regulation. If another nation makes use of cryptocurrency this way, it could be very real that regulations become a reality.

The Rise of Bitcoin ATMs

A Bitcoin ATM is an in-person way that people can make crypto exchanges on the go. These allow people to exchange their traditional currency for crypto on the go. These can be crucial due to the incredibly volatile nature of cryptocurrencies — you might need to access your supply instantly.

We predict that as 2023 continues, we’re going to see the rise of more Bitcoin ATMs and the rise of applications like a bitcoin ATM search that help you find your way.

Cryptocurrency Trends

As you can see, the above cryptocurrency trends are likely going to be key in the development of cryptocurrency. For better or for worse, crypto is getting to the point where it can’t get ignored, which will cause vast changes.

For more articles like this, check out our “finance” section.

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