Cryptocurrency
The speed of Shiba Inu transactions depends on the speed at which the Ethereum network is processing them, given that SHIB exists as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. This tends to be no more than a few minutes on average https://wildtouchlab.com/.
The experiment was a succes, and in October 2021 SHIB briefly flipped Dogecoin to become the most-valued meme coin by market capitalization. Robinhood executive Christine Brown has lauded the efforts of the Shiba Inu community, saying that one of her favorite things was seeing it engage with the community to make its wishes heard.
When it launched, SHIB was just one of many memecoins (to quote the gentlest possible term used by the crypto community) attempting to hang on to Dogecoin’s coattails. The likes of Baby Dogecoin, JINDO INU, Alaska Inu, and Alaskan Malamute Token, in particular, share certain similarities with SHIB.
Cryptocurrency
In 2022, RenBridge – an unregulated alternative to exchanges for transferring value between blockchains – was found to be responsible for the laundering of at least $540 million since 2020. It is especially popular with people attempting to launder money from theft. This includes a cyberattack on Japanese crypto exchange Liquid that has been linked to North Korea.
The remittance economy is testing one of cryptocurrency’s most prominent use cases. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin serve as intermediate currencies to streamline money transfers across borders. Thus, a fiat currency is converted to Bitcoin (or another cryptocurrency), transferred across borders, and subsequently converted to the destination fiat currency without third-party involvement.
Imagine cryptocurrency as digital money, similar to the euros or US dollars (fiat currencies) people use daily, but with a few significant differences. Some cryptocurrencies have properties similar to gold, other commodities and stocks. Many people buy specific cryptocurrencies to hold on to them and hopefully see their value increase over time.
Blockchain’s capacity to permanently record and store transaction records and information in a highly secure manner makes it an attractive technology for many businesses and governments. Here’s a limited list of potential use cases for blockchain:
Cryptocurrencies traded in public markets suffer from price volatility, so investments require accurate price monitoring. For example, Bitcoin has experienced rapid surges and crashes in its value, climbing to nearly $65,000 in November 2021 before dropping to just over $20,000 a year and a half later. Bitcoin prices had roared back by mid-2024. As a result of this vast range of volatility, many people consider cryptocurrencies a speculative bubble.
Cryptocurrency market
Play-to-earn (P2E) games, also known as GameFi, has emerged as an extremely popular category in the crypto space. It combines non-fungible tokens (NFT), in-game crypto tokens, decentralized finance (DeFi) elements and sometimes even metaverse applications. Players have an opportunity to generate revenue by giving their time (and sometimes capital) and playing these games.
Let’s quickly calculate the market cap of Bitcoin as an example. The Bitcoin price is currently $ 104,584 and there are 19.86 million BTC coins in circulation. If we use the formula from above, we multiply the two numbers and arrive at a market cap of 2,077.47 billion.
In January 2024 the SEC approved 11 exchange traded funds to invest in Bitcoin. There were already a number of Bitcoin ETFs available in other countries, but this change allowed them to be available to retail investors in the United States. This opens the way for a much wider range of investors to be able to add some exposure to cryptocurrency in their portfolios.
A distributed ledger is a database with no central administrator that is maintained by a network of nodes. In permissionless distributed ledgers, anyone is able to join the network and operate a node. In permissioned distributed ledgers, the ability to operate a node is reserved for a pre-approved group of entities.