Author: CryptoBeyer

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Business & Society

The Swedish E-krona

109 countries and central banks worldwide are exploring the potential of launching a digital version of its currency. The Bahamas have launched their Sand Dollar and Nigeria the ENaira. India says it will launch the digital rupee in 2023. China is in the forefront of launching its digital yuan and will broaden its testing to several regions in 2023. USA, Canada, UK are in different stages of the development of a CBDC (central bank digital currency). But what about Sweden?

First, what is a CBDC? Simply put, a CBDC is a digital version of a country’s currency. It is not the same as a cryptocurrency. A CBDC is backed by the credit of the government in the same way as a regular currency and a cryptocurrency may be pegged to an asset or fiat currency. Another major difference between a CBDC and a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin is the fact that a CBDC is controlled by the government, but Bitcoin is decentralized. Wait!

Why is it important to consider centralization or decentralization when we talk about digital currencies?

Well, one of the biggest reasons that China is headfirst in fully launching its digital yuan is that they aim to limit the power and market share of the private sector. The powerful Chinese private financial technology sector with actors like Alibaba and Wechat control a significant part of domestic transaction. It is difficult for the Chinese government to fully implement the digital yuan since it is very easy for the public to pay for services through these private entities. The government need to create digital wallets for the population and lack of privacy is a reason why the Chinese population is hesitant to start using the digital yuan.

Not even I as a Swedish citizen would blindly trust the Swedish government in providing a digital wallet to store my E-krona. With a government-controlled wallet every purchase could be tracked by the government. I do not think that the current government of Sweden is interested in me buying a bottle of wine at Systembolaget, but at what point is my economic life a personal matter?

Anyhow, Sweden will be cashless. Sooner than we might think. Cash is not king anymore. Only about 18 percent of all consumer transaction are in cash. The digital e-krona is the future of Swedish money. According to the Swedish Riksbank the E-krona pilot initiative is running and has gone through various phases. The bank Handelsbanken and the technology company Accenture and key players along with the Swedish Riksbank have actively tested the E-krona in a sort of a beta test. The result so far indicate that the Riksbank still need to know the effects an E-krona may have on the Swedish economy. Further research is needed and various technological issues and question appeared in the test period that are also common in the crypto industry. How will people store their E-krona? What digital system will be used for safe and trustworthy transactions?

The government will never use an existing blockchain to implement the Swedish E-krona because it needs to have full control of the currency. Using an existing crypto stable coin is off the table. The Swedish Riksbank has used a blockchain technology on a platform called R3 Corda platform when testing its CBDS but the result was not satisfactory and an alternative technological method need to be found in the future.

It is not entirely easy to launch the E-krona as some groups in society may have problems with its technical use. A range of technological and social issues need to be considered. I think that the digitalization of the Swedish currency cannot be stopped but needs to follow the guiding light of the values of society. The E-krona will not be something that we as citizens vote on. It will be implemented in stages whilst the current cash system is incrementally dismantled. The E-krona will likely not see the light of day until 2030.

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Business & Society

Learn to earn in the metaverse

The crypto world keeps on surprising us. Nowadays we can walk on the beach or sit at home and play blockchain games and earn crypto doing it. Cool. But the most transformative development in blockchain technology will be in the metaverse.

In developing countries such as Venezuela and the Philippines kids play blockchain games such as Axie Infinity and earn enough to support their family. Lifestyle apps are offering move to earn tokens such as Stepn to pays users for walking to improve public health. It is also possible to earn crypto whilst learning about crypto as exchanges reward users for learning about trading on their platform.

But the truly ground-breaking development will be in the metaverse as it can transform traditional education. Traditional educational institutions are buying land in the metaverse and constructing buildings to make sure they are competitive in the metaverse. In the future online education will move into the metaverse and crypto will change the way educational institutions organize and finance education by using the learn to earn method of tokenomics. Confused? Tokenomics is a just a word to describe how a cryptocurrency works and a way to show how it’s valuable. When traditional institutions have established themselves in the metaverse their students will be able to choose specific courses from different schools to hyper-personalize their education. The individual can even choose to study a certain subject and hand-pick the best teachers from different institutions. Students will being able to learn unique skills learnt in faraway places and even earn crypto doing it.

Can student make money whilst studying in the metaverse?

Yes, institutions can use block-chain technology to reward students with NFT’s (non-fungible token) which can be used to purchase items or services in the metaverse. Students can even choose to sell their NFT for ordinary fiat cash to buy pasta and ketchup. Are you unsure what a NFT is? Non-fungible tokens are a financial security that consists of digital data which is stored in a blockchain. A NFT is like proof that someone owns something online and that it has value of some kind.

Conventional barriers of institution-bound education delivery can be broken in the metaverse. Student can jump between different schools as they wish. Gone will be the days with boring power-points presented online by stiff lecturers. The metaverse will offer a learning experience through virtual reality that capture the hearts and minds of young and old in ways we have not yet experienced. Learning in the metaverse will be a realistic immersive experience with considerable social interactions whilst wearing virtual reality glasses. Schools in the metaverse can create different services such as tutoring and interactive examinations through the metaverse. There will be different ways that schools compete in educational market place in the metaverse. Some educational institution may offer a highly flexible curriculum to their students, and some may offer digital assets such as NFT (and other not yet known assets) to reward student for studying.

The full force of tokenomics might even make education free in the future.

One thing is for sure, schools will launch their own crypto currency or asset.

Sure, the metaverse is a buzzword. Personal computers need to be far more powerful before the metaverse will be able to function and used by the average citizen of the world. But hold on tight! The blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, it is seeing a faster growth trajectory than the growth of Internet in the late 1990s. Don’t worry, in real life education will always exist as well, and one may claim that the metaverse is just a sexier version of the internet. Cool. Learning to earn might even be sexy.

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Business & Society

Winning when others are about to lose

Everyone knows that buying low and selling high is the way to do it. But why are most people not following this logic? Social psychology has answers to why we are self-sabotaging economic opportunities.

Traders claim that the trick in making the best economic decisions is to not follow your feelings, but to stick to a plan. A plan could be to try to analyze the overall feeling of the public and decide on whether to buy or sell an asset. Put it simply, buy low and sell high. Easy right? Not quite.

How we think and how we relate to the world is highly affected by our social environment. To survive and make sense of our complex world we communicate with each other and try to find cues that direct our behavior and navigate our decisions in life. We use other people’s opinion to validate our decisions and even our self-worth. But the problem is that because other people think something does not make it right.

After writing a few books on personal development it’s easy to conclude that our self-worth should not be based on other people’s opinion. Your highest self will not be found anywhere but within yourself. But a crypto asset is very much dependent on the simple premise that the public decides on its value. The value of shit coins is a prime example that marketers only have to say that they are popular, and they do not need to prove that something truly has value. It might be smart to follow the shit coin storm for a while, but we need to unfollow before it hits the fan.

If we don’t just want to follow the goddess of chance, we need to be aware of market signals. When we buy a crypto asset that we believe will skyrocket we are hitching a ride with a group mentality, and we need to be knowledgeable about the specifics of that group. What do the holders of the crypto asset believe in? What is happening within the ecosystem? Back in the days we were forced to listen to the town crier to know what is happening. Now days we may have to follow the discussion on twitter and news outlets.

When it comes to trading, we should be aware of the herd mentality but not conform to it. Successful trading is like being mindful and being aware of one’s ego.

In 2022, when everyone thought, Bitcoin was going to 100 000 USD I followed the masses. Even original gangsters believed strongly that it was inevitable that Bitcoin would break the 100 000 USD mark. Most followed what was socially rational and those who were bearish were considered naysayers. But for how long should we keep a coin when it has already gone up significantly? When have we become greedy?

Typical signs of greed are:

· When we experience a tingling exciting feeling in our chest.

· When we think about what we can buy when our investment has skyrocketed.

· When we add to our position to make even more money.

· When we eagerly buy an asset that has already increased in value significantly.

Do not forget. We have experienced multiple economic bubbles because the herd turned greedy. Therefore, knowing that we are influenced by social factors is vital. Social psychology teaches us that we seek external validation for our thoughts and actions, but maybe successful trading is closer to ourselves than we think. It seems that greed is a superficial experience. It holds a feeling of stress and excitement. It is certainly not a calm and settled feeling in our heart. To go deeper than greed, we can go within ourselves and turn to mindfulness. Meditate. Allow yourself to settle stressed feelings. Deep down I think we know when we have turned into Scrooge.

But hey, what do I know? I am not even a financial advisor.

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Business & Society

Learning from previous economic bubbles

Earning money has always been in our blood. People are inventive when it comes to trading. Some say that even Jesus’s foreskin was traded for silver coins a while after his death.

1600 years later trading progressed into more suitable assets. People in Holland sold their houses to trade tulips. Tulip traders thought that they had found a unique and long-lasting way to make money. Belief has always been a strong life force. In the 1720s the South Sea bubble was caused by an unrealistic belief in trade with Spanish colonies of South America. Unfortunately, the Spanish colonies underdelivered. In the 1980s in Japan the government launched a marvelous stimulus package that sent real estate and stock market prices to the moon, before bursting. In 2002 the strong belief in the so-called new economy consisting of hundreds of multi-billion-dollar internet companies turned into a financial crash. After the dot-com bubble investors wanted something more solid and put their trust in US real estate which also developed into a boom and bust. Investors may be able to handle volatility, but ordinary people may not invest in anything and believe that saving money in the bank is a good thing. The problem is that governments endlessly print money and drive inflation. What to do? Our money is broken.

It is scary that people in Holland believed strongly in tulips. Seriously?! Tulips! Well, I guess people were stupid back them. Farmers could grow perfect copies of tulips in the garden and sell them. Wait! When we zoom out and look at what we are doing right now we might be equally stupid. Now days instead of growing tulips we can mine bitcoin in our garage. At least a tulip is nice to look at, but we really have nothing when we buy bitcoin and electricity is cut. Greed seems to make us irrational.

Do not get me wrong. I believe in bitcoin and the blockchain technology. But I believe it’s healthy to ask if I am making the same mistake as people have throughout history. Is crypto trading based on the premise that someone stupid is buying from someone who is less stupid? Are we all morons?

The key issue is what really provides value to something. We put our trust in the government saying that a currency (fiat money) has value. But who says crypto currencies has value? A lot of people, companies, institutions and even countries do. Something is valuable and tradable if two or more people believe something is valuable. It’s as simple as that.

It is easy to see the value of gold as it has been traded for over 5000 years and it’s one of the most desired and useful metals in the world. The value of something digital is harder to see, but considering that our lives are increasingly moving into the digital world we need to rethink our perspective of value. Afterall, we need to be ready for the future.

Hang on! This is exactly what they thought in Holland when they believed in trading with tulips. They believed it was something truly unique. Crypto sceptics may say that its like the way we look at blockchain technology.

But I would argue that things really are different in today’s digital world. It’s a fact that we are digital. Internet will transform into web 3 and not go away. Even I might be forced to get an avatar for my online existence. Our online lives will develop into a multi-trillion-dollar industry. It does not take a dummy to believe that digital assets will have a significant part of our lives in the future.

For example. The intrinsic value of our future selves online is difficult to see since we cannot see what is not yet created. But it’s jaw dropping to learn that the second largest phone company in the world is looking to store our DNA online and to link it to our avatar. Imaging yourself with your unique DNA in the metaverse. We will be legally responsible for our online existence. Furthermore, our avatar will clearly be important to us if our DNA is linked to our avatar. Something that is important to us has value. But how do we stop greed from completely wrecking us?

As digital assets solve problems online and in real life, they clearly have more value than tulips. But nothing seems to stop greed from increasing prices and trading with crypto is no exception. Greed is clearly showing its face in crypto as multiple crypto exchanges have used leverage trading to finance their business. Being greedy is like going on a flight to the moon with half a tank. We might get there. If not, we crash. In all financial bubbles greed has played a part in driving prices to the sky.

Perhaps the biggest lesson from previous financial bubbles is that greed is part of our social construct. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a part of our DNA.

It seems that the engine of a crypto bull market is greed as we need it for prices to go up to astronomic levels. To avoid making the same idiotic mistakes repeatedly we must do what seem to be against our nature. We need to act in the opposite way of the public. As the says goes “buy in the red and sell in the green”. That is the way to hinder bubbles from bursting

Categories
Business & Society

All in on crypto?

Is it true that fortune favors the bold in crypto? I have considered to go Saylor and sell my car and take out a loan to buy bitcoin but uncertainty is holding me back to go all in. When it comes to investing in what we believe in I wonder if fear is limiting us or if it’s a healthy inhibitor.

Are we living life to its fullest if we are always taking cautious decisions? This is question worth asking even for crypto investors. Crypto investors should ask themselves what risk they are willing to take when choosing a crypto asset. Because most existing crypto projects will die or have already died in the current bear market choosing a project outside top 100 might even be idiotic. Or genius if one waits 2 years until the next bull-market. Not even the genius can see the future clearly. There is a risk of losing face when one chooses in life. It’s the same in crypto.

The maverick president Nayib Bukele was the first head of state to make the historic choice of adopting Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador. So far it is the only country to have given a digital wallet and a small amount of Bitcoin to all its citizens. Rumor has it that Panama, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina are also considering in taking the Bitcoin leap. It is somewhat surprising that El Salvador considers Bitcoin to be a currency that people would like to spend. Bitcoin may be seen more as a store of value than a currency and there are other digital assets that are more suitable for cash transactions. However, more and more countries with a problematic financial situation are considering in adopting Bitcoin as legal tender.

Millions of people will be able to use banking services via crypto projects. Venture capital and institutions are putting more money into the metaverse than they did in the same phase of the development of artificial intelligence. African countries are in the early stage of using a blockchain to store academic records. In the future we will store proof of land ownership, medical records, and our passport identification on a blockchain. Banks are already preparing to use a blockchain to transfer money across nations instead of the clumsy Swift system. There are economic, philosophical, social, health and safety reasons why the blockchain technology is important to the world. Things are happening to say the least. The positive aspects of crypto far triumphs over the negative.

We can choose to believe in the good that can come from technological development or fear change and stay in the not perfect world. At the moment, bad actors in the crypto industry are crashing because they have used leverage and been driven by greed. When crypto exchanges borrow billions with no collateral they are digging their own grave. The industry seems to be cleaning its own water and the good guys and girls will survive.

However, the current fiat system is clearly needing cardiopulmonary resuscitation as inflation is slowly killing us. The value of our money is decreasing so fast that many have to borrow to survive. We can only work a certain amount of time and our economic worth is being devalued. Can you hear my frustration? A deflationary currency such as Bitcoin along with other digital assets can be the future. No, we do not know that future. I would argue that the crypto industry is so far into adoption that it’s inevitable that it will be part of our future in some way shape or form.

I might be wrong in choosing which crypto asset that will survive for many years to come. But I think fortune favors the bold in crypto because it is such a transformative technology. I try to go further than my fear. But we do not have to go all in on crypto to be a part of the crypto race. One thing is clear. In life, we must choose what to believe in.