Crypto combines many elements into one: it is a currency that frees users from the big banks, it is a payments system with low fees, it is a technology based on a shared incorruptible database and, to wrap it all up in a neat bundle, it is an investment vehicle that fits the ever-evolving scope of the digital age.
“Cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology that powers it are every bit as revolutionary to global finance as the Model T was to transportation.
“This is why a diversified approach to cryptocurrencies is absolutely essential.
The big debate in crypto has now turned to how to build a better blockchain, one that can process more transactions, is more secure, is environmentally friendly and more decentralised than the earlier versions.
Blockchains like EOS, by contrast, are far less decentralised but can handle over 2 000 transactions a second, about the same as Visa’s payment network.
But if you’re holding bitcoin for 20 years or using it only for large-scale purchases like buying a house, the speed of that transaction is less important,” says Sanders.
The debate is critical, however, and at this point, spreading your bets across different crypto projects and blockchains targeting different points on this spectrum seems prudent,” says Sanders.
Bitcoin’s coding language is very limited in its capabilities: it can be used to send bitcoin somewhere, someone can review the transaction and its timestamp, and a few other tasks, but that’s about it.
The downside of limiting the attack surface is that it also limits the range of what a given software is capable of supporting.
More specifically, smart contracts are computer programmes that automatically execute the actions necessary to fulfil an agreement between several parties on the internet.
Our expectation is that there is room for both approaches to thrive, as they offer different capabilities and trade-offs.
Bitcoin and many other blockchains’ transactions are pseudonymous; transactions cannot be traced back to specific individuals but can be easily traced to individual wallet addresses.
Transactions involving cryptocurrencies like Zcash, Monero and DASH are capable of being intentionally obscured, intermingled, or otherwise rendered completely untraceable.
“We’re unsure how this will play out as well, although we think it’s likely that having the option of sending a private transaction will become the norm.
There is, however, a large debate in the crypto community around the best way for the network to arrive at a consensus.
Many believe the core point of public blockchains is that the code embedded in the blockchain is law, and anything allowed by the code is therefore allowed by the chain.
This eventually led to a ‘hard fork’ in Ethereum, wherein most of the community agreed to undo the transaction by creating a new version of the ledger restoring the stolen asset to the original owners.
Many new chains have created mechanisms to resolve disputes on-chain, and those efforts have seen successes as well as failures.
Sanders continues: “While all the cryptocurrencies currently in our Revix Top 10 Bundle are either generalist coins with broad applications or monetary assets, coins further down the spectrum have specific use cases, such as file storage .
Sometimes, competing protocols die off and the world anchors on a single choice: VHS over Betamax, HD DVD over BluRay, or perhaps most tellingly, TCP/IP over OSI in the early days of the Internet are examples of this.
Had you invested in Revix’s Top 10 Bundle over the last 12 months, you would have seen a gain of 537%, against an already astonishing 201% had you simply bought and held bitcoin.
So it’s perhaps no surprise that the simple and low-cost solution of bundles – which can track the crypto market as a whole – have become such a hit with investors.
You should not invest more than you can afford to lose, and before investing, please take into consideration your level of experience, investment objectives and seek independent financial advice if necessary.
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