Cryptocurrencies don’t just attract enthusiasts. When several Nobel Prize winners in economics such as Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Robert Shiller, and financial magnates like Warren Buffett castigate cryptocurrencies and openly declare themselves anti-crypto, it is understandable to face an ambient mistrust of the mass.
Cryptophobia is getting organized
The crypto-skeptics or anti-crypto even created an event recently. Kicking off the first anti-cryptocurrency conference, the Crypto Policy Symposium, was given on September 05 in London. Experts of all kinds as well as journalists have offered to make a critical and multidisciplinary analysis of the cryptosphere.
If the technological innovation emanating from cryptocurrencies is unanimous, this is not the case for their added value. The latter is hotly contested, with some even likening them to a Ponzi scheme.
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are well aware of this stigma which they have experienced one day or another. Justine, 30, a cryptocurrency investor for 3 years, says she now avoids the subject with her relatives, because she says: “ to experience cryptophobia is to accept being misunderstood by the greatest number. Faced with ignorance, frustration often manages to take over “. Yann, 28, considers himself a crypto-evangelist after 4 years of investing in digital assets. He claims to have a completely different approach which is centered on pedagogy and information. He willingly takes up the challenge of expressing himself on the subject in simple and accessible terms when he meets a less informed public.
From cryptophobia to cryptobanking
Skeptics of cryptocurrencies very often oppose them to traditional finance. However, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, cryptophobia is losing ground. The international banks that displayed a virulent opposition to cryptocurrencies are now its fervent supporters, so much so that we now speak of crypto banking.
The observation of the growing demand from a clientele fond of digital assets has echoed with some banks. The latter, mostly American, have chosen not to remain silent. This is the case of JP Morgan, which has its own crypto, the JPM Coin. In addition, it is the first bank to join a metaverse platform: Decentraland. Goldman Sachs is betting on bitcoin (BTC). This bank offers secured bitcoin lending services in partnership with Coinbase. With the British Barclays and investment funds, Goldman Sachs recently injected 70 million dollars into Elwood Technologies, a specialist in cryptocurrency trading. Thus, the European continent is not left out. Indeed, BNP Paribas joined the JP Morgan blockchain called Onyx this year in order to make short-term asset loans.
Contrary to what we seem to believe, the world of traditional finance is even more active around DeFi (Decentralized Finance), which presents an opportunity to reduce transaction costs, because it is carried out without intermediaries.
Cryptocurrencies raise the question of a new economic era, far from the classic patterns known from the past. Monetary systems in their history have always mutated. Although the subject is divisive, it cannot be ignored that digital assets are anchored in the current technological context.
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