Cryptoverse: crypto grows up
STORY: This is Crypto Weekly, with your top stories on alternative currencies. This week, crypto investors grow up, and a warning from Davos.
Crypto is maturing, or at least its fans are.
A new survey shows 28% of Americans aged 50 and over are betting on alternative currencies as part of their retirement plans.
Source: KuCoin
Some say they’re doing it to diversify their assets; some just want in on a hot trend.
Given crypto’s volatility though, many advisers say it should only be a small part of anyone’s pension plans.
A different kind of volatility is helping virtual money though.
Research shows e-coins catching on in Latin America as people there doubt their own currencies and fear inflation.
Crypto adoption has now hit 12% in Argentina, and even more in hyperinflation-plagued Venezuela.
Source: Americas Market Intelligence
Sebastian Carsorio mines cryptocurrencies in a poor neighbourhood near Buenos Aires:
“Cryptocurrency is not based on the country’s economy, so this benefits me quite a lot. Even if the national currency loses value, crypto is not based on the peso but dollars or euros, so I will always keep the same value.”
And crypto was a big feature of this year’s Davos meeting of world elites.
Crypto firms lined the main street in the Swiss mountain resort, and threw countless parties and briefings.
But the Davos old guard had a warning for the industry: get your house in order over sanctions-busting and other illegal uses.
The mood among billionaires probably wasn’t helped by Davos coming just after a crash wiped some $800 billion off the value of digital assets.
