After the drama punctuated by doldrums (or is it the other way around?) of 2022, many of us glass-half-full types have been welcoming the opportunity to focus less on market moves and more on the impact that the continued development of crypto technology can have on the world. And it’s potentially a pretty big impact, nothing less than the spreading of economic opportunity and individual empowerment while rewiring finance and culture, so it certainly deserves more attention.
Noelle Acheson is the former head of research at CoinDesk and Genesis Trading. This article is excerpted from her Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter, which focuses on the overlap between the shifting crypto and macro landscapes. These opinions are hers, and nothing she writes should be taken as investment advice.
When we talk about focusing on technology, we generally mean ways to store and distribute information on networks with varying degrees of decentralization, which in turn will power new forms of engagement and economic activity. What is still largely overlooked is the potential that crypto technology has to support innovation in other areas of development. That impact will be felt well beyond blockchains, finance and culture.
The root of this influence lies in crypto markets. This may sound surprising given the devastating losses, bad actors, painful exploits and regulatory clampdowns defining the markets of recent months. It may also appear incongruous given the “institutionalization” of market experimentation, with banks and official organizations testing familiar forms of issuance with new types of settlement – hardly the technology boost I’m referring to.
To pull on this thread a bit more, I need to take a step back in time.
Newcomers to the manic world of crypto markets may not be aware of their origin. The first peer-to-peer crypto trades were done on what were essentially online bulletin boards – low cost, easy to spin up, with a high degree of trust required. These evolved…
