On Feb. 1, a cryptic gold cube worth nearly $12 million appeared in New Yorks Central Park. On display for one day only, the cube was an art installation by artist Niclas Castello. Made exclusively of pure 24-karat gold and weighing a staggering 400 pounds, it came with its own security team to guard it.

If you thought the Castello Cube, as it is called, is a statement on wealth disparity, you could easily be forgiven. New York State has the highest income inequality in the country: In 2020, the average income in Manhattan for the top 1 percent was 113 times that of the bottom 99 percent. And according to the 2020 Census, approximately 129 homeless people live in Central Park. Surely a $12 million cube in the middle of the park has to be some kind of critique about the way we overlook poverty and fetishize wealth?

Unfortunately not. The cube is an advertisement for Mr. Castellos new cryptocurrency, named after himself: CastCoin. The installation isnt about wealth disparityjust wealth. After being on display in the park for less than 24 hours, the Castello Cube was carted off to a Wall Street dinner party reportedly filled with celebrities.

Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that uses blockchain technology and therefore is decentralized, creating an online exchange that is not reliant on a government or bank to uphold its value. Bitcoin was the first and most famous cryptocurrency, but today there are thousands, with Castellos CastCoin being one of the latest. Some hope that crypto will usher in a more democratic future where currencies and transactions can be certified without any backing institution. But those hopes for the future overlook that crypto raises some serious ethical questions. Much like the Castello Cube itself, cryptocurrency does not hold up to a deeper look.

An Empty Obsession

Online, the Castello Cube is billed as being made of solid gold and appears to tower high above the lawn. But this is just hype. The cube is solid gold, insofar as it is made of gold and nothing else. But it is not, in fact, a solid cubethe inside is hollow, and the walls only a quarter of an inch thick. Its also much smaller than it appears online, only about a foot and a half tall, in fact. (To have to speak of only that much pure gold is a condemnation of the work in and of itself.)

Its an excellent metaphor for cryptocurrencies. The outside glitters; the inside is empty. It looms large online but amounts to little in the real world. Crypto has soared in popularity: A 2021 survey found that 13 percent of Americans had traded in crypto in the past 12 months, with another 11 percent reporting they were likely to invest in the next year. A 2021 survey by Pew Research found that 43 percent of men aged 18 to 29 report having invested in cryptocurrency. Some see it as a get-rich-quick scheme, a high-stakes, high-reward trading opportunity that can easily bestow millions. Cryptocurrency is famed for its volatility. In April 2011, one Bitcoin cost $1; in April 2021, the same cost almost $65,000; today its worth is about $40,500.

For others, it is as much of a cultural movement as a financial one, becoming something of a lifestyle with financiers and tech fans. Advertisements for cartoon dog-themed cryptocurrency shine over Times Square, and figures like Elon Musk use their cults of personality to encourage their followers to buy in. R/CryptoCurrency on Reddit, which describes itself as The leading community for cryptocurrency news, discussion, and analysis, has 4.4 million members, obsessively watching and discussing the crypto market.

Our New Golden Calf

In the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis warned of the dangers of idolizing money like this. He writes:

Idolatry of money has been a problem for as long as money has existed. But part of what makes crypto different is the way its extreme volatility rewards constant anxious monitoring and encourages obsession not only with investing but with pressuring others to invest as well. Because there is a limited amount of Bitcoin, for example, higher demand for it drives higher prices.

Cryptocurrency has been regarded as democratizing finance because it gives anybody with a computer the ability to get in on the ground floor of an investment that can then take off astronomically. But the dark side of this democratization is that it has spread an obsession with consumption and unhealthy market watching to ever-larger populations than ever before.

And while cryptocurrencies make some people rich, their environmental effects ultimately impoverish all of us. Cryptocurrency is created through an electronic process called mining, which uses computers to solve complex equations and create small amounts of the digital currency. Some cryptocurrencies have a cap on how many units can be mined, which makes the equations progressively more complex, requiring increasing amounts of energy and computational power to continue to mine. (If trying to understand this makes your head hurt, dont worrymine does, too.)

The Bitcoin mining process alone has usedmore electricity than some small countries, including Ukraine, Norway, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates. One single Bitcoin transaction uses enough energy to power an average U.S. household for 75 days. And much of the energy used to power Bitcoin mining and transactions comes from burning fossil fuels. Its impact on the climate is immense. As the environment continues to deteriorate, crypto miners continue to use staggering amounts of resources to create digital monopoly money.

The fact of the matter is that crypto is bad for us. Crypto is what leads to a $12 million hollow box made out of gold being displayed in public parks. The greater risk, however, is that it will lead to such a fixation on wealth that we wont see the poverty around us. That it will lead us to forget our common home and ignore how we are destroying our climate. In the words of Pope Francis, that it will reduce us to mere consumers.

Nine countries have banned cryptocurrencies outright, with another 42 enacting regulations and policies that ban it implicitly. We can stop believing in cryptocurrency and reject its power over us and over our climate. Its time to throw the golden calf back into the fire it came from.

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Cryptocurrency has taken the idolatry of wealth to a new level of sinfulness - America Magazine

I'll be the first to admit that I was initially skeptical about cryptocurrencies. Some of legendary investor Warren Buffett's criticisms of crypto seemed to make sense. For example, the legendary investor has stated that "cryptocurrencies basically have no value and they don't produce anything."

Now, my view is that Buffett is missing the mark -- at least with some cryptocurrencies. However, I'm still somewhat reluctant to dive in with some digital coins that I think have real growth potential because of my earlier reservations. But that's not the case across the board. Here's the one cryptocurrency I'd buy right now without any hesitation.

Image source: Getty Images.

Isuspect that Buffett wasn't all that familiar withEthereum (CRYPTO:ETH) when he has made negative comments about cryptocurrencies in the past. The Ethereum blockchain is used to produce things. Plenty of them.

So far, the Ethereum ecosystem includes thousands of decentralized applications. Over 4,000 developers actively work on the Ethereum platform -- way more than any other blockchain. In fact, more than 40 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies based on market cap are built on top of Ethereum.

The key to Ethereum's success is its support of smart contracts that automatically execute when specified events meeting contractual agreements are completed. Smart contracts make a wide array of applications possible, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) apps.

It's not surprising at all that Ethereum ranks as the second-largest cryptocurrency on the market based on market cap, trailing behind only Bitcoin. Ethereum seems destined to gain ground on Bitcoin and could eventually even claim the top spot.

Nothing is perfect, though. Ethereum has its drawbacks. In particular, the blockchain isn't nearly as fast as it could be. Its network can become congested. Ethereum's transaction fees are also high.

These flaws have attracted competition. Several newer blockchains are gaining adoption even faster than Ethereum is by addressing some of these limitations. This would give me pause about buying Ethereum if I didn't know that bigger and better things are on the way.

I like that the developers of Ethereum haven't stuck their heads in the sand and ignored the problems. Instead, they've laid out a clear path to fix the issues with the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade.

The first phase of the major upgrade has already been completed. The Beacon Chain, which supports staking on Ethereum and paves the way for future improvements, is live. Next on the plan is to merge this Beacon Chain with the Ethereum mainnet later this year. The final phase, which should be completed in 2023, will introduce shard chains that expand Ethereum's scalability.

When these upgrades are finalized, Ethereum will be much faster, cheaper, and more scalable. And it should be even more attractive to developers.

Are there any reasons to be hesitant about buying Ethereum? Over the short term, the answer is clearly "yes." I think the single biggest risk for Ethereum (and other cryptocurrencies) is a prolonged environment where investors shift to less risky assets.

If I focused only on the short term, this would definitely make me hem and haw. However, my view is that a long-term perspective is needed when investing in anything. For long-term investors, a "risk-off" period where Ethereum's price is lower presents a great buying opportunity.

There are some cryptocurrencies that I'd be worried about lasting for the long term. I think, though, that Ethereum has staying power. With the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade in progress, this cryptocurrency should be a winner over the next decade and beyond.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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1 Cryptocurrency I'd Buy Right Now Without Any Hesitation - Motley Fool

Getty Images/Malte Mueller This story is part of So Money (subscribe here), an online community dedicated to financial empowerment and advice, led by CNET Editor at Large and So Money podcast host Farnoosh Torabi.

If I had a dollar for every email with the words "bitcoin" or "NFT" sent to me over the last few years, I'd be richer than some of the cryptocurrency millionaires making headlines.

OK, that may be an exaggeration. But I will say that in this sector it's exceedingly difficult to separate the fanfare from the fundamentals. As "experts" online tout crypto as the "investment of a lifetime," new datashows that a majority of young millionaires hold the bulk of their wealth in it. What's next? Kim Kardashian promoting an obscure cryptocurrency? Oh, wait...

Then there's the cryptocurrency market's recent steep sell-off, which points to its ongoing volatility and uncertainty about the future.

Through my efforts to learn more, I've found that investing experts and financial and tech journalists tend to agree that crypto hasbecome part of our lives andis not going away. At the same time, there's a ton of investor misguidance. Too many people are making financial moves off of pure adrenaline and speculation.

"Investing should be boring," says Georgia Lee Hussey, founder of Modernist Financial in Portland, Oregon. "If you're super duper excited about your portfolio, you're doing it wrong. Full stop."

Spencer Jakab, a longtime Wall Street reporter and author of the new book The Revolution That Wasn't, isn't convinced we have to participate at all. "There's no rhyme or reason to it ... I'm not a fan," he says.

But we can't help but be curious. Many of you have told me you want to understand how to start trying out this market in a clearheaded, substantive way. Are there ways to test the crypto waters that are measured, emotionally intelligent and rooted in a strategy? I have some ideas below.

One way to "invest" in the cryptocurrency market is by working for a crypto company. And now, there are more choices than ever. Crypto-related job opportunities surged 395% in the US between 2020 and 2021, according to LinkedIn. That's about four times more than job listings in the broader tech industry.

After spending most of her career working for conventional financial institutions like TIAA and BlackRock, corporate communications executive Lauren Post was tapped to join Bakkt, an Atlanta-based digital asset platform. Bakkt, which went public last fall, works with noncrypto companies that want to offer their clients cryptocurrency experiences. This includes working with credit card companies that offer cardholders crypto rewards, as well as teaming up with banks to help them integrate crypto trading with their platforms.

"I was both intrigued and slightly apprehensive because I didn't know much about crypto," said Post in an email. "But, after having spent my career at traditional financial services companies, I realized that learning about crypto couldn't be much different from learning about target date funds, fixed income, credit default swaps or any other corner of finance. I also realized that the skills I have unpacking complex topics for general audiences can be applied to any industry and are timely for the crypto space right now."

Not into pegging your cryptocurrency's success to a rally sparked by an Elon Musk tweet?

A new cryptocurrency genre called stablecoins bloomed in 2021, and unlike its peers, it promises less volatility and a more direct connection to traditional forms of value. Stablecoinsare like "cryptocurrency with a twist," according to CNET's Julian Dossett. He explains: "Instead of being 'mined' by an open, distributed network of computers performing a combination of math and record-keeping, a stablecoin derives its price from the value of another asset. In short, a stablecoin is pegged to some other underlying asset." Many stablecoins are fixed to the US dollar.

Think of a stablecoin as you would chips at a poker table, says Dossett. Instead of buying bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency directly with fiat money like the US dollar, you pay cash to buy stablecoins first -- they're available on most crypto exchanges including Coinbase -- and can then trade stablecoins for other forms of cryptocurrency.

The blockchain is the digital ledger that facilitates and records bitcoin transactions, but this technology can do more than power bitcoin. More broadly, due to its decentralization and cryptography, the blockchain can create much-needed efficiency and security to a number of markets from insurance to real estate, banking and legal.

If you're interested in learning about the crypto market, consider looking into the blockchain. It can be time well spent for someone seeking to enhance their business or examining how to leverage the technology where they work.

As an investor, I'm bullish on the concept of the blockchain. To that end, I've chosen to contribute a tiny portion of my retirement savings in a fund called BLOK, which comprises established companies such as Square, Paypal and Nvidia that are investing in blockchain technology.

Invest in cryptocurrency if you'd like to, but just because this is a new asset class doesn't mean abandoning tried-and-true methods of portfolio management. For starters, don't bet the farm. Hussey and many financial planners recommend limiting our holdings of so-called alternative and relatively high-risk assets like cryptocurrency, real estate and start-ups to no more than 5% of our total portfolio. "It is an asset class in its infancy," says Hussey. "We don't really understand the market because it's not built to be understandable."

Finally, invest in a bunch of currencies. No matter how confident you may be in a particular digital coin, remember that diversification helps to mitigate losses over time. (You don't want to be like some of the early investors during the dawn of the internet who went all in on pets.com.)

"If you're really confident about some bet, if you have some reason to believe you've got an edge, you still don't bet all your money because there's no sure thing," says Jakab. "To invest exclusively in a single category is something not even the best gamblers do."

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Curious about cryptocurrency? 4 ways to start investing without losing your shirt - CNET

With cryptocurrency becoming popular in Africa and following thelaunch of Yellow Card in Rwanda, you must have come across terms such as blockchain, business-consumer model, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, digital wallet, bitcoin, among other terms.

What is cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrency refers to the digital currency that uses blockchain technology and enables users to send and receive payments from anywhere in the world.

To begin trading in cryptocurrency, you require a digital wallet. Crypto wallets allow users to save their cryptocurrency passwords, popularly known as keys, in a central location. Users use their private keys to access the cryptos. While anyone can deposit cryptocurrency via the public address, funds can only be withdrawn from the wallet using a randomly generated private key.

Notably, there are many platforms offering cryptocurrency trading services. People interested in buying and selling cryptos visit these platforms to meet other interested buyers and sellers.

About Yellow Card in Rwanda

Yellow Card is one of the leading cryptocurrency platforms guaranteeing a secure trading environment for African crypto investors. Yellow Card's concept is entirely aligned with the company's CEO's vision - to ensure security and minimize risks during crypto trading.

Mainly, instead of operating on a widespread peer-to-peer basis, Yellow Card allows users to transact based on a secure business-to-consumer model.

Before Yellow Card was founded, the company's CEO, Chris Maurice, had fallen victim to fraud. Although he believed he had made the right investment decision by investing in bitcoin then, he lost thousands of dollars in the process.

Also, there are thousands of other investors who have lost billions of dollars. For instance,in 2019, over US $4 billion was lost in cases of scams. Many cryptocurrency traders with little knowledge about the trade fell victims to fraud.

Chris, on his part, armed with the lessons learned after the fraud experience, developed a vision to transform the cryptocurrency trading landscape. He is still determined to ensure a safer cryptocurrency trading environment through the Yellow Card platform.

In Rwanda, Yellow Card will be helpful to many Rwandans looking for convenient and safe ways to carry out digital transactions. The platform gives users the freedom to conveniently and safely buy, sell or store their cryptocurrencies.

Benefits of Using Yellow Card in Rwanda

The following are notable benefits of using Yellow Card for cryptocurrency transactions:

Minimum requirements

Yellow Card allows cryptocurrency to trade with minimal requirements, unlike the traditional currencies where one may be required to go through a tedious process of opening a bank account.

In cryptocurrency, you only need to set up an account on the Yellow Card platform by providing basic personal information.

Security for cryptocurrency trading

Cryptocurrency is one of the targets by fraudsters to defraud innocent traders who have little information about cryptocurrency. Yellow Card guarantees top-notch security to its platform users. Users dont have to worry about losing their hard-earned money.

The cryptocurrency traders use unique passwords to ascertain the ownership of the specific blockchain address and to verify transactions too. The keys protect the blockchain owners from fraud and unauthorized access, hence guaranteeing security.

Fees

Yellow Card charges zero feesfor transactions; hence users do not have to worry about exorbitant costs.

Many users prefer carrying out transactions on Yellow Card accounts, especially receiving remittances from abroad and avoiding costly transaction processes via traditional currency exchanges.

Mobile Accessibility

The Yellow Card has an application that is accessible on smartphones.

Using the internet, users can conveniently download the application or open the Yellow Card platform through the web browser right from their mobile devices.

Yellow Card Academy

Since many potential cryptocurrency users doubt the credibility of Yellow Card and crypto,Yellow Card Academyoffers information on cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, and general financial literacy.

Yellow Card is committed to empowering its users through Yellow Card Academy, where users access information helpful in building their financial literacy.

Partnership with SPENN

Yellow Card has partnered with SPENN,an easy-to-use and popular Android banking app by Access bank.

Using the online banking application, cryptocurrency traders can instantly deposit or withdraw funds without incurring additional charges.

24/7 Customer Service

Yellow Card offers 24/7 customer support.

If you face a challenge while using the platform, you can contact their customer support at any time. The customer support team will respond promptly.

How to Set Up an Account

Signing up for a Yellow Card account is straightforward. Follow these easy steps:

Set up your account. You can sign up via your favorite web browser or mobile device by first downloading the Yellow Card Android or iOS app. Click "sign up"/and enter your basic information, then click "submit."

You will be redirected to a verification page. Also, you will receive a 6-digit PIN via SMS message, which you should enter to complete the phone verification and account sign-up process.

Importantly, signing up for a Yellow Card account is absolutely free.

Deposit funds into your account. Once your account is up, you need to fund it. The minimum funds you should deposit into the account is RWF100. You can deposit money into the account through electronic money transfer or other permitted payment methods.

Notably, depositing and withdrawing funds on Yellow Card is instant. You can deposit or cash out anytime without unnecessary waiting time.

Begin buying and selling crypto. After confirmation of the deposit, the funds reflect in your account balance, and you can start buying and selling cryptos.

There are a variety of cryptocurrencies you can trade-in. These include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether. The platform charges zero hidden trading fees.

Get Started

Yellow Card is committed to offering Rwandans a fast, efficient, and secure way to transact.

Whether you are a beginner or you have already invested in cryptocurrency, you have a chance to succeed in cryptocurrency trading by studying the strategies of cryptocurrency trading on the Yellow Card Academy.

Get your first bitcoin on us.Sign upwith promo codeNEWto get 2000 RWF free!

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FEATURED: The rising adoption of cryptocurrency in Rwanda - The New Times

Over the past 24 hours, Fantoms (CRYPTO: FTM) price has fallen 11.03% to $1.97. This continues its negative trend over the past week where it has experienced a 37.0% loss, moving from $3.07 to its current price.

The chart below compares the price movement and volatility for Fantom over the past 24 hours (left) to its price movement over the past week (right). The gray bands are bollinger bands, measuring the volatility for both the daily and weekly price movements. The wider the bands are, or the larger the gray area is at any given moment, the larger the volatility.

The trading volume for the coin has risen 15.0% over the past week diverging from the circulating supply of the coin, which has decreased 0.31%. This brings the circulating supply to 2.54 billion, which makes up an estimated 80.04% of its max supply of 3.17 billion. According to our data, the current market cap ranking for FTM is #28 at 5.03 billion.

If you are interested in purchasing Fantom and want to know the best cryptocurrency exchanges, follow this link to Benzinga Money.

Do you want to learn more about trading and be able to analyze your own portfolio of stocks or cryptocurrencies? Consider signing up for Benzinga Pro. Benzinga Pro gives you up-to-date news and analytics to empower your investing and trading strategy. You can follow the link here to visit.

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