WINK NEWS

Cryptocurrency, which some see as the currency of the future, has had a rough ride lately.

After reaching an all-time high in April, it tanked. Still, many wonder if this form of digital currency might replace the almighty dollar.

Justin Verleys phone doubles as a wallet. His cards are attached to the back and he doesnt carry cash because its all inside his phone.

If theres ever a chance to use cryptocurrency over the dollar, Im going to prefer cryptocurrency. Just for speed reasons, for security reasons, for moral reasons, and because I trust it, he said.

Verley started using crypto over cash in college. He paid for necessities like school supplies and groceries.

Think about it like tokens at an arcade. You exchange a certain amount of dollars for an equivalent amount of tokens. These tokens have a fixed amount when youre looking to play Skee-Ball. With Bitcoin having a fixed amount, the value fluctuates like stocks.

I would liken Bitcoin more to a store of value like gold, more like digital gold than a currency, but that doesnt mean you cant spend it. Its very spendable. Its widely accepted around the world and its becoming more widely accepted, Verley said.

The appeal and danger of this form of money are that its decentralized, not controlled by a government or bank, which opens the door for illegal activity.

The Colonial Pipeline hackers demanded more than $2 million in cryptocurrency, which they were paid, but to the surprise of many, the FBI recovered it.

In this pandemic world, were seeing the monetary policy of printing money to help stimulate the economy. Bitcoin, one of its most unique value propositions is that as a fixed supply there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin. So, people are going to it as an alternative investment as a safe store of value, said Neil Bergquist, CEO of Coinme, a company that exchanges cash for crypto.

More and more places are accepting Bitcoin, like Whole Foods, Starbucks and Home Depot.

Turning physical cash into a digital representation really has a lot of technological benefits in terms of payments and as a store of value and really bringing money or store value into a digital era, Bergquist said.

And its easily accessible. You can now buy Bitcoin at your local Winn-Dixie store through a Coinstar machine. (See locations below.)

Our expansion in Florida provides that access where that access may not have been there before. So simple things like being able to buy it with cash is a key piece of infrastructure for overall adoption, Bergquist said.

Its even likely that crypto will become a widely accepted form of payment, like debit or credit cards.

The concept of greater inclusion of virtual currency into our payment systems and processes is kind of inevitable, said Russell Weigel, commissioner of Floridas Office of Financial Regulation.

Right now, Florida doesnt have a clear definition of cryptocurrency or a policy to regulate it, which worries Weigel given the states history of fraud.

We need to account for that and make sure that any system we build also has as much consumer protection or retail investor protection that we can build into it, he said.

For Verley, even though he lost money in the recent crypto crash, he feels digital currency makes more sense than dollars and cents.

In most places in the world, theres no difference between swiping a credit card and spending your cryptocurrency. I feel like its an option that people are just going to choose rather than holding their money in U.S. dollars.

For those interested in getting into Bitcoin, Verley recommends buying slowly. Remember, as the recent trend shows, Bitcoin is volatile and changes constantly.

A list of Southwest Florida Winn-Dixie stores with Coinstar machines that exchange cash for Bitcoin is below.Note that you will first need to set up a Coinme account. For more information on Coinstar, click here.

Read this article:
The future of cryptocurrency: Could it replace the US dollar? - Wink News - Wink News

LEBANON, TENNESSEE - JUNE 18: Landon Cassill, driver of the #4 Voyager Chevrolet, drives during ... [+] practice for the NASCAR Xfinity Series Tennessee Lottery 250 at Nashville Superspeedway on June 18, 2021 in Lebanon, Tennessee. (Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images)

Many times when a NASCAR driver isnt actually racing, they can be found outdoors somewhere; hunting, fishing, racing in another series, working on a farm perhaps.

NASCAR driver Landon Cassill is a little different.

When hes not racing on an actual track the 31-year-old Iowan can be found racing online amongst whomever decides to join him, most often streaming himself on Twitch an online platform that allows others to watch.

The point is that Cassill is part of a generation of younger people who live much of their lives on the information superhighway, aka the Internet. It should come as no surprise then that Cassill knows a lot about cryptocurrency, the once mysterious form of money that to many of us remains nothing more than magic money.Cryptocurrency is made up of a bunch of numbers that lives in digital wallets on blocks in a blockchain on a node and can be mined.

And Cassill knows all about it.

Hes been dabbling in cryptocurrency for quite some time and has even mined it. Recently though, hes started to do something else with cryptocurrency. You see, Landon Cassill is the first NASCAR driver to get a cryptocurrency platform to sponsor the car he races in NASCARs Xfinity series for JD Motorsports using cryptocurrency to pay for the sponsorship. And thats a pretty big deal.

I've, I've traded it. I bought it, I've held it, I've mined it, Cassill said. But a couple of years ago, I really decided that in addition to it being a part of my personal portfolio I wanted to build a network in the space.

Landon Cassill has been trading in the cryptocurrency market for years. (Photo by Brian ... [+] Lawdermilk/Getty Images)

As a race car driver. I make my living by having sponsors and representing brands that I'm aligned with.

The sponsorship is with Voyager Digital which operates a crypto-asset trading platform. Cassill met CEO Steve Ehrlich a couple years ago at a crypto conference and the two became friends. It was this friendship that led to the partnership.

It just seems like the space has gotten bigger and bigger and more and more active, Cassill said. And it's matured to a point where companies are ready for something like a mainstream sponsorship of a sports team or a race.

The timing is perfect for it.

With no centralized banks that hold onto cryptocurrency, its been the Wild West in the crypto space in years past. But that space is starting to be tamed. Voyager is one of the newer platforms, basically a brokerage firm, that allows users to build a portfolio of different forms of cryptocurrency. Its opening the once mysterious world to more and more people, including those who might not be too comfortable trading magic money.

It's easy for someone that doesn't know much to understand it, Cassill said. For me to tell my parents or you know, my grandmother, who last time Bitcoin was at $60,000 called me and asked me, how did my Bitcoin do? It takes me two seconds to copy and paste an invite link to Voyager and she's on the platform in a second.

And that platform brings something that Cassill has been doing on the internet full circle, as in the circle that is a racetrack.

To me that's a perfect alignment for something I'm invested in already but also compliments my career as a race car driver.

One thing that cryptocurrency market is known for however is volatility, the value can swing wildly. Thats something that Cassill says isnt an issue with Voyager and similar platforms.

Yes, its an active market, Cassill said. But he adds: Just like if you're holding a stock or anything else crypto, Bitcoin, light coin, Ethereum, they're all going up and down.

One thing that's really awesome about Voyager is you earn interest on your holdings, he said. And not just like a little bit of interest, like holding cash in the bank. I think that for Bitcoin, you earn like six and a quarter percent interest. And if you hold their native token, Voyager token, a certain amount, they'll give you a 1% bonus. You can earn between six and 9% interest, 10% interest, actually, I think on some tokens just by holding it in your account. That's pretty awesome.

I mean for a crypto guy; I hold my personal portfolio. A lot of people hold off exchanges. So for those of you that are willing to hold on an exchange or want to see your cryptocurrency earning some yield, even while the market is going up and down, it's a great way to, I suppose, hedge the market.

Holding on then is the best way for crypto to pay off.

We've seen the price change, it swings of 10 or 15% at a time, Cassill said. It can definitely be a volatile market. But I mean, if you're holding one Bitcoin in your Voyager account that one Bitcoin is earning a six and a quarter percent interest annual interest rate, that's nothing to sneeze about.

Its obvious that Cassill is passionate about the cryptocurrency market and enjoys educating others about the once mysterious world. Cassill has seen how interest has grown in the crypto market and its a big part of the sponsorship.

Something he doesnt mind at all.

It is fun to just tie things from other aspects of my life into racing, Cassill said. And I think that really what it does is strengthens my community and strengthens Voyager's community. Because that's one thing that is really strong about cryptocurrency is the community. And Voyager, I think a big part of the sponsorship is that community and how can they tap into the NASCAR community and really just provide a good service.

While the sponsorship may be something new to the sport, the contracts werent any different than any other sponsorship deal. And the process of turning cryptocurrency into the cash needed to pay the race teams bills isnt all that difficult Cassill said.

Fortunately, on Voyager's brokerage platform I can just liquidate the crypto that I need and send it right to my bank account, Cassill said. The sponsorship is paid fully in cryptocurrency. That's a part of this sponsorship. And from that point I can hold what I want to hold, keep it in my Voyager account. But I could also sell it carve out what I need to pay bills. And obviously, go racing with it.

The Voyager Digital primary sponsorship will continue for the rest of the 2021 NASCAR Xfinity series ... [+] season. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)

Cassills JD Motorsports car hes racing at Nashville Superspeedway (and raced at the Circuit of the Americas several weeks ago) isnt the first to have a crypto sponsor on the hood and get its funding from cryptocurrency, Stefan Parsons has a partial sponsorship for the same race with Dogecoin. And Josh Wise famously had Dogecoin sponsorship for a race in 2014. But the Voyager sponsorship isnt just a one or two race deal; in fact, its a deal that will see it as a primary sponsor for the rest of the season, with that sponsorship paid for fully in cryptocurrency; thats a first for NASCAR.

I've been a NASCAR long enough, I guess I don't count anything out in this sport, Cassill said. But I think that the one thing that I probably didn't imagine when I first got into cryptocurrency; the level of professionalism I would deal with when, doing a sponsorship with a brokerage exchange like Voyager you know, Steve, or like Pam Kramer and the whole team there. These people are really good people and they're professionals and I'm excited to work with them. Because I think it's a, a really great brand.

Cryptocurrency is indeed becoming less mysterious. Its exiting the information superhighway, and thanks to enthusiasts, like race car driver Landon Cassill, its going racing in NASCAR.

Go here to see the original:
Cryptocurrency Coming To Nascar In A Big Way Thanks To Driver Landon Cassill - Forbes

Bitcoin and ethereum are the Coke and Pepsi of crypto: Their combined value of about $1 trillion accounts for nearly two-thirds of the overall $1.6 trillion in digital currencies worldwide.

But just as some soft drink fans prefer Dr. Pepper, there are also plenty of other alternatives in crypto more than 10,000 of them, according to research site CoinMarketCap.

Many of these altcoins have legitimate niche use cases for specific industries. They arent started-as-a-joke cryptos like Elon Musks beloved dogecoin and its canine cousin Shiba Inu.

Your primer on bitcoin, ethereum, and other most common cryptocurrencies

One of the better performing pairs of cryptos this year are two related tokens that are geared toward online content creators Theta and Theta Fuel. Theta has soared almost 400% in 2021 while Theta Fuel is up an astounding 1,700%.

Both run on a blockchain known as the Theta Network and allow PC users with un-utilized bandwidth to share video streams with others on the network The reward? Theyre able to mine tokens. Theta has impressive backers from the digital media world, including YouTube co-founder Steve Chen and Twitch co-founder Justin Kan, who are Theta advisors.

Meanwhile, many other altcoins are generating more attention in the crypto investing community and many of those investors say this is just the beginning.

This is still the early days for blockchain networks. Many others are getting built out, said Greg King, founder and CEO of Osprey Funds, a firm that is investing in cryptocurrencies. Not all of them are trying to imitate bitcoin.

King said hes focusing on two smaller coins: polkadot and algorand. King described polkadot as like an internet of blockchains that helps connect different networks and transfer coins between them.

Bitcoin & groceries: In NC you can now exchange cash for cryptocurrency at some stores

And he said algorand is a more eco-friendly green crypto than bitcoin, which has been criticized by many, including Musk, for the massive amount of energy that is used by people who mine the crypto on massive servers.

Algorand are distributed in a more energy-efficient way because they are part of so-called proof-of-stake distribution that randomly selects blocks to distribute to users, as opposed to being rewarded to people mining big chunks of the currency.

King thinks investors should focus more on cryptos and tokens like these two, which have legitimate uses and not get caught up in the hype and noise of things like dogecoin, which is up more than 6,000% this year thanks in large part to tweets from Musk despite being a joke.

Meme coins are a little distracting, but I guess its part of the libertarian side of crypto, King said, referring to the fact that people who are skeptical of goverment-backed currencies tend to flock to digital coins. There will be a lot of tokens ranging from silly to serious and many in between, he said.

Bitcoin plunges 15%; cryptocurrency worries mount

Michael Sikorsky chairman of Copia Wealth Studios, agreed. He said that his firm does own ethereum and bitcoin but that it also holds several other altcoins that are less mainstream.

Sikorsky said Copa Wealth Studios has positions in cardano and polygon, two other cryptos that are similar to algorand in that they are not mined by energy-hungry supercomputers.

Were getting our beak wet, Sikorsky said. But he added that investors have to keep in mind that these, and other cryptos, will remain volatile.

So altcoins are not for the faint of heart, but they are not going away either.

This is becoming a real asset class, said Charlie Silver, CEO of Permission.io, which has a token named ASK that is aimed at e-commerce advertisers.

But he warned that successful altcoins must have real utility. Those that are just gambles wont be good for the industry, Silver said. But we do see this as the next big wave of investing.

Read the original post:
Cryptocurrency choices: There's more to this market than bitcoin, ethereum - WRAL Tech Wire

It was 2013 when blockchain and cryptocurrency had become hot topic in internet circles on platforms such as Reddit and Twitter. The market value of Bitcoin, the most-valued cryptocurrency at the time, had shot up to $1000 from $1 within a couple of weeks forcing people to take cryptocurrencies seriously. In Sydney, Australia, a marketing manager at Adobe, Jackson Palmer was into this latest cryptocurrency mania. He was addicted to checking Bitcoin prices but he felt that the groups of Bitcoin enthusiasts were elitist little groups that did not like outsiders. At the same time, triggered by the success of Bitcoin, there were many alternate cryptocurrencies coming into the market. Sitting over a beer, Palmer got an idea of making a parody cryptocurrency mocking Bitcoin. At that time, a meme of a dog looking at a camera was all over the internet. The meme that was going viral was based on a 2010 photo of a Shiba Inu dog, who was looking at the camera when the picture was taken. The meme-creator had written the guessed inner monologue in Comic Sans font over the picture that made the picture funny.

Palmer also found the Doge meme really funny. He decided to create a cryptocurrency with the Doge meme at its logo. He bought the domain DogeCoin.com and left a message on the website asking if anyone wanted to see the proposed parody cryptocurrency become a reality. The idea resonated with an IBM software engineer Billy Markus who wrote to Palmer and offered his help. Excited Markus had started to work on the new cryptocurrency before getting Palmers response.

When they both collaborated, the word Doge replaced Bit in Bitcoin to become Dogecoin, the first meme cryptocurrency. The logo was a coin with the Doge meme and the fonts on the website were Comic Sans, the same font the monologues in the Doge meme were written in. Soon, the cryptocurrency developed its dedicated community on Reddit and earlier this year, Dogecoin went viral on Twitter when the richest man on earth Elon Musk tweeted about it.

In a series of tweets, Musk termed himself as the father of Dogecoin encouraging people to invest in it. However, he also warned that people should not invest their lifes savings in the wildly surging cryptocurrency. Dogecoin went from a market valuation of $3 billion to $45 billion in a six-month period.

Two years later, In April 2015, Markus went on an extended leave from the cryptocurrency community and he sold all his Dogecoin holdings, which were enough for him to buy a used Honda Civic. Palmer also left the cryptocurrency space. The cryptocurrency, which was abandoned by its creators, is now being maintained by volunteers. Palmer is working as the director of product management, growth and data science at Adobe Systems while Markus is working for an education company in San Franciscos Bay Area.

Unlike Bitcoin and other many cryptocurrencies, there is no limit to how many Dogecoins can exist, which makes it harder for it to become expensive and make its owners rich. For one of its creators Palmer, Dogecoin is kind of my barometer for how much bitcoin mania or crypto-mania has taken hold and how much kind of dumb money is flowing into this space, Palmer told in an interview to Bloomberg.

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here

Read more here:
Dogecoin is Elon Musks Favorite Cryptocurrency. But Where are the Founders of th - News18

filadendron / Getty Images

Cryptocurrency investing has been one of the big news stories of 2021. Although the first Bitcoin was mined way back in 2009, it wasnt until Bitcoin millionaires began being minted that crypto started grabbing the publics attention. Now, new coins have flooded the market, and more millionaires have been created, as some coins have rallied 1,000%, 2,000% or even more. In the midst of all of these incredible gains, the natural question is whether or not its too late to invest in cryptocurrency. The truth is that no one can guarantee whether crypto will rise or fall from here, as its an entirely new market that is neither well-defined nor well-regulated. But there are clear arguments on both sides of the coin as to whether its time to buy or not.

Check Out: 10 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest in for 2021Consider: Dogecoin: Is It Still Worth an Investment?

One of the fears of entering the crypto market has always been that governments around the world will shut down acceptance and even production of the coins. That time may already be here. In late May 2021, China began cracking down hard on bitcoin mining and trading, which sent crypto prices cascading downwards. According to Boris Schlossberg, managing director at BK Asset Management, the primary reason for this crackdown was because Chinese authorities are keen to see their own digital currency in the form of the yuan become the primary unit of account in the Chinese economy. If other governments follow suit, demand and support for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could falter.

The Economy and Your Money: All You Need To Know

If youre a believer that the crypto market is another version of the stock market, there might be no better time to buy cryptos like Bitcoin because they are on sale. As of June 4, Bitcoin was more than 40% off its all-time high, and other cryptos had fallen by a similar amount or even more. As the history of Bitcoin has shown, massive drops like this are not at all unusual, and yet the cryptocurrency has managed to consistently climb to new highs. If you were curious about Bitcoin a few weeks ago, the current sell-off might be a chance to dip your toe into the market.

Story continues

Explore: What Are Altcoins and Are the Potential Rewards Worth the Risks?

Skeptics believe that cryptocurrency is an asset class with no store of value, no barrier to entry and no value as an exchange currency. As such, skeptics view crypto as simply a speculative asset class with no long-term viability as a true asset class. At a CNBC-hosted panel in Davos, Switzerland in 2019, Jeff Schumacher, founder of BCG Digital Ventures, had this to say about Bitcoin: I do believe it will go to zero. I think its a great technology but I dont believe its a currency. Its not based on anything. In 2020, famed investor Dennis Gartman offered the same assessment to Bloomberg, saying that if central banks refuse to give up their monopoly on monetary policy, Bitcoin could one day plunge to zero.

Read: Where Does Cryptocurrency Come From?

Rather than seeing Bitcoin go to zero, believers like Ark Investments Cathie Wood suggest quite the opposite. The popular investment strategist and CEO believes that Bitcoin will actually hit $500,000. Part of the reason for Woods bullishness is her belief that asset managers will eventually allocate up to 5% of their portfolios to cryptocurrency. Greg Cipolaro and Dr. Ross Stevens, researchers at New York Digital Investment Group, support this belief, adding that Increasing fundamental demand combined with a fixed supply and automatically declining supply growth make a compelling case for Bitcoin as an alternative investment for institutional investors. The researchers are referring to the fact that the supply of Bitcoin is limited to 21 million coins.

More From GOBankingRates

Last updated: June 9, 2021

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Is It Too Late To Invest In Cryptocurrency?

Continue reading here:
Is It Too Late To Invest In Cryptocurrency? - Yahoo Finance