Eyal Avramovich and the Top Cryptocurrency Trends for 2023

Aside from developing the concepts and production of his ideas, Eyal Avramovich has also led the effort to bring these products and ideas to market. Over the past twenty years, he has successfully introduced five inventions, including successfully selling his Gigabit Ethernet camera technology to a Japanese multinational corporation.
  
But perhaps Eyal’s biggest achievement is in the crypto space. He first discovered Bitcoin in 2016 and was blown over by the solutions it offered in terms of independence, flexibility, and technological opportunities. He discovered that Bitcoin – and its mining – merged all of his lifelong passions: technology, entrepreneurship, and finance.

In 2017, Eyal Avramovich founded MineBest. MineBest makes it possible to reap the rewards of mining cryptocurrencies while counting on a world-class hosting provider.

MineBest runs multiple cryptocurrency mining farms and is continually exploring new locations. MineBest provides state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure maintained by experts around the clock.

In addition to his work with MineBest, Avramovich co-created two cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin Vault (BTCV) and Electric Cash (ELCASH). Avramovich seeks to add transparency and enhanced features to his cryptocurrency contributions.

Electric Cash, or ELCASH in short, is a Proof of Work SHA-256-based cryptocurrency. It provides fast and very cheap transactions. ELCASH rewards all staking users and provides them with governance power through voting.

The idea behind the Electric Cash cryptocurrency is to enable fast transactions that are finalized within seconds. 

Bitcoin Vault is the world’s first cryptocurrency that enables users to cancel transactions after they are posted to the blockchain. This innovative approach is possible with a customized blockchain protocol that confirms payments within 144 blocks (or around 24 hours). This feature protects users from losing their funds in case of common key thefts, user mistakes or errors, and bugs.

We recently had the opportunity to learn more about blockchain technology from this innovative tech leader and discuss the trends impacting crypto today.

What are cryptocurrencies?

Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, are designed to enable purchases, sales, and other financial transactions, providing many of the same functions as long-established currencies such as the U.S. dollar, Euro, or Japanese Yen, with the distinction that they do not have the backing of a government.  

Cryptocurrencies offer the following potential benefits and features, including (i) the ability to make transfers without an intermediary and without geographic limitation; (ii) finality of settlement; (iii) lower transaction costs compared to other forms of payment; and (iv) the ability to publicly verify transactions. Other popular features of cryptocurrencies include personal anonymity and the absence of government regulation or oversight.  

What are the trends you see underlying the future growth of cryptocurrency?

Three basic trends support a future where digital currency is ascendant.

1. Diversification

First, because of the economic impact of COVID-19 and governments pumping massive amounts of money into economies that distorted equity and fixed-income markets, people are looking for alternatives. Popular investments such as property, savings, and bonds are less attractive because of artificially low interest rates, and investors have been looking to alternative assets that do not correlate with equities, fixed income, and real estate.

Money has been flowing towards traditional “safe-haven” assets such as gold as well as stocks aligned with the digital economy.

COVID-19 accelerated interest in digital money as a result of a significant increase in online shopping and cashless payments. 

Central banks – including the United States Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, Swiss National Bank, and the Bank of England – are moving forward with plans to develop their own digital currencies (called “central bank digital currencies” or CBDCs). The People’s Bank of China is planning a digital renminbi.

Cryptocurrencies are also becoming more user-friendly because of the use of “stablecoins” with values pegged to central bank currencies (the United States dollar and similar currencies) as well as improved wallets making it easier to swap and exchange tokens.

There are indications these powerful trends will converge. China’s Digital Currency Electronic Payments system is expected to allow some level of support for Ethereum applications. Paypal already allows US users to buy Bitcoin through their Paypal accounts and will enable Paypal payments with Bitcoin soon.

2. Blockchain technology is maturing

The technology that supports cryptocurrencies is growing up.

One of the biggest problems for cryptocurrencies becoming mainstream and a viable alternative to fiat currency is the significant amount of energy-intensive computing processes required to make transactions secure (which is critical since you do not want the same token spent twice). The carbon emissions from Bitcoin mining are staggering and have been a source of conflict with environmental advocates.

Ethereum has embarked on a major technical upgrade (called Eth2), transitioning the blockchain to a “proof-of-stake” mechanism that does away with energy-intensive computing processes. This is expected to address concerns on environmental grounds and allow the market to scale up.

Whole new technological advancements are being developed that will allow blockchain technologies to be more easily and efficiently used in financial markets. Decentralized finance (known as defi) uses blockchain to build completely digital and automated financial markets. These include decentralized exchanges and derivatives trading without traditional intermediaries such as stock markets or banks. This is only possible using blockchain infrastructure – and cryptocurrency.

3. Institutions see its value

Institutional investors are now embracing cryptocurrency, which is encouraging retail investors and ordinary consumers to embrace cryptocurrency.  

US cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale Investments last month held $10 billion USD in cryptocurrency assets for institutional investors. Global financial services company Guggenheim Partners (managing more than $275 billion USD in assets) announced it could invest up to $530 million USD in Bitcoin.

Michael Saylor from Microstrategy has been a passionate advocate for Bitcoin, and financial services companies are developing ETFs and related products to allow retail investors to gain exposure to cryptocurrencies and equities with exposure to cryptocurrency, like publicly traded exchanges.

Rick Rieder, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment funds manager (more than US$7.4 trillion in assets under management), recently said that “cryptocurrency is here to stay.”

Bitcoin – The way forward?

Like stock markets and fixed-income markets, Bitcoin has struggled this year. So, what does this mean for a potential retail investor? I believe in the future of Bitcoin, and there are investment opportunities when markets are filled with uncertainty and confusion, but all cryptocurrencies remain volatile and speculative assets, and there are many ways to gain exposure to cryptocurrency. Buying Bitcoin is one option among many, and I recommend people consult a trusted financial advisor for professional advice in this area.

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The reader is further advised that Crypto products and NFTs are unregulated and can be highly risky. There may be no regulatory recourse for any loss from such transactions.

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