Brokers & FinTech, Crypto & Digital Assets, Markets & Investing
‘Investing In A Decentralized Economy’: The Event That Aims to Explore the Future of the Financial System
07 Dec 2018
Cryptocurrency wallet Luno will be hosting their very own event through Hard Fork Decentralized, in which they pursue to explore the exciting world of investing in a decentralized economy, made entirely out of their users and accessible for everyone. Actually, that’s what ultimately ‘Investing in a Decentralized Economy’ aims for: “At this blockchain and cryptocurrency event, where we’re inviting the leading industry companies to host their own discussion across London,” they pointed out.
CEO Marcus Swanepoel will be leading the discussion in London on December 13 – we sat down with him and got a sneak preview of what topics he’ll explore.
The evolution of money
Swanepoel explained that the financial system is going through a transformation:
The existing financial system was built for a non-digital age, ignoring the needs of the modern individual. Decentralized cryptocurrencies are quickly making these old systems and ways of thinking redundant. Like communication evolving from landlines to mobile phones, or post to email, money is now finally catching up with other information revolutions.
According to him, the opportunities that cryptocurrency can offer us are far-reaching:
It’ll provide products and services that are completely interoperable with a good balance between transparency and privacy, and a much better user experience. Most importantly, cryptocurrency provides a fair financial system with open and equal access for everyone.
Swanepoel does admit that, in some cases, decentralization isn’t always possible:
We are unlikely to live in a 100 percent decentralized world, and there will always be room for some trusted intermediaries that provide a gateway to this new world. But within the next few decades, there will be fewer players than there are today, and part of their function is to disintermediate the existing market – this is what Luno does. We are, in essence, building trust and access to distribution for this new economy.
The road to mass adoption
While Swanepoel is clearly optimistic about blockchain’s future, we asked him whether cryptocurrency had any shortcomings compared to fiat:
The mass adoption of cryptocurrency is still very dependant on trust and confidence in the companies that provide access – this could be considered as a shortcoming. In the long run, however, we believe that most of the innovation will be the product of collaboration between cryptocurrency companies, financial institutions, and regulators. While banks will mostly only provide access to cryptocurrency as an investment class, their acceptance will enhance trust and catalyse the industry.
How can we keep up?
In the evolution of money, how can we expect people to change in order to keep up? More importantly, will some people get left behind? Swanepoel believes that this evolution is inevitable. As such, it’s best to get a head’s start on things:
The impact of shifting the entire world to a new financial system will also likely see one of society’s fastest and most aggressive redistributions of wealth in history. By buying cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, one is effectively helping fund the overall research and development of the entire ecosystem, and also getting an ‘ownership stake’ in it. That means that the earlier you ‘invest’, the higher the risk, but also potentially, the greater the returns.
Marcus concludes by making it clear that himself and Luno do not provide investment advice and encourage everyone to research before buying:
We’d like to remind new (and old) investors that Bitcoin is still a young technology. It’s important to only invest in things you understand. Don’t over-expose yourself – you shouldn’t have all your money in a single investment, so spread your investments into different classes and different risk categories.
You can hear Marcus Swanepoel discuss the evolution of money in further detail at his Luno event on December 13 in London, UK! Sign ups are now open and tickets can be found here.
