5 Crypto Stories From A Year Ago
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Cryptocurrency is such a fast-moving industry that we don’t always stop to smell the roses along the way. Everything is about the next big thing, the bull or the bear that’s just round the corner… and we can lose our perspective.
So we’re going to take a look back on some of the most spectacular stories and predictions from a year ago. Some of them are hilarious, some are a little painful to read. But we should look back occasionally and see just how far we have come.
Here are our favorites from 12 months ago.
1. Bitcoin Could Be Worth $619,047
Forbes could still be proven right with this audacious prediction, but you won’t find too many people sharing this level of optimism right now.
Bitcoin was flying high and hit a price of $4,477 when Naeem Aslam penned this ambitious prediction. Since then it hit the heady heights of $17,900, before the brutal correction this year.
Now, the experts predict a complete turnaround and we’re waiting for the next bull market. We will have to revisit this theory in a few years to see if there’s any validity to Forbes’ massive punt on a coin that was worth less than $5,000 at the time.
If Aslam turns out to be right, then he deserves the riches that will undoubtedly come his way. It’s an almighty prediction but right now we would take it with a pinch of salt.
2. BCash Launches to Massive Fanfare
On August 11th 2017, Bitcoin finally forked to create Bitcoin Cash. It was meant to be a landmark moment. It wasn’t, but a recent growth spurt has put BCash back on course.
It was a soft fork to implement SegWit protocol on the Bitcoin network. Every bitcoin in the blockchain had a copy that could be claimed for free. This should have been a goldrush.
The jury is still out on Bitcoin Cash and it’s one of the most divisive subjects in crypto. Yes, it made transactions slightly faster and cheaper, but there are major drawbacks, and the promised revolution hasn’t materialized yet.
Maybe this will be its year and it does have a $1 billion valuation, but is it worth it? That’s a tricky question.
3. Whoppercoin Launches in Russia
Remember when every company was set to launch its own cryptocurrency? It may still happen, but Burger King was ahead of the curve when it launched the Whoppercoin in Russia a year ago.
It was never meant to challenge bitcoin’s dominance in the cryptocurrency sphere. Instead, the Whoppercoin was a simple rewards scheme for Burger King’s customers.
The company offered 1 billion Whoppercoins on the Wave blockchain and one Burger King Whopper cost a remarkable 1,700 coins when it launched. It was a novel idea, but pitching a dressed up hamburger as an investment as well as a snack raised some eyebrows.
Each coin was was worth $0.0000013 at launch and we have yet to hear of a Whoppercoin millionaire.
4. Mortgages for bitcoin
When the world was truly in the grip of bitcoin mania, regulator Joseph Borg revealed that the public were taking out mortgages to buy the runaway cryptocurrency. Others were maxing out credit cards to jump on board.
Even at the peak of the feeding frenzy, when bitcoin soared above $19,000, the director of the Alabama Securities Commission warned about the risks and suggested this wasn’t a wise investment.
“You’re on this mania curve. At some point in time there’s got to be a leveling off. Cryptocurrency is here to stay. Blockchain is here to stay. Whether it is bitcoin or not, I don’t know,” Borg said. They were words of wisdom.
This year’s cryptocurrency crash could technically wipe investors out completely. A lot of investors have chosen to ride the storm and wait for a turnaround, especially if they have used debt to invest in cryptocurrency. They really don’t have an option at this point.
5. Graphics Cards Sell Out
The PC community really didn’t like cryptocurrency miners in 2017, as the industry caused a worldwide shortage of GPUs.
Cryptocurrency miners bought 3 million GPUs in 2017 and basically cleared the shelves, leaving the PC industry in the doldrums. Prices skyrocketed thanks to a global shortage and the cheaper AMD chips were the mining weapons of choice.
In the end, it was estimated that cryptocurrency miners spent $776 million on chips. This year, major companies like Bitmain have invested tens of millions of dollars in purpose-built computing set-ups.
They are set to drive the dorm room crypto miner out of business, but this was an incredible side-effect of the cryptocurrency explosion that we simply didn’t see coming.
The author is not currently invested in any digital asset.
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