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Opinion | How crypto innovations can bring real-world benefits to emerging economies
- While investors and financial markets chase the latest trends, entrepreneurs in less-developed regions are experimenting and using digital innovations to benefit their societies, and we should support them
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As mainstream interest in digital assets continues to surge, the conversation around crypto’s potential to shape the future is still defined by hype. Investors, entrepreneurs and analysts have been far too eager to chase the hottest new trends.
Exhibit A: the global market capitalisation of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – unique digital assets verified and stored on blockchain, often works of art – was estimated at US$43 billion in October.
Quite a lot of attention is consumed by NFTs, by the latest DeFi (decentralised finance) derivatives, by meme currencies and the speculative bubbles they cause. What if more energy, resources and intellectual capital were directed towards crypto’s potential to uplift the developing world?
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Easier access to vital medicines, new agricultural markets, more efficient transport – crypto adoption can facilitate those outcomes in less-developed nations. Given the tools and funding to innovate in the crypto space, entrepreneurs in emerging markets will be able to produce innovative solutions to real-world problems.
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‘Merry Christmas’: world’s first SMS sent in 1992 fetches US$121,000 as NFT
‘Merry Christmas’: world’s first SMS sent in 1992 fetches US$121,000 as NFT
Models for how crypto can change lives in these regions are already developing organically.
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