From a high-risk investment to be seen almost as a commodity of a tokenized future.

If you’re reading this it’s because you already know the basics about cryptocurrencies and their evolution during last years, and you want to know now about their future.

As it was mentioned, many visionaries understood the potential of the product despite the crisis of January 2018 and understood that three aspects  were not working: barriers to entry, misinformation between the public and  suspicion from regulators. The bravest players understood that the future required the elimination of these three barriers before betting on it.

To overcome the first obstacle, they developed websites and apps friendly user, simple, intuitive and with great customer experience. In short, they made it easy.

To overcome the other obstacles (misinformation and distance from their audiences), they contacted us, the PR agencies. The task of building the storytelling and moving the messages of these players is not easy. Their product is very technical and complicated for the general public, it has a halo of threat for the traditional players and a shadow of danger for the regulators. Despite this, we can (and should) help these companies because of the before mentioned, they clearly need our help. But how can we do it?

Let’s get to the basics. Every consultant knows that the most important is a company’s vision, mission and values, followed by its purpose. Crypto players have two very clear elements in their current and future perception of the business:

1. From a highly volatile investment to a safe haven: Originally, cryptocurrencies were conceived by investors as an opportunity to gain value from currency appreciation due to their high volatility. For the same reason they were aware that they could lose a lot (or all) of their money if instead of increasing its value, the chosen cryptocurrency was devalued. It was a high-risk type of investment.

Today the vision is totally opposite. After the 2018 correction, the product is conceived as a type of investment that could become conservative. Visionary leading companies such as Bitpanda offer cryptocurrencies and valuable metals such as gold or palladium, known as safe havens (the most conservative type of investment), in their exchange.

2. A tokenized future: This vision does not only imply that we can pay with crypto this is something completely surpassed. Microsoft, BMW or Rakuten, among many other companies, have been allowing payment in cryptocurrency for years. Similarly, some companies pay employees who request it in crypto.

When we talk about tokenization, we mean that the decentralized, blockchain-inspired spirit of cryptology applies to all businesses. The fact that all companies can finance each operation through specific ICOs and that we can all invest in specific companies or items.

Let’s take, for example, the construction of a building. If the construction company tokenize the building (creates a specific currency for that building), as if it were a crowdfunding or stock exchange, we could buy and own a percentage of the building according to the percentage of tokens we will acquire.

It should be noted that when it is spoken of decentralized and as a result of this spirit there cannot be a trusted party, it does not mean that it is insecure. Quite the contrary. The blockchain system can be a tremendously secure system and each sector is looking for ways to adapt it to their business. In any case, it is necessary to emphasize that one of the main risks is that there can no project behind every ICO and every token or currency. Going back to our example, if the building does not exist, and it is a scam. In an IPO, the financial regulator makes sure that the company that issues shares does indeed exist and is profitable and that the exit price makes sense. In the crypto world, you can access information about the project you buy, but there is no official regulator who has checked that this information is real. That’s why companies that do that pre-audit work, like Bitpanda, have a clear advantage.

As we mentioned, PR is really important in this business. There are very talented and visionary entrepreneurs in this business, their products are innovative and very well positioned for that tokenized future, but they need their audiences and potential customers to know their purpose. This is a real challenge for us, but as it usually happens, an exciting task.