Tim Enneking ismanaging director at Crypto Asset Management, which overseesCrypto Asset Fund, a regulated US cryptocurrency trading fund.

In this opinion piece,Enneking argues thatthe term "cryptocurrencies" is now outdated, and that new terminology is needed to describe the innovationsbeing imagined and built in the blockchain industry.

No, that headline is not a mistake.

Its not the cryptocurrencies themselves that should be killed off, but rather the term (hence the quotation marks). Labeling everything going on in the crypto world (space, ecosystem, universe: pick one) "currencies" is dead, pass, OBE You get the idea.

Two questions logically arise: First, why is the term dead and, second, if it's dead, what should replace it?

As to the first, that's easy. There are two problems with applying the phrase "cryptocurrency" to what's going on in the space traditionally known by that name. First, the "coins" are acting less and less like coins and more and more like something else, perhaps equities.

In fact, for my fund, we divide the cryptocurrency space into "blue chips,""large caps,""mid caps,""small caps,""pennies," ("penny coins" seemed redundant) and "NLT" ("no longer traded").

(Now, before you think I am trying to tout my fund, please realize that we decided to name it "Crypto Asset Fund" for the same reasons as those I'm citing here.For the record, my prior fund was indeed called the "Crypto Currency Fund" so we are following the same evolution as the crypto ecosystem itself.)

Related to this shift is the fact that, when bitcoin was effectively the only game in town, aficionados touted it as a "dollar replacement", or at least a supplement but the target was clearly displacing, to one degree or another, fiat currencies. Now, however, with the emphasis on blockchain, ethereum contracts, Ripple bank transfers, etc, etc, cryptocurrenciesare becoming more a transaction enabler than the transaction itself. Their use as currencies, per se, is clearly decreasing.

So, cryptocurrencies are rapidly migrating away from being a medium of exchange (one of probably the most critical of the purposes of a "currency") into enablers of exchanges.

ICOs, tokens, tethers, exchange lending, the (slowly) growing crypto-derivatives market: all reinforce the strong secular shift of cryptocurrencies to crypto "assets."

Which leads us directly to the second question: What should we call all this stuff?

We have voted with our pens and opted for "assets" a nice, all-encompassing fiat word that is sufficiently vague to cover just about everything that might happen in the crypto space.

Why does this matter? Because perception is reality. If we want to attract more investors and users to the crypto universe, then we need those investors to quickly and easily understand what the space offers. Mislabeling (or, at least, too narrowly labeling) the space doesn't help. The name also inevitably affects how those of us already in the space view it, and ourselves, as well.

Labels matter.

A real-life example: CNBC asked me to appear live on Capital Connection out of Singapore(the interview took place and was broadcast July 5) and to recommend "three cryptocurrencies". I declined to do so, countering with three much more varied investments in the crypto space: one lower risk (whatever that might mean), one moderate risk and one higher risk.

The first is lending (fixed income), the second is a coin (equities) and the third is an ICO (IPO or alts). The italicized terms are the fiat equivalent of these three investments, which, by no coincidence, cover the three "legs" of the typical fiat investment "stool."

So, lets move to a much more accurate characterization of the space, ecosystem, universe, whatever (do I sense another opinion piecein the offing?) and call the sector (!) were working in "crypto assets" or even just "crypto", shall we?

I'd argue it makes much more sense.

Disclosure:CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, whichhas an ownership stake in Ripple.

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Killing 'Cryptocurrency': Why It's Time to Retire the Term - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, while potentially transformative on the macro level, are hard for most people to adopt on the micro-level. Indeed, the opportunities created by Bitcoin and its underlying technologyblockchainare only being used by 8-10 million people (1% of the worlds population), and a significant share of that number comprises government entities, stock exchanges, banks, financial services firms, and startups.

For the large majority of people, the technology is hard to grasp, and the cryptocurrency is difficult to mine given the hard-earned cryptographical skill set needed to mine it. Bitcoin and Ethereum are relatively popular cryptocurrencies, but with new digital wallets with no instruction manuals and no single platform to centralize trading for the everyday consumer, progress towards full integration of the currency in world economies remains slow. Yet, as with many affairs in the world of financial services, there may be hopeand it comes from Switzerland.

Corion, a unified, unregulated, decentralized, mobile cryptocurrency platform operating on the Ethereum Classic blockchain, is underway in its Initial Coin Offering (ICO). The offering, which will close on July 30, will pay out between 3-25% bonus to participants, with early birds earning 0.2% daily during the offering and service providers generating between 5-10x more return on existing 0-2.5% coin supply growth in the medium term.

The ICO gives both service providers and consumers the opportunity to invest in a new cryptocurrency that allows them to help build the Corion ecosystem, a multifunctional platform allowing businesses and individuals to transact between each other on the Corion platform, which provides and hosts secure, convenient, and real-time financial transactions between members using Corion coin.

The main pain point within the overall blockchain environment Corion seeks to alleviate is that the current collection of cryptocurrencies operate in centralized and debt-based contexts. The value of these cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin with its various and controversial hard forks over the last few years, are volatile, with Ethereum being held up as Bitcoins potential yet uncertain successor. Driving such volatility is the scarcity-based value of cryptocurrencywith only so many cryptographers and developers able to mine and distribute it, demand simply isnt part of the equation here. And, with only 1% of the worlds population actively using any such currency right now, theres just not the level of adoption present to transition it from short-term, speculative income for a majority of people.

Corions main goal is to create a blockchain-based, decentralized cryptocurrency ecosystem driving demand based on coin rewards and benchmarking against current fiat currencies. The ecosystem, accessible through the Corion platform, would focus cryptocurrency into mainstream usage, taking it from short-term speculative income to continuous passive income through community management. More, Corion consists of separate smart contracts, implemented in Solidity language for maximum transparency and trust.

Corion has created an ecosystem and suite of services that rival emerging blockchain services offered by bulge-bracket banks like Citi and BNY Mellon, integrating payment, finance, and trading functionalities on its singular mobile platform, accessible by any user. At the same time, Corions developers are working B2B to increase the total user base of all cryptocurrencies, something no company has done until now. This innovative business model encourages cross-currency exchange, and inter-wallet and inter-platform cooperation and synergy.

To facilitate the transition of cryptocurrencies to mainstream use that Corion looks to achieve, the Corion platform features seven unique features to humanize the cryptocurrency experience for the average user. These features include a marketplace that promotes commerce, a stable cryptocurrency to promote mainstream use, a reward system for users based on Schelling points which allows users to grow their coins, a multifunctional wallet that operates as the main interface of the platform, and more.

Currently, the battle for cryptocurrency supremacy is ongoing. Corion enters with high aspirations, and well have to keep watch to see if this innovative platform can change the crypto world.

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New ICO Promises Mainstream Adoption of Cryptocurrencies - HuffPost

In BriefThe adoption of digital currencies on both the individual andinstitutional level in China and Japan is propellingcryptocurrencies to ever greater heights. However, some are stillskeptical that they are the finance systems of the future due totheir current volatility. China and Japans Crypto Craze

The age of cryptocurrencies is upon us, and two countries in particular have been instrumental in their stratospheric rise: China and Japan.

Cryptocurrencies have become popular in China due to the governments stringent control of the yuan a power they occasionally exercise by artificially devaluing the currency for trading purposes. With private wealth in China growing, affluent individuals have found a more stable and accessible alternative to the yuan in cryptocurrencies.

Additionally, China has an abundance of cheap energy and hardware, which facilitates crypto mining (the process throughwhich new blocks in the blockchain are created and transactions are verified). Chinese exchanges runmining poolsto generate these blocks, and these efforts constitute 60 percent of Bitcoins total hashrate (the speed at which Bitcoin operations are completed).

Japan got its foot in the cryptocurrency door at the beginning of 2017 when the market in China experienced an institutional and systematic crackdown, with the most potent measure being a ban on all cryptocurrency withdrawals. This caused an increase in Japans trading volume, which grew from one percent to as high as six percent.

Cryptocurrency adoption was further amplified by currency turbulence in the country. Quantitive easing lead to extremely low interest rates, which have occasionally even become negative, meaning that it costs an individual to save money. As in China, cryptocurrencies therefore became viewed as a more stable asset than the native currency, so morepeople have chosen to invest and store their money in them.

The final piece in the cryptocurrency success puzzle for both countries is increasing institutional acceptance. In China, this takes the form of the countrys Royal Mint, which has invested resources and money into digitizing the yuan and promoting blockchain technology. Japan, meanwhile, began accepting payments in stores using cryptocurrencies earlier this year, and its three largest banks MUFJ, Mizuho, and SMBC have all backed the countrys largest Bitcoin exchange, bitFlyer.

The enthusiasm with which China and Japan have embraced cryptocurrency systems has contributed totheir worldwide success. Virtual currencies have become more popular and valuable than the vast majority of people could have anticipated upontheir inception around a decade ago. The value of a single bitcoin has risen from roughly $0.00075 to $2,500, and the market cap for all cryptocurrencies has exceed $100 billion.

The success of cryptocurrencies is also reflected in their increasing adoption by formal institutions. Wall Street is making moves to start using cryptocurrency systems by next year, a Swiss town called Zug has begun to accept payments in bitcoins, and the Gemini Trust in New York has been licensed to trade ether.

However, some worrying news concerning cryptocurrencies has emerged as well. Recently, in spite of claims that the systems are highly secure, hacks have lead to personal information being leakedand exchanges have been robbed, one to the tune of$79 million.

In addition, while cryptocurrencies may be more stable assets than the native currency in Japan and China, they are not absolutely stable. In fact, they are currently far from it, and though prices continue to rise, rapid drops are not uncommon, and public opinion can have a major impact on value.

Mark Cuban illustrated the issue perfectly when he took to Twitter to assert that Bitcoin wasnt a currency, its valuation dropped rapidly. Even more recently, Ethereum lost $4 billion worth of market value when a bogus story that its founder, Vitalik Buterin, had died in a car crash was published on 4chan.

Cryptocurrencies are clearly on the rise, and due to their successes, they can no longer be dismissed as a niche monetary system. The pertinent question is will this rise will lead to the worldwide adoption of an entirely new currency and finance system?

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China and Japan Are Largely Responsible for the Current Success of Cryptocurrency - Futurism

A Princeton University researcher has receivedmore than $400,000 in federal funding to study mechanism incentivesand their applications to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

The study project, "Duality-based tools for simple vs. optimal mechanism design and applications to cryptocurrency", is being led by Seth Weinberg, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton. The grant, worth $450,000, was awarded on 28th June by the National Science Foundation. The project is set to begin in September and will last until August 31, 2020, according to the NSF.

As theorganization's website explains:

"A secondary focus of this project is to apply these theoretical foundations to resolve cryptocurrency incentive issues arising within Bitcoin, an emerging cryptocurrency. While bitcoin has remained largely immune to traditional security breaches, numerous incentive issues have been discovered which could undermine its future security if not properly addressed."

Though cryptocurrencies constitute only part of the research study its primary focus is the design of algorithmic mechanisms and the theoretical incentives at play its the latest instance of a projectthat involves the tech receiving federal backing.

In mid-2015, the NSF awarded $3m to theInitiative for Cryptocurrency and Contracts (IC3), a research effort involving academics from Cornell, the University of Maryland and the University of California Berkeley. The NSF has also moved to back cybersecurity-related research that involves blockchain.

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National Science Foundation Awards $450k for Cryptocurrency Incentive Study - CoinDesk

In the first nine minutes of its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) New York-based Starta Accelerator raised more than $1.6 million. This is just one of many successful projects that recently secured investment in the cryptocurrency world. What is the Russian ICO craze all about and why is it proliferating?

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This blockchain investment mechanism is rapidly becoming very popular among Russian entrepreneurs. Source: Jens Kalaene/Global Look Press

Facing a shortage of venture capital at home and coming up against wary international investors intimidated by U.S. and EU sanctions, more Russian tech projects are tapping into cryptocurrency markets. In the first half of 2017, a growing number of Russian startups successfully completed an ICO, raising millions of dollars in Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies from backers across the globe.

This blockchain investment mechanism is rapidly becoming very popular among Russian entrepreneurs seeking to raise capital. By the time Starta Accelerator had closed its ICO on July 4, the company had raised a total of about $5 million for 21 startups from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus; each of which is already incorporated and working in the U.S.

One of the most successful recent ICOs in the Russian startup sector was Supercomputer Organized by Network Mining (SONM), which raised $42 million from 8,744 backers in just four days.

The project is described as Airbnb for computers, and SONMs secure and cost-effective fog supercomputer is designed for general-purpose computing, from mobile app hosting to DNA analysis. The project will revolutionize the computing market, claimed Sergey Ponomarev, the companys CEO.

SONM is a blockchain-powered project, but more startups are coming from the real economy. In mid June, ZrCoin, an innovative factory that recycles metallurgical waste, raised more than $7 million from almost 4,000 backers on Waves, a blockchain-based cryptocurrency platform. We raised twice as much funding as planned, commented ZrCoins co-founder, Andrey Nokonorov.

The new factory will consist of two production lines in Siberia transforming industrial waste into synthetic zirconium with a total capacity of 800 tons. Each ZrCoin token is backed with one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of zirconium dioxide.

ICO as a means for Russian tech to raise capital has attracted the attention of the countrys politicians. Boris Titov, the business ombudsman and billionaire, is creating a new incubator for entrepreneurs hosted on the blockchain platform, Waves. The project was founded in 2016 by Russian entrepreneur Sasha Ivanov and is now one of the most popular ICO platforms.

Sasha Ivanov. / WAVES

In June, Titov signed an agreement with Sasha Ivanov to create an ICO Incubator called People of Growth, whose purpose is to help companies in different sectors of the real economy obtain ICO funding.

Russia is one of the most advanced countries in blockchain technology, and thats why Russian founders are behind many ICOs in the world, said Ivanov. The interest in ICO and cryptocurrency is growing rapidly both in Russia and around the world.

According to Ivanov, Bitcoin was legalized in Japan this spring, and the cryptocurrency community is hoping to see a similar process in other countries. Entrepreneurs are also inspired by the success of previous ICOs and the amounts raised, although the lack of venture capital is one of the main reasons this is happening.

About six months ago Titov launched his own cryptocurrency, Upcoin, to promote his political movement, the Party of Growth. The coins were integrated into the party loyalty program to reward supporters with a number of benefits, such as discounts for education.

Titov is authorized by President Vladimir Putin to protect the rights of entrepreneurs in Russia. In 2017, he attended Donald Trumps inauguration in Washington D.C.

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Russia's tech world embraces cryptocurrency markets - Russia Beyond the Headlines