Shiba Inu (CRYPTO:SHIB) is the latest cryptocurrency to go viral, skyrocketing over 77,000,000% in the past year. At that pace, you would be a millionaire today if you had invested just $1.30 in Shiba Inu last November. Unfortunately, a repeat performance is highly unlikely, so if you want to invest in cryptocurrency, the best course of action is to pick one with real potential.

For instance, Solana (CRYPTO:SOL) was built with a purpose, and it offers far greater functionality than Shiba Inu. Here's what you should know.

Image source: Getty Images.

Solana was created by Anatoly Yakovenko, a former lead developer of operating systems for the chipmaker Qualcomm. Drawing on that engineering expertise, Yakovenko designed Solana as a developer platform for fast, scalable applications.

Specifically, Solana is a programmable blockchain, meaning it supports smart contracts. That's a fancy term for self-executing computer programs that allow transactions to take place without third-party oversight. To that end, smart contracts form the core of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, tools that allow consumers to lend, borrow, or trade cryptocurrency without going through a bank. And by eliminating the intermediary, DeFi applications promise to cut costs and improve access to financial services.

Currently, the value of Solana that is locked in DeFi applications sits at $14.2 billion, making it the third largest DeFi ecosystem behind Ethereum and Binance. However, Solana has an edge that could eventually propel it to the top of the list. Specifically, it's currently the best performing blockchain in the world, offering throughput of 50,000 transactions per second (TPS) and near-instant finalization times.To put that in perspective, Ethereum currently handles just 30 TPS, and it takes five minutesfor those transactions to be finalized (i.e. permanently incorporated into the blockchain).

More importantly, even if Solana never surpasses Ethereum, its position as the third largest DeFi ecosystem is still an advantage. DeFi services aren't free. Users must pay transaction fees in the form of cryptocurrency to access those services. So if Solana's DeFi ecosystem continues to grow, Solana's price should continue to climb. That's why this cryptocurrency looks like a smart long-term investment.

In August 2020, Shiba Inu made its debut, featuring the canine mascot popularized by Dogecoin. That was no accident. The project's mysterious creator, known as Ryoshi, has promoted the cryptocurrency as the "Dogecoin killer," highlighting its greater publicity and (more importantly) its greater utility. And that's true, in theory.

Shiba Inu is an ERC-20 token, a smart contract built on the Ethereum blockchain. That means it's compatible with the entire Ethereum ecosystem, including a robust array of DeFi applications. However, that compatibility remains theoretical. At this point, Shiba Inu has not been widely integrated into DeFi products, and its utility is still quite limited.

More importantly, Shiba Inu is hardly unique. Hundreds of other ERC-20 tokens exist, and many have far greater functionality. For instance, Tether is designed to track the U.S. dollar, allowing investors to keep money in the cryptocurrency markets while avoiding volatility. And Chainlink is designed to feed real-world data to smart contracts on the blockchain, making it possible to tokenize physical assets (e.g. artwork, real estate).

In short, Shiba Inu's soaring price has been driven by popularity and nothing else. And popularity alone is not a good investment thesis, as it can evaporate overnight. That doesn't mean Shiba Inu's price won't go up from here. It could double tomorrow. But over the long term, Solana looks like the better investment.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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Twitter Inc. established a cryptocurrency team by the name of Twitter Crypto with the incentive of transitioning toward the adoption of cryptocurrencies as a regular means of trade and payment just like cash. Software engineer Ted Rynearson was hired to lead this team and push forward strategies that help integrate blockchain technology into the companys platform.

Although the team is reluctant to provide intricate details and information on their plan on pursuing cryptocurrency, they gave implications of their interest in digital currencies. The company sees an opportunity to help creators participate in the promise of an evolving, decentralized internet directly on Twitter, a spokeswoman for Twitter explained.

Twitter adopted the use of cryptocurrencies on its platforms in contemporary ways by allowing users to receive tips with Bitcoin. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has beena long-time fan of Bitcoin,and his interest in cryptocurrencies is even more evident when examining the trades he has made. Dorsey sold his first tweet as a nonfungible token for about $2.9 million earlier, which further demonstrated his interest in incorporating cryptocurrencies into his company as it is slowly but surely integrated into the economy and among average peoples methods of trade.

Blockchain and crypto are unlocking new possibilities that align with our big product bets, including creator monetization and new forms of self-expression, another Twitter spokesperson told Fox Business. This suggests that the company has new ideas as to how it can expand the platforms reach and develop additional strategies to further engage users.

A definite reason why cryptocurrencies are sparking interest among investors and companies is the competitive numbers cryptocurrencies are trading at. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency,recently traded at an all-time high of $68,990.90 per each individual coin. Additionally, the cryptocurrency market is now worth more than $3 trillion, demonstrating the powerful influence of these digital assets. This is more evident when reviewing past performance, as the market has already quadrupled from its 2020 year-end value.

Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are examples of meme coins that are also attracting consumer attention. Ethereum and Solana are leading tokens that trail behind Bitcoin, which currently has the greatest influence and value.

The value of these coins, however, is heavily swayed by public opinion. Leading business figures such as Elon Musk are able to sway the price of cryptocurrencies through a single tweet. Musk, who has expressed his reluctance to invest in Bitcoin due to ethical and monetary issues regarding the mining of the coin back in May, which caused the price of Bitcoin to drop to its lowest level since February.

The integration of digital currencies into the American economy as a means of trade is starting to take hold. The Twitter Crypto group is aresult of the further use of cryptocurrencies in everyday lives. Each development that comes fromRinearson and his teams work is something readers should continue to follow.

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The ongoing technological revolution has meant that digital money one manifestation of which are cryptocurrencies is upon us. The microeconomic trade-offs are well-known and have been argued. Digital currencies have the potential to spur financial innovation, increase efficiencies through faster and cheaper payments and augment financial inclusion. Conversely, concerns around safety (cyber attacks and fraud), financial integrity (money laundering and evasion of capital controls) and energy usage (outsized energy needs to mine cryptos) are also well-documented. Further, to the extent that privately-issued cryptos currently serve largely as speculative assets, the need for updating consumer protection and regulatory frameworks is also clear.

But even as the micro debate rages, there is much less appreciation of the macro consequences of privately-issued cryptocurrencies. What happens if, over time, cryptos evolve from speculative assets to become viable mediums of exchange? What would this imply for the conduct of monetary, fiscal and exchange rate policies? This piece attempts to put the macro pieces together.

For starters, how would monetary policy be impacted if a private digital currency was competing with fiat currencies? Think of this as dollarisation by another name, but with a crucial difference as enumerated below. Latin America is replete with economies becoming dollarised. As domestic nationals lost faith in their own currency as a store of value, they shifted into and began transacting in US dollars for the security and stability it accorded. What this did was to render domestic monetary policy ineffective, because domestic central banks cannot set interest rates and inject liquidity in a foreign currency. The greater the substitution into US dollars, the lower the potency of monetary policy. In effect, these economies were importing the monetary policy of the US Fed.

Widespread adoption of privately issued digital currencies as a medium of exchange will have much the same impact. The larger the monetary base they cannibalise, the less potent will be domestic monetary policy in responding to business cycle needs and external shocks.

But what are the prospects for widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies as a medium of exchange? The intellectual case for Bitcoin stemmed from the fear of debasement of fiat currencies through an unprecedented expansion of G3 central bank balance sheets after the global financial crisis. Its founders, therefore, preempted fears of debasement by fixing Bitcoins aggregate supply, in the hope it would evolve into a viable alternative medium of exchange. But precisely because aggregate supply is inelastic, demand shocks result in outsized price volatility. This, in turn, renders Bitcoin an inappropriate medium of exchange. Instead, its morphed into a speculative asset.

To get around this problem, Stablecoins have been introduced, whose value is pegged to a fiat currency by maintaining equivalent reserves (think of a currency board exchange rate regime). By providing much greater price stability, these Stablecoins hope to serve as viable mediums of exchange, and have proliferated rapidly in recent years. Does this pose a grave risk to monetary policy? Much will depend on the degree of currency substitution.

As the IMF points out, if cryptos are only used for niche purposes narrow cross-country transfers and remittances which are then quickly converted back into local fiat currencies, the implications for monetary policy will be contained.

Instead, what central bankers and policymakers fear is a more existential challenge to the global monetary system. In a 2019 paper, Brunnermeir, James and Landau raise the prospect of mega tech companies running global e-commerce or social networking platforms issuing their own digital currencies to their global customer base that serves both as a unit of account and a medium of exchange on their platforms. Given the self-reinforcing network externalities involved, adoption would be rapid as digital currencies are bundled with other data and services. We would then have the prospect of digital currencies being transacted on large scales actively competing with fiat currencies.

Brunnermeir et al. posit global economic activity could eventually be re-organised into digital currency areas (DCAs) that run across national boundaries, characterised by their own digital currency and unit of account issued by the network owner, with the size of these DCAs dwarfing national economies.

How would this threaten monetary policy? If these privately issued Global Stablecoins are tied to a fiat currency, the owners of these networks still would not necessarily run independent monetary policy (think currency board again). But if these currencies gain credibility and acceptance over time, there will be every incentive for network owners to break free from fiat currencies pegs to generate monetary discretion.

Once that happens, all bets are off with private network owners effectively running independent monetary policy. From the perspective of a local economy, think of this as dollarisation except that monetary policy is being ceded not to the Fed, but as the IMF warns to a profit-maximising network owner, who may not have any incentive to use monetary policy to smooth shocks or issue emergency liquidity when needed. The fate of economies to respond to shocks, at least in part, would be in the hands of private firms. This would present an existential threat to monetary policy as we know it.

What about fiscal policy? The implications are more straightforward. The greater the substitution into digital currencies the more the loss of seigniorage revenues to governments from the monopoly issuance of fiat currency. Separately, fiscal revenues can also be adversely impacted by the increased tax evasion opportunities that crypto-currencies can facilitate.

To the extent that increased substitution into cryptos reduces the efficacy of monetary policy, the onus on fiscal policy to respond to economic shocks will commensurately rise. This could create challenges in a post-Covid world. The pandemic has left a legacy of elevated public debt around the world. Fiscal policy, especially in emerging markets, will have the least space to act when it is most needed.

Finally, what are the implications for the Rupee? To the extent that cryptos are mined abroad, demand for them whether for transactions or speculative purposes will be akin to capital outflows. In turn, if cryptos begin to get mined onshore, they will induce capital inflows. These dynamics will increase capital account volatility and, to the extent that these cross-border flows circumvent capital flow measures, they de facto increase capital account convertibility, accentuating the policy trilemma that emerging markets confront.

This will also directly impact the currency market. As the 2021 Global Financial Stability Report underscores, there must exist a triangular arbitrage between, say, the local Rupee-Bitcoin market, the Dollar-Bitcoin markets and the Rupee-Dollar market. Consequently, changes in the Rupee-Bitcoin markets will inevitably spill over into the Rupee-Dollar markets for markets to clear.

All told, the macro implications of widespread crypto adoption are complex and interlinked. For now, there is justifiable angst about growing household attraction for cryptos as speculative assets, with its attendant regulatory implications. But the true macro challenge will emerge and compound if and when unbacked private digital currencies are seen as viable mediums of exchange. Thats what policy must anticipate and prepare for.

This column first appeared in the print edition on November 19, 2021 under the title Brace up for cryptocurrency.The writer is Chief India Economist at J.P. Morgan. Views are personal

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The monetary, fiscal challenges of cryptocurrency - The Indian Express

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Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.

The iconic Staples Center, home to the Los Angeles Lakers and their cousin the Clippers, will soon be known as the Crypto.com Arena in a deal reportedly worth $700 million.

Four years ago, I wrote a passionate hot take, arguing that the word crypto should not be used to refer to cryptocurrency, but to refer to cryptography, as its been the case in computer science and cybersecurity for more than 20 years.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary is not relenting yet. But for the rest of us, its time to raise a white flag and admit we lost this war. Perhaps, I would even go as far as saying this war was not worth fighting. As Metallica sang many years ago: For a hill, men would kill, why? They do not know.

Crypto is now widely used to refer to cryptocurrency in news media, as well as within the cryptocurrency, blockchain, and decentralized financeor DeFiindustry. Most importantly, everyday, non techie people also use and understand crypto to mean cryptocurrency. Even this very website, which published my defense of crypto meaning cryptography, has started to use the term to refer to cryptocurrency.

And its OK.

I come from a culture where language is prescriptive. I grew up in Spain, where there is an official government-run body, the Real Academia Espaola, whose sole mission is to preserve the correct use of the Spanish language. As part of its mission, the academy establishes and sanctions the supposedly correct meaning of words.

I now see that as the wrong approach. Languages are living things shaped by the people who use them. This approach, antithetical to the prescriptivism discussed earlier, is known as descriptivism.

This is the school of thought that accepts the fact that people now use crypto to mean cryptocurrency. This is now the widespread, common use of the word, and, again, thats OK.

Not everyone is giving up though. Amie Stepanovich, the executive director of the University of Colorados Silicon Flatirons center, made t-shirts that say Crypto. It Means Cryptography.

The t-shirt made by Amie Stepanovich.

I still dont think Ill ever concede that crypto should be used as shorthand for anything but cryptography or its close relatives. In fact, in the term cryptocurrency, its use as a prefix indicates exactly that, Stepanovich told Motherboard in an online chat. Using it instead as a shorthand for a word its a prefix for creates unnecessary ambiguity in language at a time when there are still major global fights about the use of cryptography unencumbered. I, for one, dont plan to ever use crypto as a short for blockchain-based currency and wont recognize its use by others.

Stepanovichs shirt is still very popular among cybersecurity experts, as this thread of people posing with it shows. Ironically, one of the people posing with a Crypto. It Means Cryptography hoodie is none other than computer science veteran Matt Blaze, the former owner of the very Crypto.com URL that took over the Staples Center.

For 25 years, until 2018, Crypto.com was Blazes personal website. After receiving a series of surely copious and tempting offers, Blaze decided to sell it to a company that has the mission to accelerate the worlds transition to cryptocurrency.

I don't think conflating cryptography and digital currency will serve either field well in the long run, particularly as to how they're perceived by the public and policymakers, Blaze wrote at the time. (Blaze declined to comment for this piece and pointed to his 2018 blog post.) Still, there's no doubt that, at this moment in time, the two have become hopelessly intermixed, at least in the minds of the digital money people. That doesn't mean this won't end badly, but it's unarguably where we are right now.

The jury is still out on whether this will end badly, but whats clear is that for most people, crypto means cryptocurrency these days.

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'Crypto' Means Cryptocurrency. We Lost the War, and It's OK - VICE

Amid growing cryptocurrency euphoria in India, there have been some fast-paced developments on the way forward for digital currencies with RBI governor Shaktikanta Das kicking it off by sounding caution on cryptos.

Cryptocurrencies are a very serious concern from a macro economic and financial stability point of view, Das said a few days ago, while reiterating his stand once again recently, saying, "There are "far deeper issues" involved in virtual currencies that could pose a threat to Indias economic and financial stability."

On the other hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a high level comprehensive meeting recently, where he expressed concerns about unregulated crypto markets becoming avenues for money laundering and terror financing.

There was also consensus, during the PM's meet on how to stop advertisements that over-promise and mislead the young investors.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee for Finance has met various stakeholders and experts, a first for the panel on cryptocurrency and related issues. The panel stressed on regulation of cryptos but not completely shutting the door on them.

The members of the Parliamentary panel are said to have wished for govt officials to appear before it and address their concerns. There was a consensus that a regulatory mechanism should be put in place to regulate cryptocurrency. Industry associations and stakeholders were not clear as to who should be the regulator

The Members of Parliament (MPs) have expressed concerns over security of investors money.

Amid all these developments, there are reports that the government may bring cryptocurrency Bill in the Winter Session of Parliament. The proposed bill would focus on investor protection as crypto currencies come under a complex asset class category.

In the meanwhile, let's look at what India may allow and may not allow when it comes to cryptos.

For starters, India has had a hot-and-cold relationship with digital currencies in the past few years. In 2018, it effectively banned crypto transactions after a string of frauds following Modis sudden decision to eliminate 80% of the nations currencies, but the Supreme Court struck down the restriction in March 2020.

After Supreme Court overturned the RBIs order, which effectively lifted the ban on cryptocurrency trading in India, the craze in the country has grown at a furious rate.

Following this in February 5, 2021, the central bank had instituted an internal panel to suggest a model of central bank's digital currency.

An inter-ministerial panel on cryptocurrency under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Economic Affairs) had recommended that all currencies except those issued by the state should be banned.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has repeatedly reiterated its strong views against cryptocurrencies saying they pose serious threats to the macroeconomic and financial stability of the country and also doubted the number of investors trading on them as well their claimed market value.

Currently, there are no particular regulations or any ban on use of crypto currencies in the country. The union government has not yet enacted a law on cryptos, but is in consultation with industry experts, comments from various officials and ministers.

After several rounds of caution, the government might largely want to set some limits for cryptos in India in the larger public interest. However, from the recent PM meeting, the overall view within government is that steps taken would be proactive, "progressive and forward-looking" as cryptos represented an evolving technology.

The crypto community has made several representations to Indian authorities asking to be classified as an asset rather than as a currency, in order to gain acceptance and avoid a ban.

A possibility that is being explored in the government is that cryptocurrencies may be barred for the use of transactions or making payments, but allow them to be held as assets like gold, shares or bonds, an Economic Times report said.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) could be designated as the regulator, though that has not been finalised, according to the same report.

India's digital currency market was worth $6.6 billion in May 2021, compared with $923 million in April 2020, according to blockchain data platform Chainalysis.

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Cryptocurrency regulation: What India may allow and may not - Livemint

Massive price swings in cryptocurrencies is on the rise with Ethereum Meta being the latest token to see a jaw-dropping surge within a matter of hours.

The digital asset has surged by over 2,13,000% to a high of $0.0001194 from $0.00000005604, data from Coinmarketmap showed. However, currently, the crypto is trading at $0.00006226 at 16:40 pm (IST).

Little-known cryptocurrencies surging and falling thousands of percentage points within a matter of hours is becoming a latest trend these days. This also indicates the risks and volatility in crpto-based trading.

With huge price swings in little-known cryptocurrencies becoming the norm, experts raised concerns and advised investors should be watchful which picking such tokens.

Recently, Kokoswap has surged from $0.01005 to $7.22 in just 24 hours, surging by a massive 71,000%. HUSKYX, again a crypto which is little-known to regular investors has seen a rally of over 45,000% in 24 hours, jumping from a low of $0.000000004089 to $0.000001878.

Squid Games-based SQUID token has also seen a similar rally a few days back.

Ethereum Meta, which boasts of a market capitalisation of mere $3.1 million, addresses a major weakness in Ethereum: the lack of privacy. The token also enables smart contracts where no friend, family, nor foe can see what you bought or for how much.

With the new Ethereum Meta's Smart Contracts, this token allows direct anonymous payments between parties.

Ethereum Meta transactions exist alongside normal (nonanonymous) transactions. Each user can convert nonanonymous coins (Ethers) into anonymous coins, which is basically Ethereum Meta.

Users can then send Ethereum Meta to other users, and split or merge Ethereum Meta they own in any way that preserves the total value. Users can also convert Ethereum Meta back into normal Ether, obfuscating any possible traceability.

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A top House Republican is seeking to regulate cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, by setting clear jurisdictions for how the government oversees the industry a new financial frontier.

We have an opportunity and a responsibility to be leaders in the digital assets space to protect consumers, foster innovation, and reduce regulatory burdens, said House Agriculture Committee ranking member Glenn GT Thompson (R-Pa.), who will release a discussion draft text Tuesday. His panel oversees commodity markets.

The move is an opening bid to come to a bipartisan consensus on how to regulate a new and evolving form of currency. GOP staffers who helped craft the proposal said Thompson hopes it will spark discussions with Democratic colleagues.

Cryptocurrency, digital currency that emerged in the 21st century, functions through investments. Thats somewhat similar to the traditional stock market, as described by the Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. Lawmakers, whose views on cryptocurrency range from skepticism to idealism, are trying to bring clarity to a burgeoning marketplace, which currently functions with vague rules.

Senators Seek Crypto Reporting Fix as Biden Signs Infrastructure Bill

More than one out of 10 Americans bought or traded cryptocurrencies from June 2020 to June 2021, a survey by NORC, a research organization at the University of Chicago, found.

Cryptocurrency uses blockchain, a type of technology that acts as a ledger to track transactions, IBM Corp. reports. Blockchain is decentralized, so it doesnt rely on one particular system, but a network. Decentralization makes data recovery easier and doesnt require trust among network members, as each one has access to the exact same record of information, Blockchain Council argues.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

A Bitcoin ATM stands in a 7-Eleven store in Los Angeles as the cryptocurrencys price soared on Nov. 10, 2021.

Bitcoin was the first decentralized cryptocurrency, created following the Great Recession of 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto. The inventors name is thought to be a pseudonym. Other popular cryptocurrencies include Ethereum, Binance Coin, and Solana.

Both the House and Senate agriculture panels oversee the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The independent federal agency regulates commodity futures and markets for swaps, agreements between two parties to exchange cash flows in the future based on an underlying price or instrument.

Thompson said he hopes to involve this group of lawmakers in monitoring cryptocurrency. His draft text is meant to solicit feedback from stakeholders, regulators, and lawmakers to ensure we advance the best possible framework as American innovators build the next generation of digital infrastructure, he said in a statement.

Because the bill has yet to be formally introduced, it lacks cosponsors.

Thompsons measure would plug rifts between the CFTC and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by drawing clear jurisdictions over how the government oversees cryptocurrency. It would extend the CFTCs existing framework to digital commodities, letting the agency register and regulate them as a new type of entity.

Federal requirements would then fall on a registered Digital Commodity Exchange. Conditions would involve monitoring trading activity, barring abusive trading practices, public reporting of trading information, and more.

While registration would be voluntary, the proposal would offer incentives, including working with a single regulator and eligibility to provide leveraged trading.

The SECs role in the process is still to be determined, a Republican policy staffer said. But the commission would continue its responsibility of monitoring entities that raise money in this case to develop a digital commodity project, ensuring that they abide by the relevant securities laws.

The typical cryptocurrency investor is under age 40 and lacks a college degree, the NORC survey reports. Those interested in cryptocurrency come from diverse backgrounds, as 44% of traders dont identify as White and 41% are women.

However, questions remain from the general public about how cryptocurrency works. The top reason that NORC survey respondents didnt put money toward cryptocurrency is because they reported not understanding it enough.

Cryptocurrencies may have staying power as an investment option, but our hunch is that they will continue to lag behind more traditional investment opportunities for the foreseeable future, said Mark Lush, a manager in the Economics, Justice, and Society department at NORC, in a press release for the survey.

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk is among the public personalities who are outspoken about experimenting in crypto. The billionaire warns to use caution.

Dont bet the farm on crypto! he tweeted on Oct. 24. True value is building products & providing services to your fellow human beings, not money in any form.

To contact the reporter on this story: Megan U. Boyanton in Washington at mboyanton@bgov.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fawn Johnson at fjohnson@bloombergindustry.com; Robin Meszoly at rmeszoly@bgov.com

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Regulations for Bitcoin, Other Cryptocurrency Sought in Congress | Bloomberg Government - Bloomberg Government

Totten is an opinion editor and producer at The San Diego Union-Tribune. She lives in North Park.

In 2013, I started a new job as a reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

My beloved alt-weekly, CityLife, had just folded and the editor of the R-J was kind enough to let me interview for a new beat: transportation or technology.

The choice was obvious. Las Vegas was experiencing a tech boom at the time. The late Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh had descended on downtown with a plan to buy real estate, seed startups and build community. Starry-eyed aspiring Zuckerbergs had flocked to the citys once-decrepit core, bringing with them online services you never knew you needed and insatiable appetites for networking and booze.

Every night there was a meetup of some kind or another, which is where I found my first story.

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At the time, Bitcoin was about 4 years old. People had heard of it, but few were familiar. It was an unregulated so-called cryptocurrency, not affiliated with any country, and from what most people knew from the FBI crackdown on Silk Road, it was a covert way to buy drugs or hire hit men on the internet.

But it was becoming more than that, flirting with legitimacy as the Winklevoss twins the literal tech bros who claimed Facebook was their idea had filed to create a company that would trade Bitcoin like stocks.

I went looking for a local enthusiast to explain this world to me, and I found Julian Tosh. Tosh had gotten interested in crypto to teach his daughters about investing, and ran a website that listed brick-and-mortar businesses that took Bitcoin. We met at a kabob place across from the airport, where he helped me set up a Coinbase wallet and traded me $10 cash for a fraction of a coin. Although a few IRL businesses in town accepted it you could get your car fixed, or your teeth cleaned, or buy a chicken shawarma gyro, like I did that day, for the equivalent of $7 it felt more gimmicky than anything. It could be used to buy things, but its real value was the ability to send money instantly, to anyone anywhere in the world, without exchanging currency or paying bank fees or letting a government tell you how to do it.

But it was also sketchy, or at least a lot less user friendly, at that time. You couldnt just cash out your Bitcoin in your bank account you had to find a person to sell it to, either in person, like I did with Tosh, or to a stranger online you hoped would carry out their end of the deal.

The latter is what I did in 2017, when Bitcoin rose from about $1,000 per coin to over $20,000 in a year. It was all over the news, this still-esoteric new money that was turning working-class Americans into one-percenters overnight. There was just one problem: I had forgotten my password.

The thing about cryptos unregulated nature, at least back then, is that it was tricky. If you forgot the password to your wallet, there were no reset buttons or customer service reps who could take your social security number or ask for your mothers maiden name to verify your identity. The whole point was to leave your particulars out of the equation. So I tried off and on for weeks, and then somehow I finally cracked it.

The change I had forgotten in my account four years ago was worth almost $400. Despite Bitcoins spectacular ascent, I still thought of it as a fluke, a passing trend. So I sold it to a friend of a friend, who sent me the cash value on Venmo.

Ecstatic to collect my greatest investment to date, I dashed to Facebook to tell my old editor. I had just made over $300 from $3!

Great deal, he replied. If you dont stop to ponder how much that sandwich cost you.

Slightly deflated, I still took pleasure in my unlikely come up.

Bitcoin fell shortly thereafter, validating my suspicions, and hovered around $10,000 per coin for two years. Then, last year during the pandemic, it neared $20,000 again before soaring to an all-time high of $68,521 just two weeks ago. I still lament how much that sandwich cost me, and how my $3 change would now be worth thousands. I wish I had realized it wasnt a fluke.

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Opinion: I wish I had realized cryptocurrency wasnt a fluke - The San Diego Union-Tribune

For any investors interested in the proof-of-work space right now, crypto-enthusiast Chris MacDonald discusses with The Motley Fool's Eric Bleeker why DigiByte (CRYPTO:DGB) may be worth a look on this episode of "The Crypto Show" from Backstage Pass, recorded on Nov. 10.

Eric Bleeker:DigiByte, which at a market cap of $870 million, pretty small in this space. It's the 120th largest crypto. This isn't something that, I think, most people watching today are going to be familiar with cryptocurrency that had its time in the sun in 2017 and has kind of roared back recently.

What's interesting about DigiByte, and what problem is it trying to solve?

Chris MacDonald: Yeah, I think it's interesting if you look at the chart there and see it's kind of fallen off the wagon a little bit, or maybe investors are a little bit less interested in it right now.

I think we spend most of our time, or I spend most of my time, looking into a lot of the DeFi plays and proof-of-stake plays because I think that there's a lot of compelling reasons to look at that and where the crypto world is headed.

Digibyte is interesting in that it's a proof-of-work platform network. It's similar to Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) in that regard, but it's an interesting one to look at when you compare it to Bitcoin or other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies in that it's a unique, three-layer cryptocurrency. Its focus is on security.

Like other networks, there's decentralized applications that can be built on top of it. But what DigiByte does differently is their algorithm is a multi-step process where it secures the platform. There's five different algorithms used to secure Digibyte's network, and what that means is it creates an incredibly secure, decentralized blockchain where the experts have said it's nearly impossible to do a 51 percent attack on something like Digibyte. Whereas, with Ethereum Classic (CRYPTO:ETC) we've seen what various attacks can do for crippling the price of a given token.

For a proof-of-work option, it's definitely an interesting token to consider. It's very community-based, so it wasn't funded by an initial coin offering. It doesn't have a parent company or CEO, unlike a lot of other projects so it's essentially a truly decentralized network. These community-driven roots speak to the transparency of this platform, which is very important because in the crypto world, the true intentions of the creator of a given cryptocurrency can be masked pretty easily. We saw what happened with the Squid Game rug pull, that Squid Game token, and how dangerous certain cryptocurrencies can be.

DigiByte's focus on security and it is also extremely fast compared to Bitcoin or Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) its a much faster option as well. There are reasons that investors might want to look at the smaller cap token. Started looking at tokens that are a little bit lower down the list, maybe ones that have been beaten down a little bit. Where there might be value, so this is definitely an interesting one to look at from maybe a value perspective right now.

Bleeker: It should be noted, the project that we're having Chris work on are essentially going through and building out essentially the key investing factors to watch across an incredibly wide berth of the crypto space. A lot of people go deep into one particular thing.

What's great about having Chris as a resource is, he is going deeper into crypto than just about anyone you can imagine. I would say with some of your initial research completed into Digibyte, we often think of this as a funnel. We've got this incredibly wide funnel that we're beginning with and we narrow it down and only the best ones get added to something like Digital Explorers.

Where would you put Digibyte on a scale of one to 10 in terms of your interest?

MacDonald: I think right now it's more on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of just being a token that I'm interested in. I was looking more into the proof-of-work space and other options just to get a little bit away from the proof-of-stake space, which is not to say that I don't think that that's a super intriguing place to be. I do, I just wanted to see -- let's compare Bitcoin and Ethereum in its current state.

I know Ethereum's moving toward proof-of-stake, but compare Bitcoin and Ethereum with some other options, and Digibyte was one that popped up for its security profile and I think it's just one that caught my eye.

You can see on the chart how beaten down it is. It might be an interesting one to take a look at it. It was a lot higher previously in terms of market cap.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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Should Investors Be Watching This Comeback Cryptocurrency? - Motley Fool

Tiger King became a global phenomenon at the start of the pandemic, leading to thousands of podcasts and articles (as well as two rival dramas based on the show, only one of which is still in development as of 2021).

Though Joe Exotic has been unable to watch the show from prison and celebrate his fame, he has found a way of profiting from his global exposure.

In May, he launched his own cryptocurrency, Tiger King Coin, the price of which has been going up and down following the release of Tiger King Season 2.

Tiger King Coin (which trades under the symbol $TKING) was launched by the official Joe Exotic Twitter page in May with the message: "My Official Tiger King coins will help me fix children's smiles/faces, fight justice and prison reform, and save animals in the wild."

On its website, the creators of Tiger King Coin describe their project with some typical crypto-jargon: "TKING forged a new day in crypto where media profile combines with use case. The mystique of the Tiger lent to the coin by Joe Exotic's endorsement attracted a resource rich community. Their innovations will reach a wider audience than the crypto-sphere thanks to the public interest in Joe."

As that makes (somewhat) clear, the currency wasn't founded by Joe himself. He should be considered as a kind of celebrity endorser for it though unlike fellow celebrity crypto endorsers like Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather, the branding of Tiger King Coin relies much more heavily on Joe's name and story.

Per the Tiger King Coin website, Joe himself owns 1 percent of the total amount of the cryptocurrency available. At the time of writing, the total value of all the Tiger King Coin available was about $75 million, according to CoinMarketCap.com.

This means that Joe has about $750,000 of Tiger King Coin.

Joe Exotic's rival (and the woman he is in prison for attempting to murder), Carole Baskin, also released a cryptocurrency around the same time, $CAT, described in a press release as "not a currency for investment, but rather is a purr-ency of our fans to show their love for the cats."

As with any cryptocurrency, trading is hugely volatile.

What we can say, however, is that on the release day of Tiger King 2, the currency rose in price, only to then fall again. Per CoinGecko, the value of the currency hit its daily peak at about 7 a.m., an hour before the new season came out. At that point, one Tiger King Coin was worth $0.00022546 (meaning you would need to have about 4,450 of them to have a dollar's worth).

Surprisingly, since the show has come out, and interest in Joe Exotic has been renewed, the currency has dipped in price. Over the last 24 hours, the value of the currency has halved.

This is in comparison to the value of $CAT, which is currently up 12 percent after the release of the documentary. Each $CAT coin is far more valuable that $TKING too at the time of writing it was trading at around 50 cents a coin.

Tiger King 2 is streaming now on Netflix.

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What Is Tiger King Coin? Surge (and Fall) in Cryptocurrency as Season 2 Airs on Netflix - Newsweek