I am a cryptocurrency enthusiast and user. I have bought, sold and hodled crypto for the past four years. The recent huge hike in price was down to a number of things but mainly hype. The hype is understandable if you cast your mind back to the first time you purchased crypto and sent it to another wallet. It was both amazing and and enlightening for me! If you are also someone who is aware of the price we pay in fee's to use money every day, the implications of crypto with its benefits, are instantly obvious. This is what caused the hype in my view. But there's still a way to go until mass adoption.
I am also very interested in Geo politics. I've watched with interest for the last couple of years the situation with Russia. There has been a concerted effort to isolate and challenge Russia's perceived interference in global affairs. In recent weeks i have heard a growing call to bancountries from the "SWIFT" financial transaction mechanism. There have been calls in recent weeks to ban Syria and Russia.
SWIFT is a transactional messaging service. Its by far the most dominant system used since the 70s. The acronym, "SWIFT", stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. It is a messaging network that financial institutions use to securely transmit information and instructions through a standardized system of codes.
Introduced in the 70s to replace a slower telex system, within three years of introduction, SWIFT membership had increased to 230 banks across five countries.
Although there are other message services like Fedwire, Ripple,(not to be confused with XRP) and CHIPS, SWIFT continues to retain its dominant position in the market. Its success is attributed to how it continually adds new message codes to transmit different financial transactions.
Obviously, losing access to SWIFT really hampers business. There are other methods of transfer as mentioned above but SWIFT is the most dominant.
Surely, there is an opening here. Crypto is well positioned to take advantage of any bans? I'm not technically minded so don't know the technology behind all the systems but i know the benefits of crypto and it's beauty, applications and potential. I know the ripple company who produced the XRP crypto (though some say it isn't), are heavily involved in the transfer of currency. Ripple technology has been used for some times by banks and financial companies such as moneygram.
Would any bans on countries and financilial institutions using the SWIFT system benefit the crypto space? Surely the less access people have to traditional methods of currency transfer then they will look for alternatives.? Cryptocurrency is that alternative.
There have been many attempts to change world currencies. There have been attempts by Arabic and African nations to issue gold backed currencies and move away from the dollar. This usually signals the death of a nations sovereignty.
Gadafi in Libya was buying gold for backing of an African currency. Hussein was planning to price Iraqi oil in Euro. President Kennedy was killed within hours of signing an order to stop the fed printing money and to take the dollar back to the backing of gold. It's a risky business!
Anyone who has used crypto knows it is the answer. As traditional currencies run their course and nations as well as citizens look for viable alternatives, cryptocurrency will be that alternative.
All we need to do is HODL...
