Crypto Tech Decrypted - A 2021 Recap

Market research firm Mordor Intelligence published the "Bitcoin Technology Market – Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 – 2026)" in January 2021. The report shows that the bitcoin technology market will register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.3% over the forecast period.

The crypto market has been seeing explosive growth since recent years, particularly since 2021. Although faced with total crackdown in the Chinese market, nothing is able to stop the prospering crypto market. It, of course, suggests rapid development of relevant crypto techs.

This article offers a recap on the following tech themes in the past year based on Fazzaco's coverage.

Crypto Trading Continues Becoming Mobile-based

(Source: Statista)

Global internet users reached 4.66 billion, with 4.32 billion of them are mobile users, a shockingly 92.7% share, according to the statistics of Statista, January 2021. It is now a formidable trend for network platforms to become fully mobile as personal mobile device keeps booming.

More and more investors are handling transactions, whether forex or crypto, on their mobile phones. As a result, we continue to see an increasing number of platforms and exchanges to either launch or expand their own mobile end throughout the year.

It is quite worth noting that Kraken, a bitcoin exchange, launched its new mobile app in June this year, a further upgrade aimed to improve user experience and more convenient payment; then in August, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced to enable users to buy crypto with linked debit cards to Apple Pay and Google Pay and instant cashouts up to $100,000 per transaction available 24/7. In December, renowned crypto exchange Crypto.com announced its latest app update, allowing U.S-based users to buy crypto assets with their bank accounts bound up with the app.

"With the help of advancements in smartphone technology, the power of a fully-fledged desktop trading platform is now able to fit into the palm of client hands," Maciej, the Business Development Manager at Purple Trading, a forex / CFD broker, said in an exclusive interview with Fazzaco.

The Expanding Payment

Straight-forward and convenient payment is the backbone of a successful transaction under any circumstance. Before e-commerce, a merchant had to accept a payment by connecting to a dedicated interface of a certain bank. With the rise of e-commerce, however, conventional payment methods are no longer sufficient to meet the growing demand as the payment system has to deal with multiple banks as well as consequent issues. A payment gateway, is in fact the communications link between networks.

Praxis Cashier, a smart cashier solutionist, added the Match2Pay crypto payment gateway, developed by Match-Trade Technologies, in the company's platform, a highly accepted payment method in the industry.

The famous show iFX Expo was held in Dubai during this May, where B2BinPay, a bitcoin payment gateway provider, showcased its latest crypto payment solution.

In July, the payment giant Mastercard partnered Evolve Bank, Paxos Trust and Circle and announced an enhancement to its Crypto Card Program for cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges. We will talk about the crypto wallet technology shortly.

Retail merchants, who intend to take a slice of the cake, were announcing their acceptance of cryptocurrency in addition to the payment companies. First we have Tesla, who made an announcement to receive bitcoin before it turned its back against it due to "environmental concerns", we are also seeing the Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten allowing clients to buy with cryptocurrency at Japan-based merchants. In the same month, payment giant PayPal announced the launch of its "Checkout with Crypto" feature.  Users may convert cryptocurrency holdings to fiat currency at checkout safely and easily.

Crypto Wallet - How to Store Cryptocurrency Safely

In early June, Square Inc., a payment company founded and operated by Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO, mentioned that it was planning to launch a new bitcoin hardware wallet since such transactions became a profitable business for the company.

Cryptocurrency is essentially something intangible. So what on earth is a wallet for it? Let's say that the addresses of your crypto are like your personal bank account, then their private keys are like your account password. A wallet, is where you generate, store and manage your private keys. After all, you only truly possess your crypto with private keys in hand. Therefore, crypto wallet is an extremely crucial technology and service in the business.

"The exchange you used to buy your bitcoin probably attends to your security with good intent, but circumstances may reveal 'custody' actually means 'IOU'. Deciding to take custody, and security, of your Bitcoin is complicated," said Jack Dorsey in an interview.

Metaverse - Cyberpunk Becoming Real?

The term metaverse used to be limited to sci-fi fans only, first appeared in Snow Crash, a 1992 novel by Neal Stephenson. Humans are able to live in a virtual space in the form of an avatar where everything in reality can be digitally duplicated. There are similar ideas in following sci-fi films, such as the Matrix and the more recent Player Number One.

As Mark Zuckerburg announced changing Facebook to Meta a few months ago, numerous wealthy investors and tech companies entered the game. In November, both Swissquote and KuCoin Labs made statement to join the metaverse game. Meanwhile, a digital lot in Decentraland, a virtual world, was sold at a surprisingly high price, 2.43 million USD, a new virtual real estate price record.

Cryptocurrency seems matching with metaverse, since both are virtual. At present, there are seven metaverse currencies available, including Decentraland, The Sandbox, Floki Inu, Efinity Token, Terra Virtua Kolect, Epik Prime and High Street. Decentraland now has a market cap of 4.5 billion USD.

Recap on Other Crypto Techs

Other worth-noting crypto-related tech news, in addition to the above, are:

In June, CoinFlip, a US-based leading Bitcoin ATM provider, officially deployed bitcoin ATMs in Alaska.

In October, fintech firm Nium announced the world's first crypto-as-a-service (CaaS) solution, allowing financial institutions to integrate popular crypto capabilities into their financial applications.