10 most interesting ways to use cryptocurrency

For most people, cryptocurrency is a high-risk investment for Millennials and Silicon Valley insiders. But behind the hype, the fact is lost that the majority of decentralized digital currencies, starting with Bitcoin, were created for a specific purpose, and with their help one can solve quite understandable life tasks.

Below we list some of them.

1. Cheap money transfers

The most famous advantage of cryptocurrency is the ability to quickly and inexpensively transfer money to any corner of the world. For example, recently, a transaction on almost 100 million dollars went through the Litecoin network - it took only 2,5 minutes and cost the sender $ 0,4. If this money transfer went through a financial intermediary, the commission would be much, much higher, and it would take several days to process the payment (especially in the case of a cross-border transfer).

The low commissions of Litecoin, Stellar and Bitcoin Cash systems make them an excellent means of payment for international money transfers.

2. An alternative means of preserving wealth, resistant to the pressure of the authorities

We do not expect our accounts and assets to freeze, but in reality this happens more often than we would like - especially in countries with a weak legal system. I made powerful enemies - and now you are accused of violating any financial regulations and blocking the account, and without doing anything wrong, you turn out to be bankrupt.

It is here that the unique properties of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin (Bitcoin) are vividly manifested. This is a censorship-resistant means of storing capital, to which only a person who owns the secret key of the wallet has access.

3. The ability to invest in startups at a very early stage

Raising funds for projects in the form of selling digital tokens has allowed anyone with Internet access to become an investor in an innovative startup, and a new initiative to get seed capital.

ICO is a new form of fundraising in which a startup attracts capital by selling recently created digital tokens to people in exchange for well-established cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ether (ETH / USD). As soon as the newly released token begins to be traded on the secondary market, its price begins to reflect the public's belief in the success or failure of the associated project.

In the past, participation in such transactions was available only to experienced venture capitalists, but the emergence of cryptocurrencies opened up these opportunities for a much wider range of investors.

The tokens of the most successful ICOs have already risen in price by several thousand percent, and over the past year and a half more than 12 billion dollars have been raised under this mechanism.

4. Anonymous payments

Anonymous digital currencies, including Monero, Zcash and PIVX, allow you to make money transfers without explaining to the bank who you are, why you are sending this large amount and where it came from, while no one has the ability to ban a transaction or require some documents .

5. Cashless money transfers

Another important opportunity associated with cryptocurrencies is non-cash transfers. For example, in Nigeria, the SureRemit blockchain start-up was launched, which allows you to send funds from anywhere in the world to some African countries.

Representatives of the African diaspora can purchase RMT tokens, which are then used in the SureRemit application to make money transfers, for example, to pay for a mobile phone or utility bills for their relatives in Africa.

In December, 2017, the SureRemit project attracted million dollars during ICO, and it is planned to use this money to improve the platform and enter new markets.

6. Payment for publishing content

The world's first social network and blogging platform, which implies motivating participants using cryptocurrencies, allows publishers to receive rewards for publishing and selecting content.

Steemit provides financial support to its users, rewarding them for their contribution to the platform, and not for the transfer of their data for further sale to third parties, as is the case in Facebook. Thanks to this, Steemit has become especially popular in emerging markets - the project has a lot of users.

7. Renting a place on the device for rent

Decentralized solutions based on blockchain-based cloud storage, for example Storj, allow users to receive cryptocurrency in exchange for renting space on their own hard drive within a peer-to-peer network.

The authors of the project write: “Storj can work faster, cheaper and safer than traditional cloud storage platforms. Faster, because several machines work with your file at the same time, cheaper, because you rent people free space on their disks, and do not pay to a purpose-built data center, and safer because each file is encrypted and divided into many parts, and not you have to trust some company or certain employees. ”

Storj and other decentralized cloud storage options like Siacoin and Filecoin, not only provide a cheaper and more secure alternative to existing enterprise cloud storage, but also provide users with a new source of revenue.

8. Buying travel services

Due to the explosive growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in recent years, it is now possible to travel the world paying for cryptocurrencies.

Travel agencies CheapAir and Destinia accept Bitcoin as a payment method when booking air tickets, renting cars and hotels, and if you prefer an apartment, you can rent it on CryptoCribs - for Bitcoins or airs.

In addition, Bitcoin-ATMs are becoming more and more, which means that now the traveler can convert cryptocurrency into local cash in most major cities of the world.

9. Space travel

In November, Richard Branson’s privately owned space company, Virgin Galactic, 2013, announced that it was ready to take people into space for bitcoins.

So far, the Californian company failed to start commercial flights, but several future astronauts have already paid for their tickets worth 250 in thousands of dollars with bitcoins, and among them are well-known bitcoin-enthusiasts Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

10. Lamborghini

And last, but also an important point: if you have a cryptocurrency, you can buy Lamborghini for it. De Louvois is a bitcoin luxury market, and sports cars, works of art, fine wines and real estate are sold there - just enough coins.