Knowledge base

We’re approaching the end of what has been one of the most manic years to date for the crypto ecosystem. The euphoria of the bull market seems like a cherished forgotten memory now. The reputational damage inflicted upon the industry from the number of black swan events that have occurred this year will take some time to cure. The responsibility falls on those that are still here and actively building to pick up the pieces, with the looming threat of regulatory clampdowns doing little to lift the overall sentiment.

2023 we start with a blank slate of sorts. So much of what’s wrong with the industry has been brought to the surface in recent months. Some have likened recent events to a cleansing of sorts that will only benefit the overall space in the long term. We all certainly hope so. For many that have been here for years, it’s still a learning process as we watch a space that is very much still within its formative stages begin to flourish. The central issue that will determine the pace at which this transformation occurs, will be trust. This isn’t just in relation to the crypto industry but the trust that many still have within the fiat monetary system and the transition towards the implementation of the highly contentious CBDCs.

2022 has been a watershed moment outside of crypto for many also. Take for example the incredibly authoritarian measures used in Canada to quash the Freedom Convoy protest that involved GoFundMe, capitulating, and announcing the fundraiser had been officially cancelled and that the platform would withdraw millions of dollars raised for truck drivers through external political pressure. The same government followed up by moving to freeze bank accounts, without a court order, of not only Canadian protestors but also those that made donations to their cause. This is of course one example, but it is no outlier. It may have opened many eyes to the extremities used by centralised entities, but the central issue again is trust. Where can people safely store their funds without the need for an intermediary? Whom can they trust to oversee the process?

We that have been immersed in the crypto space for several years perhaps take for granted this process. We breeze through the process of buying, selling and transferring assets on autopilot at times. It becomes second nature. But for us that see this industry as the future of the global financial system, we have a duty to pass this feeling of competence onwards and instil a sense of trust within new users that will rapidly speed up the rate of mainstream adaptation. But where do we start?

There is no shortage of doomsday headlines from mainstream media outlets that like to paint the worst possible picture of the crypto space. This year has been unprecedented in that regard. Whilst some of this is outside of our control as unfortunately, bad actors are still prominent, some issues we can tackle head-on. Let’s take this headline from Business Insider for example,

“Investors likely to lose almost $545 million worth of Bitcoin in 2022 by forgetting passwords and various other mistakes, suggests report”

The report went on to outline various reasons like forgetting passwords to their wallets or making a mistake in recording their “seed phrases” for the reasoning behind these estimations. When we factor in that analysts estimate that at least 20 per cent of all Bitcoin is lost and that most of those funds are irretrievably lost, these estimates don’t seem too far-fetched, even though they’ve used hypothetical valuations in their calculations. Headlines such as this do the crypto space absolutely no favours. That’s just one example relating to losing seed phrases, of which there is no shortage of examples and horror stories throughout the years of fortunes being lost to avoidable mishaps.

This doesn’t even brush on the scenario of an untimely death. A scenario that was recently highly publicised in the Netflix documentary, Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King, following a group of cryptocurrency investors who investigate the untimely death of their exchange’s founder, Gerry Cotten as well as the $250 million that they suspect he stole from them. Customers of QuadrigaCX are out as much as $190 million after Gerry Cotten died. He reportedly was the only one with the keys/seed phrases to retrieve the money. Again, we have the reference to trust in the very title of the documentary that has been seen by millions worldwide. According to a 2020 survey conducted by the Cremation Institute, an online resource for funeral planning services, some 85% of crypto investors feel uncertain about how to incorporate crypto into their estate planning.

These are foundational issues that WE can tackle head-on. There’s no excuse for such events to occur this far into the developmental stage of Web3. As we head into a new year that many within the industry will welcome as a fresh start after a tumultuous period in the history of the space, those that are still here have a responsibility to do everything possible to improve the image of the space and work towards attracting a new wave of users. In a time of rampant uncertainty, we are absolutely certain of one thing,

WalletPort will be leading this charge.