The Importance of Stablecoins for the Dollar and the Incredible Prospects of NFTs: The Highlights of Bitcoin MENA
A large-scale cryptocurrency conference called Bitcoin MENA took place in Abu Dhabi from December 9 to 10. It was attended by popular representatives of the blockchain industry, who shared useful information about the situation in the coin market. Among them were the head of the Paxos platform Charles Cascarilla and Yat Siu from Animoca, who gave interviews to representatives of Cointelegraph that were just published. Here are the highlights.
Why Stablecoins Help the Dollar’s Popularity
Charles Cascarilla of Paxos started with the idea that stablecoins are actively attracting new users to the Web3 world. Why is this happening? The fact is that tokens tied to real instruments – primarily the US dollar – solve real problems for people.
In late October, Charles wrote an open letter to the next US presidential administration, calling the current global financial system outdated and ineffective. According to the expert, this industry is extremely important for America, but it continues to operate “at the speed of the post office.”
Paxos CEO Charles Cascarilla
Here is a response from a Paxos representative on this matter.
The financial system turned out to be as closed as an intranet — inaccessible and impenetrable. No one could build anything on it. However, the world today is different. With the advent of stablecoins, the last echoes of the pre-Internet era are becoming a thing of the past.
The expert also touched upon the topic of the influence of stablecoins on the usefulness and popularity of the dollar at the core of such tokens. After all, stablecoins are available to users around the clock, and they can be instantly transferred to anywhere in the world.
Crucially, you can own tokens pegged to the US dollar without having a bank account. And since the number of smartphone owners today outpaces the number of bank customers, this feature makes stablecoins a major innovation.
Charles continues.
I think this could be one of the most transformative applications of blockchain technology in the world.
Bitcoin vs. Dollar Fight
How exactly do stablecoins attract everyday users to the world of digital assets? According to a Paxos representative, it all comes down to solving real problems for everyday people.
I think the thing about stablecoins is that you don’t even know it exists because it’s based on the blockchain. It attracts people because it takes away their pain. Ultimately, the Web3 world should focus on the list of pains it can take away for its users.
According to Cascarilla, the Web3 industry is not just a cool thing in itself. The crypto and blockchain industry should first and foremost help people’s lives in order to further popularize it. And it is precisely the needs of ordinary users that stablecoins are engaged in satisfying.
What will happen to NFTs in the future?
The topic of unique tokens or NFT was touched upon by the representative of the famous Animoca Brands team, Yat Siu. The expert expects the return of relevance of the sphere of such tokens during the current bullrun.
Ideally, the industry will surpass its records from 2021 and 2022, when the total volume of NFT transactions per month ranged from $1 billion to $5 billion. According to the CryptoSlam platform, the figure peaked at $6 billion in January 2022.
Animoca Brands representative Yat Siu
Now it hasn’t even reached the billion mark, which indicates a significant decline in investor interest in this asset class. However, Siu is not worried about what is happening, because “failures are a natural part of business.”
This is true for companies, too. How many fashion brands, shoe manufacturers, or game studios have released products that didn’t catch on and then shut down? That’s life, right? So you can hardly blame them for trying.
Siu called the failures of some collections and projects generally a normal cycle in the digital asset space.
According to him, NFTs can be perceived as a status symbol and an analogue of luxury goods that carry cultural and symbolic capital. And when people get good money, they spend their earnings on investments based on reputation.
When we earn money, we don’t spend it on earning more. We spend it on luxury items: a nice house, a car, new clothes, and stylish shoes. Right? These are not investments in the classic sense. But they can be seen as investments in your reputation.
Characters from the Pudgy Penguins NFT Collection
Well, when a person’s reputation improves, the number of opportunities available to him increases. And this is where a user might become interested in NFTs, some of which are in serious demand and cost as much as an expensive car.
That’s a whole different story, right? If I own a Picasso, my reputation becomes special.
According to Siu, this approach is also relevant for legendary NFT collections like Bored Apes, Pudgy Penguins and CryptoPunks. And it is precisely because of them that the Animoca Brands representative has no doubt that the unique token space will return to relevance in the future.
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