CoinDesk Research Director comments "Bitcoin Is the Alpha and the Omega": 

What Does Coindesk Find About The Bitcoin? 

It was that while speaking to Yahoo Finance senior writer Dan Roberts at the outlet’s All Markets Summit: Crypto conference, in New York City and the CoinDesk director of research Nolan Bauerle in the recently released report “State of Blockchain: 2018”, addressing developments over the past year from Bitcoin’s spiking transaction fees to Ripple’s skyrocketing price and leveraged investments in cryptocurrencies. Thereby the most memorable line from the conversations by far is however the Bauerle’s insistence that Bitcoin is the alpha and omega of all of this. In the late-2017, the cryptocurrency bubble saw investors in hot pursuit of the next big coin the blockchain’s killer app as well as any number of other holy grails. It was then that while Bitcoin logged incredible returns over the same period, it is before experiencing a profound correction around the New Year with conversation in cryptocurrency investing often seemed to treat that Bitcoin as a given is if not old news. 

It is here that without directly addressing that perception Bauerle emphasized turned the focus decisively back to the original cryptocurrency saying that Bitcoin is the most secure financial system in the world. Thereby he cited the increase in the Bitcoin networks hash rate equating it to security and stressing that it was a more important metric than the notorious volatile price. It is here that hash rate the computing power Bitcoin miners lend to network showing the growth of a whole network of computers to secure and protect their ecosystem. 

Why Ripple? XRP?

Consequently, the fact is that Bauerle was very less enthusiastic about the XRP, Ripple’s cryptocurrency seeing the highest returns of any major token with significant concerns being raised about XRP referred to as ripple after that company provides it with the most recently by BitMEX where XRP’s apparent distributed consensus mechanism doesn’t serve a clear purpose meaning that Ripple does not appear to share many of those potentially interesting characteristics that the crypto tokens have like the Bitcoin or Ethereum.  

It is here that Bauerle did not endorse these sentiments but explained cryptocurrency enthusiasts doubts about XRP in terms of the confusion they feel about the idea that the coin and the company are two different things, with a tension he compared to the confusing terminology around the Ripple/ ripple/XRP. It doesn’t necessarily have a role to play in the consensus as Bauerle said meaning you own the coin but not a stake in the network. It was however that he stressed that Ripple is now pursuing incredible innovation in the attacking of the existing system such as SWIFT. 

What About The Transaction Fees

Another matter is the conversation turned to Bitcoin’s transaction fees which then spiked to over $ 50 per transaction on average as he lent a positive spin to what could be considered one of the cryptocurrency’s major drawbacks saying that the rise in transaction fees reflects increased demand. It is here that the surge in demand can also be seen in the rise in the average size of a Bitcoin block over 1 megabyte as well as of course the price. 

The Forks, ICOs and the Leverage Myth

To tell the truth there are lots of people going for forks, ICOs as well as leveraging the tokens. It helps gain more value for each coin. It was found that CoinDesk has more value created through forks of cryptocurrencies which then through ICOs as also while the dollar value invested in ICOs increased precipitously in the fourth quarter increased in ether value invested in ICOs was milder. Then what was not addressed oddly enough as the role ether’s rising price almost certainly played in that disparity. Thereafter addressing the mentality retail investors should have when approaching ICOs. As Bauerle said, there is as long as you don’t come at it with an unserious mood, here’s nothing to be afraid of. 

The Final Words To Conclude

Thereby Bauerle has finally addressed which is a common trope in the reporting on cryptocurrencies as where the idea that investors are buying Bitcoin and its peers on leverage even mortgaging their houses to do so. It was according to CoinDesk’s survey that 82% of respondents did not use leverage to invest in cryptocurrencies of those who did 52% having paid it back. Thereby while that debt-fueled minority of investors can certainly experience or cause problems, Bauerle pointed out that if this is a bubble it would be the first one that’s not built on leverage. He concludes that there are a lot of hard numbers underpinning bitcoin’s growth.