- In today’s time, Fintech companies are affiliating themselves with crypto due to its increasing hype.
- Irrespective of the hurdles from governing authorities, the Web3 concept is ripe for a turnaround and is expected to come into the mainstream shortly.
The world is moving forward and with that, the world of finance is also going through some exhilarating changes. The recent crowning achievement of the finance industry is the adoption of crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) by FinTech companies. These companies have a larger role to play in the adoption of crypto and bringing it to the mainstream.
In today’s time, everyone is already witnessing FinTechs jumping ship into the world of decentralization while adopting crypto in the form of payments, investments, lending, and more. As the fintech sector continues to evolve, it can contribute equally to the advancement of crypto as it climbs up into the mainstream.
The Journey from 2009 to 2020
The concept of cryptocurrency came into existence back in 2009, when the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto launched the first-ever cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. At the time, the reward for adding a new block to the chain was 50 bitcoins per block.
This reward is cut in half after every 210,000 blocks mined, which takes nearly 4 years. This process is called Bitcoin Halving. The current reward for adding one block is 6.25 BTC and after the next halving in April 2024, it will be reduced to 3.125 BTC.
Skip to 2012, when the idea of the exchange of cryptocurrencies was born when Coinbase, a crypto wallet, allowed this method of exchange, garnering the attention of both investors and crypto enthusiasts. After going through some rough patches of controversies and branding, the company currently boasts a market cap of $61 Billion.
Talking about controversies, Stripe, the first-ever company to accept Bitcoin payments, made headlines in 2014. However, three years later, it put its foot down on Bitcoin due to its growing fees and payment failures. After warming the bench for all this time, the platform is ready to make its comeback by building a team of dedicated developers and designers to tap into underserved markets.
Fast-forward to 2017. This year proved to be the missing piece of the puzzle of the crypto revolution. With the emergence of various crypto fintech affiliations, the market showed a positive adoption of crypto. In the same year, Binance Coin (BNB) was launched by Changpeng Zhao through an Initial Coin Offering. Currently, the market cap of BNB stands at $90 Billion.
By witnessing the growth of this industry, other fintech companies such as Revolut, Paypal, and Robinhood also introduced their crypto-asset investment divisions and went down the path of developing new crypto asset-related technologies.
The Year 2021 was the Breakthrough Everyone Needed
The year 2021 saw an exponential surge in the market value of cryptocurrencies due to the hype around these digital tokens and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
One of the hottest stories of 2021 was the launch of crypto debit cards by Wirex, a European crypto-native payments platform. The card allowed users to spend up to 18 cryptocurrencies along with traditional currencies.
Among the names of big fintech players, platforms like Venmo, eToro, and Nium came out on top. eToro announced a DeFi portfolio that will offer 11 crypto assets, enabling them to diversify their portfolio without having to do extensive research on an individual asset.
Furthermore, Nium came to the limelight by launching the world’s first global API-based Crypto-as-a-service platform. Moreover, it also offered services like brokerage, custody, ready-to-go compliance monitoring of KYC, and Anti-money laundering.
