What is Cryptocurrency (Crypto) used for - Crypto Use Cases
A method to transfer money:
Crypto can be used for transfer money. The legacy system uses Swift which can be very clunky. If you have tried sending funds from one bank to another bank, it can take days to complete a transfer. Even services such as Paypal or Venmo the funds are not immediately transferred from one account to another. Although the ledger on your app or website shows the funds in the account, the actual process takes much longer. Using blockchain and decentralized applications, funds can truly be send from one account to another account in seconds. The cost to send funds are also much more cost efficient when using the blockchain.
A Store of Value:
Before crypto was born, monetary value was stored in currency, precious metals, commodities, diamonds, etc. Crypto has allow the store of value live digitally in the blockchain. Value is derived from two or more people agreeing that value exist in an object. Different cryptocurrencies have the inherent understanding that some sort of value can be stored in each digital asset (crypto). For many centuries, Gold was the main mechanism able to store value. Gold itself does not hold value besides being a metal. But as long as people collectively agree that it is worth something, then it can store value. Bitcoin has played the narrative of being a pristine store of value or digital gold.
Investing and Speculation:
When money is involved, it is often used to park money in what one believes will increase in value. Investing in crypto has a lot higher risks when compared to some traditional investments such as stocks and bonds, but the potential gains in the early stages of crypto provide more potential upside. Many coins, tokens, cryptocurrencies are extremely speculative and many have not found or do not have any inherent use or utility. Many are scams and rug pules just to extract money away from people. Be very diligent in what founders promise. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.