Since the first time I heard about Bitcoin, I’ve been very interested in cryptocurrencies and have kept one eye on developments in that space. I’m not a cryptocurrency investor, though I’ve considered mining for Bitcoin. Alas, I haven’t brought myself to it yet. But I think there are some interesting things going on with cryptocurrencies.

For starters, Lampix recently ended a crowdsale of PIX tokens that raised $14.2 million in startup capital for the company. ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) have, themselves, become a hot news item for speculative investors who are willing to take a risk on startups issuing their own currencies. This particular one is led by one of my clients, George Popescu (CEO), who also owns Lending-Times where I edit the daily news digest. But I’d like to talk about two other cryptocurrency headlines that caught my attention today.

One is about e-commerce, and the other is about real estate.

Overstock is Introducing Cryptocurrency as an E-commerce Payment Option

Who hasn’t heard of Overstock? From diapers to area rugs, anyone can go online and place an order, have their items shipped straight to their doorstep, and live happily ever after. Now, you can use any one of over 40 cryptocurrencies to make your purchases at Overstock.

Here’s why I think this is interesting:

As of now, cryptocurrencies haven’t really caught on with the general public. It may never. But if it does, it will likely be because there is a huge ecosystem of commercial enterprises that accept them as payment.

If you can imagine a world where you can step into any retail establishment, online or offline, and purchase goods using the cryptocurrency of your choice the same way you can now use the credit card of your choice, then you know what I’m talking about. If you can imagine eating at restaurants and paying with Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Anycoin, going to see a movie and having your eWallet debited with a cryptocurrency payment, or losing a bet to a friend and having 25 Ethereum zapped from your treasure chest, then you know what I’m talking about.

The last scenario (losing a bet) is available to you right now, of course.

Here’s something else I can imagine: Industry cryptocurrencies that allow players within those industries a way to trade, barter, and pay for each other’s services using proprietary digital money. And cooperatives where a group of people with a common interest buy, sell, and trade digital coins designed for a special purpose–like PIX tokens for images on the Lampix platform.

The more people and organizations that back cryptocurrencies, the more valuable they’ll become and the more likely that they’ll be accepted as common currency.

Real Estate-Backed Cryptocoin

The other interesting story on cryptocurrencies recently had to do with a currency backed by real estate. BrickCoin was the first to announce its intention of backing coin by real estate. However, REcoin launched earlier this month.

Whenever you have companies competing to be first to raise capital, go to market, or guzzle a grizzly bear, you have something hot going on. In this case, it’s digital currency backed by real estate. Quite frankly, I don’t know why it’s taken this long.

If you need a content writer for your fintech startup or company peddling the next great technology, let me know. I love writing about, and for, the next great thing.

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