The Other ‘C' That Has Dominated News From Last Year

In the midst of the pandemic, cryptocurrencies also made surging headlines, with news about it changing faster than you could say Bitcoin, Ether and Dogecoin.

- Peter Engelbrecht

Even at the height of the greatest lockdown in human history, there was one industry that did not break a sweat. One that did not buckle even a little under the crushing economic downturn. The cryptocurrency industry.

With assets like Bitcoin sitting at a price per coin just shy of $6,000 and Ether sitting at a price per coin shy of $130 at the start of April 2020. With Bitcoin being the market leader and Ether being the most widely-used crypto, both assets showed unbelievable growth over the year. Bitcoin broke the $64,000 mark and Ether broke the $2,400 mark.

In May, hardly a month later, illustrating the volatility inherent in cryptos, Bitcoin plummeted to just over $40,000, while Ether gained somewhat to $2,700. A lot of Bitcoin’s recent volatility has had a lot to do with pronouncements by South African-born billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, founder of the electric car company Tesla. More about this later.

“If we look at Bitcoin, it was created as a brand-new technology; not only is it a new technology but it is unlike anything that has happened in the past in that what you’ve done is created a decentralized money system. In other words, a money system that is digital, peer-to-peer and not controlled by any government or central body ever,” says Ran Neuner, a South African cryptocurrency investor and co-founder and CEO of Onchain Capital, a Blockchain investment fund and advisory service.