There is hardly anyone left who is not familiar with the bitcoin bull market. A few but dramaticcorrections made this historic run more exciting. Blockchain technology is here to stay. And theway legacy institutions and governments react will determine the future of finance. The globalbroker OctaFX prepared an expert article exploring whether peaceful co-existence might be anoption.

Corporate America is slowly but surely approving bitcoin as a credible long-term investment and even payment method. Elon Musk’s electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla temporarily granted selling its cars for bitcoin. Elon Musk is known for his advocacy for new technologies and his interest in blockchain.

Popular online payment service PayPal started offering cryptocurrencies to get into this emerging market. Social media platform Twitter recently launched tipping in bitcoin for followers to support their influencers financially. It is worth keeping in mind that even Goldman Sachs, which until very recently underestimated bitcoin publicly and showed expert distaste for the opinion that cryptocurrency would be a powerful investment, changed its position.

The influential multinational investment bank, having close ties to the most powerful governments in the world, announced in March 2021 a ‘full-spectrum’ cryptocurrency investment offer, including bitcoin, for its private clients.

Although, the narrative from U.S. governmental institutions suggests a different approach.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she is eager to crush the influence of cryptocurrencies by pushing International Monetary Fund (IMF) capacities further. Many financial experts consider the IMF to be the future issuer of a new worldwide digital currency—centralised, of course.

Decentralised finance (DeFi) and so-called ‘smart contract’ platforms on blockchain networks have many runner-ups: Ethereum is the most used network and the first of its kind. But lack of scalability and high transaction fees give Ethereum’s competitors a chance to succeed. Polkadot, Cardano, Cosmos, Harmony and others have significant potential to solve these systemic weaknesses.

The DeFi marketing slogan for the crypto sphere is about ‘helping the masses of unbanked people’, for instance, in Africa, Asia, and South America. It gathers significant trust in these populations over classical banking institutions.