Expert’s Opinions of the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Crypto Space

Austin Ryan
5 min readNov 25, 2020

Blockchain and Crypto experts are mainly revolving around the question concerning the impact of the covid-19 outbreak on the Crypto space. Read on to find more.

It is hard to imagine how a year can change people’s lives. Without a doubt, November 2019 will serve to be a critical point in the history of humanity. It is the time when the covid-19 pandemic started. Everything began when in China, back on 17th November 2019, when a patient reportedly showed symptoms of the new coronavirus disease termed covid-19, as per studies from government data.

Increasing Cases of Covid-19 from January 2020

During January 2020, the city of Wuhan, in Central China, encountered a massively expanding coronavirus pandemic when 41 patients admitted to the hospital were identified with lab-confirmed cases.

After two months, in March 2020, the World Health Organisation considered covid-19 as a global pandemic. With governments closing their National borders worldwide one by one people, gatherings were banned, and public events were suspended. Terms like social distancing and lockdown have been declared as the words of the year.

People find it hard to imagine the new life phase entwined with tragic and dramatic events where the number of global confirmed cases exceeds 55 million.

Worldwide distribution of covid-19 cases

The covid-19 crisis additionally had a positive impact on the globe, despite everything. When it comes to the Europeans, the covid-19 pandemic LED the Europeans to shift towards cryptocurrencies and cashless payments. Experts also say that it even fastened the DLT based business solutions and mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency globally, thereby changing people’s understanding of money.

When it comes to the pandemic, it’s too early to describe when it all ends as the pandemic is still gaining speed. Since the first case globally, here are some of the opinions of experts on how the covid-19 pandemic has impacted the Crypto industry.

Experts Opinion on the Impact of Covid-19 Outbreak on the Crypto Space

Raj Chowdhury, CEO of HashCash Consultants:

“The covid-19 pandemic outbreak did not negatively impact the space for blockchain. Despite the increased cases, the covid-19 pandemic increased the blockchain innovation and adoption demand. Other than that, the pandemic also highlighted the urgent requirement for adopting blockchain Technology, revealing the weaknesses of our current paradigm. For instance, the pandemic demonstrated today’s centralized supply chain system’s shortfalls by revealing its lack of agility and fragility. With blockchain technology, we can look forward to building a decentralized supply chain that can quickly distribute and ascertain products according to particular area requirements. With that being stated, blockchain technology can also be deployed to trace and track infection cases more efficiently while also protecting the privacy of patients. We are already witnessing the shift to blockchain technology in times of uncertainty. More and more people embrace Bitcoin, and increasing adoption from more institutions is seen because Bitcoin is viewed as a mainstream and stable asset in these challenging times. I believe that the Global pandemic firmly improved the requirement for not just only blockchain Technology, but additionally a truly smart and digital economy. As we advance, we need to break from our present paradigm for embracing a truly globalized and digitized world which comes with agility, flexibility, and efficiency to thrive and flourish.”

Asheesh Birla, general manager of RippleNet:

“The covid-19 pandemic increased favoritism for various people who are underbanked or unbanked and highlighted the gaps that we possess within our financial infrastructure. People still need to send money to their friends and family abroad, despite the pandemic. This led to a continuous surge in remittances within some of the biggest corridors. The United States to Mexico corridor, for instance, witnessed a considerable enhancement in remittances from the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, thereby Mexico getting 4.02 billion dollars from abroad during March 2020. It is a 36% increase since March 2019. Our company can help reduce the cost of remittance payments by utilizing blockchain and cryptocurrency to make cross border payments reliable, faster, and quicker. One of the leading Crypto exchanges of Mexico is transacting near about 10% of overall remittance flows from the United States to Mexico with the help of Ripple’s technology that utilizes XRP as a bridge currency. There happens to be more interest within the space than ever before, with influential organizations like Square and PayPal placing the bets on cryptocurrency, pushing it to the mainstream. Authorization from these organizations has contributed to more interest when it comes to the utility of Crypto and their capacity to serve their customers and businesses better.”

Tim Draper, notable Bitcoin investor, and venture capitalist:

“Various people, stuck with their homes, finally found out the time to set up a bitcoin wallet. However, the pandemic’s real impact was that the lockdown happened to be devastating for various families. When the government printed $13 trillion to attempt to put a Band-Aid on it, it made it apparent that you would rather be holding Bitcoin than these dilutable and diluted dollars. I anticipate fiduciary duty to presently include owning some cryptocurrency as a hedge against government currency manipulation and flooding.”

Preston Bryne, partner at Anderson Kill, P.C:

“The most tangible impact of the pandemic’s outbreak on cryptocurrency was an authorization of Crypto’s thesis of cryptocurrency that our societies are math and brittle, not men, is expected to form a sounder basis for prospective social organization. The dependence of practically every significant economy on monetary and fiscal stimulus to stay afloat widened and reinforced the public perception of institutions’ weakness and Fiat money. Cryptocurrency happens to be a diverse array of areas and beliefs of interest ranging from hard money to secure communications to censorship resistance. Such technologies are uniquely responsible for enterprise and social adaptation to stressors that have dominated headlines within the money printers going obsolete, ranging from the ongoing Exodus from big technology or widespread social unrest within the cities.”

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Austin Ryan

I’m a crypto/blockchain journalist. As a former senior editor in a company in the US, I was the first mainstream reporter to cover crypto assets full-time.