I know that for the most part, this site has been focusing on financial education and talking about traditional forms of making money (stock market, real estate investments etc.) If you are an individual that tends to spend a lot of time on the Internet, you will probably have read about the incredible rise in the Bitcoin prices and other cryptocurrencies as well.
Some may question the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies (especially considering there are over 1,500 of them listed on exchanges) and although it is partially true, there is also a lot of gold in these startups. For one, Bitcoin was responsible to carve the way and allow for the rise of cryptocurrencies: it’s the most popular crypto coin out there, and any changes to its price, will influence the price of the other cryptos. Ethereum is of course another important coin since it helps with smart contracts and is the basis for a lot of the other coins.
But what about all the other 1,498 coins out there? Do those have any value? The short answer is: depends.
Some startup companies have a vision and people buy into that vision, while other ones have established platforms and an existing clientele base. A lot of those initial coin offerings (ICO) are also scams! But, there are plenty of startup companies (some of which based in Silicon Valley) that – by utilizing blockchain technology – solve a lot of problems of our daily lives.
A very good example is this startup company called Rentberry. It started in 2015 and has since grown to have over 120,000 users on its platform, in 5,000 cities and 224,000 listed properties. Rentberry is trying to bridge the gap between tenants and landlords. Specifically, they are looking to create a platform that allows for tenants and landlords to connect and manage their payments online. There are also some other benefits (like crowdsourcing security deposits) which we will discuss in another article. But Rentberry in no way would match the list of “scam” or “insignificant” ICOs. They already have a proven and successful business model in place, with lots of people in the largest US cities loving the platform. Here is more information on their token sale and plans of expansion in the future: https://rentberry.cryptonomos.com/