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Virtual currency fraud

What is cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency has quickly become one of the most fascinating and volatile financial asset classes in the markets. As an investment, Bitcoin has had one of the highest returns in history. Bitcoin was created when the first significant impacts of the Great Recession were felt. Bitcoin was designed to be a source of value and a medium of trade, a decentralized virtual currency with a truly fixed supply to combat the rampant money printing by central banks. Bitcoin can be decentralized because of the blockchain technology and the distributed ledger.
Three important cryptocurrencies


Bitcoin

Bitcoin is by far the most important type of digital currency, not just in name recognition but by institutional adoption in the finance world. Bitcoin regularly fluctuates between representing 55 to 65% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization. As an investment vehicle, Bitcoin received its first Futures contract by the CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange) and the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) in December 2017. Perhaps the most important event for Bitcoin as an investment vehicle occurred in July 2020 when the US OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) granted all chartered banks in the US ability to provide custody services for cryptocurrencies.


Ethereum

Ethereum is a second-generation blockchain and cryptocurrency. It is also the second most valuable cryptocurrency in the world. Ethereum is the most important ‘altcoin.’ Altcoins are every cryptocurrency that is not Bitcoin. Where Bitcoin is a source of value, Ethereum is more of a decentralized network platform – upon which thousands of cryptocurrency types are created using smart contracts. Ethereum has a market cap roughly valued at 1/3rd of Bitcoin. Ethereum is only the second cryptocurrency in the US to be granted a futures contract from the CME – which occurred in February 2022.


Ripple

Ripple has been one of the more popular cryptocurrencies between 2018 and 2020. Ripple was intended to become a replacement for the SWIFT system

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