In the first half of 2021, many crypto projects make agreements with private institutions, governments, and sponsorships. Top 10 is merged for you.
The crypto market has been hitting all-time highs almost every week since the start of the year. No, I’m not crazy. I am aware that the crypto market has been in a bit of a rut since mid-May. The thing is the growth isn’t something that’s measured in dollar terms alone, and I would argue it’s the least important metric in the context of cryptocurrency.
What matters most is the adoption of cryptocurrencies by individuals and institutions and this continues to happen regardless of the price of Bitcoin or your favorite altcoin.
Most of this adoption is coming from a series of significant crypto partnerships that have gone by relatively unnoticed. So that’s why today, I’m going to tell you about a few of these crypto partnerships, explain how they’re driving crypto adoption, and examine which cryptocurrencies are likely to benefit most from them.
Types Of Crypto Partnerships
Since the start of 2021, there have been dozens of crypto partnerships that could change the space forever. Now obviously, I don’t have the time to cover all of them here, so I’ve only chosen the cream of the crop.
These crypto partnerships typically fall into one of four categories crypto to crypto, crypto to the private sector, crypto to the public sector. and sponsorships.
Because cryptos to crypto partnerships don’t really do much to increase the adoption of cryptocurrencies as a whole I haven’t included them in this post.
I should also note I’ve included centralized cryptocurrency companies under the umbrella of crypto, which is something I haven’t done in my recent crypto-list posts.Top 5 Richest & Invested Crypto Projects of 2021! Strong Potential?Many projects get investing from VCs as a million dollars. However, 5 of them got extremely more than others.medium.com
Reddit And The Ethereum Foundation
The first significant crypto to private sector partnership to happen this year was the partnership between Reddit and the Ethereum Foundation in January.
The goal of this partnership is to create a specialized scaling solution for Ethereum that will be used to distribute community points to read its 430 million monthly users.
For those unfamiliar Reddit’s Community point system is designed to incentivize quote, quality, posts, and comments on Reddit’s 100,000 plus subreddits.
In addition to earning points for quality content, users will be able to trade community points amongst themselves.
Given that these community points will be ERC20 tokens on Ethereum. It’s likely that there will be secondary markets for them on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap.
Reddit began testing its community point system on Ethereum last fall, and they covered the cost of each gas fee for their trial tokens behind the scenes for all pilot participants.
Though I couldn’t find any exact details about the nature of the layer 2 they’re looking to build, I imagine it will abstract away the need to pay gas in ETH when sending tokens between users.
If I’m correct, this means that this partnership wouldn’t have as large of an effect on the price of ETH as it would if everyone on Reddit were forced to use it for community points transfer fees.
Even so, exposing Ethereum’s technology to nearly half a billion users is going to be pretty damn bullish for ETH. And this isn’t the only recent partnership that will affect Ethereum either.Crypto Trading Bot — Best Free Crypto Trading Bots in 2021Best crypto trading bots for Binance, Coinbase, Kucoin, and other crypto exchanges in 2021. Quadency, Bitsgap…medium.com
Visa, Circle, Crypto.com, And Anchorage
The second significant crypto to private sector partnership to happen this year was the partnership between Visa, Circle, crypto.com, and Anchorage in March.
The goal of this partnership is to make it possible for select crypto.com clients to pay for goods and services in USDC directly using their visa crypto debit cards.
These USDC payments will be settled on the Ethereum blockchain with the help of the Anchorage Digital Bank, the first crypto bank in the U.S. to receive a national banking license from Uncle Sam.
For those who don’t know, crypto.com’s Visa crypto debit cards are currently required you to exchange your crypto for fiat in the app, if you want to load your card.
This is both costly and time-consuming for Visa which must settle all these crypto to fiat transactions behind the scenes.
Instead of needing to touch base with a bank every time what visa is essentially doing is using Ethereum as a de facto layer 2 for the financial system wherein USDC can be shuffled around between payment parties and only converted to USD as a bank as needed.
Visa is hoping to roll out this ability to pay with USDC directly to quote other partners over the next year.
While this obviously implies the other cryptocurrency companies Visa is working with, it’s possible that it could extend to non-crypto companies they’re collaborating with too.
In either case, Visa is going to need ETH to pay for all those gas fees, and the more widespread this feature becomes the more ETH going to need.
To put things into context, there are 3.3 billion Visa cards on the planet. I think it’s easy to understand what effect that degree of adoption could have on the price of ETH. The next partnership could also play a critical role in Visa’s USDC plans.Top 5 Crypto.com Alternatives To Earn Interest [2021]If you already have crypto assets and wish to make the most of them, you can consider lending your crypto. It allows…blog.coincodecap.com
NYDIG And NCR
The third significant crypto to private sector partnership this year was covered in last week’s crypto review and that’s the partnership between the New York Digital Investment Group and the National Cash Register, which happened in June.
The goal of this partnership is to make it possible for every American to buy and sell cryptocurrencies directly from their bank accounts.
So far NYDIG and NCR have managed to roll out this service to the 24 million clients of over 650 banks across the country.
For those unaware NCR is the largest provider of point of sale software in the world. In other words, it makes credit and debit card payments possible.
NCR also owns over 800,000 ATMs. According to Forbes banks across the United States can see that millions of dollars are moving from their accounts onto cryptocurrency exchanges every day and they don’t really like that.
It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s part of the reason why Barclays recently blocked its clients here in the UK from sending their money to Binance.
Rather than fight, the inevitable US banks are looking to add crypto trading to their list of services to keep that money in the house. NYDIG is handling the crypto custody and NCR is handling the payments.
Like Visa, NYDIG and NCR are looking to apply their crypto partnerships to other industries and their ultimate goal is to make it possible to use cryptocurrency and any merchant or ATM in their network.
Although this initiative seems to focus on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and even Dogecoin are on the list of supported cryptocurrencies. It’s worth pointing out that NYDIG will probably buy most of these cryptocurrencies over the counter or OTC. This means that their buyers will not affect the market price of these cryptocurrencies directly.
It could reduce the available supply of these cryptos on exchanges though and this is just one of the many factors that influence the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Stellar And Ukraine
The first significant crypto to public sector partnership that happened this year, was the partnership between the Stellar Development Foundation and the Ukrainian government in January.
The goal of this partnership is to develop a central bank digital currency or CBDC for Ukraine’s 44 million citizens.
According to Coindesk, Ukraine has already begun testing a digital hryvnia on the Stellar blockchain. But it is yet to release its CBDC into the broader economy. This will likely take place later this year.CBDCs Are Coming! Could Other Cryptos Benefit?!Many counties add updated their projections to create their own digital fiat currency against manipulations and adapt…medium.com
Another thing that I mentioned in that post was that it was very unlikely that governments will use public versions of cryptocurrency blockchains to host their CBDCs.
This is because governments want to have total control of the blockchain. They also don’t want to have a transparent blockchain that shows everyone, all of the transactions and account balances that are for their eyes only of course.
As such governments will likely commission the company which developed the cryptocurrency blockchain to create a permission version for their Central Bank. And this seems to be the case with Stellar.
This means that Ukraine’s partnership with the Stellar development foundation will probably have no effect on the price of XLM, besides the speculation and hype caused by the announcement.
Still, this partnership proves that cryptocurrency blockchains are capable of supporting a payment system on a national scale, and this is likely to inspire similar partnerships elsewhere in the future. In fact, it might have played a role in facilitating the next crypto partnership.
Cardano (IOHK) And Ethiopia
The second significant crypto to public sector partnership to happen this year was the partnership between Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) and the government of Ethiopia in April.
The goal of this partnership is to create a digital identity system for over 5 million students and teachers in the country to keep track of grades and performance.
Now, in case you’re wondering how this relates to cryptocurrency, IOHK is one of the two software companies building and maintaining Cardano, one of the largest cryptocurrencies on the market.
Ethiopia’s digital identity system uses Atala Prism which is built on Cardano. IOHK has been working for years to get its foot in the door with African governments, and this is just the first of many upcoming partnerships you can expect to see from them in the coming months and years.
That said it’s not entirely clear whether these prolific partnerships will have any effect on the price of ADA.
As pointed out by a few Cardanians on Reddit, it’s likely that the Ethiopian government will simply pay IOHK for its digital ID services directly rather than purchase ADA.
Another issue relates to the world’s less than favorable view of the Ethiopian government, which the United Nations says, has broken multiple international laws in dealing with conflicts in the Tigray Region.
You might roll your eyes at this, but the reality is that IOHK association with such a regime could affect other partnership opportunities on the African continent and elsewhere.
As it so happens. The next crypto partnership faces similar issues.
Strike And El Salvador
The third significant crypto to public sector partnership to happen this year is the partnership between Strike and the government of El Salvador in June.
The goal of this partnership is well-known and that’s to make Bitcoin legal tender. El Salvador’s Bitcoin law was passed just one day after it was proposed and BTC is now a national currency over 6.5 million people.
In addition to helping El Salvador’s president write the Bitcoin bill, Strike is providing much of the payments infrastructure for El Salvador’s new national currency which is set to begin trading in early September.
If Bitcoin’s high transaction fees are making you question the feasibility of this plan, the answer is the Lightning Network. A layer 2 scaling solution for Bitcoin, which is leveraged by Strike for both crypto and fiat payments.
While Strike is only available in select US states and El Salvador at the moment, they are hoping to expand their operations to other countries around the world. The only problem is that they seem to be lacking the licenses to do so. At least according to reporting by Decrypt.
Not only that but it’s possible that Strike doesn’t even have the licensing required to engage in its current operations. When you combine this concern with strikes close collaboration with a questionable administration, it makes for an uncomfortable uphill battle as far as adoption goes.
Still, it’s very possible that all of these pain points are nothing more than fud coming from a corrupt financial system that does not want any country to escape its chokehold.
I believe that this is what is driving Bitcoin adoption in Latin America and you can learn more about that by reading my post about it using the link below.Bitcoin Milestone! Latin America (LATAM) Mass Adoption Incoming!El Salvador is the first country that adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. Other Latin American countries also released…medium.com
Crypto.com Sponsors MTL Canadiens
The first significant crypto sponsorship this year was crypto.com sponsorship of the Montreal Canadiens Hockey Team in March.
While the exact details of the partnership have yet to be defined crypto.com’s logo will be front and center at the belly center which is the home turf of the Montreal Canadiens.
Now, if you’ve never heard of the Montreal Canadiens before, they’re arguably the most popular Canadian hockey team in the NHL. They were also once the best hockey team in the world.
This is important because Canada is a pretty crypto-friendly country. It was the first North American country to introduce Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. All of which now have billions of dollars on their balance sheets.
Tens of millions of people watch the Stanley Cup every year with a whopping 70% of Canadians tuning in to the first playoff game of the Stanley Cup in 2018.
The National Hockey League has a pretty attentive audience here on YouTube as well. Seeing crypto.com‘s logo flashing on the screen might motivate some viewers to swap their cash in from all crypto, and it’ll be especially easy for Canadians to do because of those ETFs.
If you still don’t have Crypto.com account yet, you may signup by using my link and earn $25 instant reward once complete your KYC.BlockFi Review 2021: Pros, Cons and Interest RatesToday, we came up with a comprehensive BlockFi review, a crypto lending platform founded in 2017 and has its…blog.coincodecap.com
Tezos Sponsors Redbull F1
The second significant crypto sponsorship this year was Tezos (XTZ) sponsorship of Red Bull’s Formula 1 team in May.
This sponsorship is a bit closer to a partnership as it will not only see the Tezos’s logo on the side of Red Bull’s cars but will also see Red Bull NFTs minted on the Tezos blockchain.
Red Bull is, of course, the world-famous energy drink that supposedly gives you wings but tries as I might I can’t seem to grow them.
Anyhow Formula 1 attracts hundreds of millions of eyes each year and Red Bull’s own racing shenanigans get some pretty solid views on social media.
While I’m not sure how effective it is to have a logo on the side of a car that’s traveling at hundreds of miles an hour, if and when those Red Bull cars win, Tezos will be on full display.
Those NFTs are sure to help as well and getting your hands on them is going to require lots of XTZ.
FTX Sponsors MLB
The third significant crypto sponsorship this year is FTX’s sponsorship of Major League Baseball (MLB) in June.
This sponsorship will see the FTX logo embroidered onto the jersey of every umpire in the league. The umpire is the dude who squats behind the batter by the way.
There are hundreds of millions of baseball fans around the world, most of whom are in the United States. As with the NHL and F1, the MLB has a sizable online following.
Now, as amazing as the sponsorship is, I have a feeling that the average person isn’t going to know what FTX is. And even if they figure it out, I don’t imagine many of them will be interested in trading crypto derivatives.
Then again, this fresh pain partnership is just the tip of the iceberg of what FTX has in store as part of its five-year sponsorship agreement with MLB.
I’m definitely curious to see what comes next, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Solana will play a part in that.
That could send the soul token to the moon. Now if you have no idea what’s Alana is, I highly suggest reading my latest post about the project, which is below.Solana: More Update For SOL?SOL is going insane and stay tuned for updates new ATH.medium.com
Crypto.com Sponsors The UFC
The fourth significant crypto sponsorship happened just a few days ago and that is crypto.com’s historic 10-year partnership with the UFC.
This sponsorship will see the crypto.com logo added to just about everything really the clothing of the fighters and their trainers, Locker rooms of the arena, and even inside the Octagon UFC ring.
Over 625 million people around the world tune into the UFC’s brutal beatdowns, and their social media following totals well over 150 million.
It’s possible that this amount of exposure could bleed into the price action of crypto.com’s own CRO token. Now, if you want to learn more about CRO, you can find my recent post below.Crypto.com: CRO Still Worth It? What You Need to KnowOne of the popular projects of the crypto market, with a unique domain name and market cap crypto.com, has to be added…medium.com
Conclusion
As you can see, there is no shortage of significant partnerships taking place between the crypto world and the real world. The ones I cover today are just a handful of the ones that have taken place since the start of the year.
I think it’s clear the crypto to private sector partnerships are the most important of the bunch. Money talks and if you can approach a corporation and say that crypto will cut their costs or increase their profits, they’re likely to bite sooner or later.
The same cannot be said for governments that don’t have the same set of incentives as for-profit organizations. I reckon governments are concerned about the security of their own systems and they’re willing to preserve them even if it comes at a great cost. This makes a lot of sense if you think about it. If someone from a different country came to your house and knocked on your door asking if you wanted to have your houses electrical system replaced to be more efficient, I don’t imagine you’d automatically say yes, at least not until you tell had a very long discussion with that person and made sure they’re not a scammer.
Now, I can’t help but notice that most of the countries adopting crypto are those that are not in the best condition to put it lightly. They can see that what they’re doing isn’t working and without help from the international community for whatever reason, they’re turning to magic internet money to make it all okay.
Sponsorships sort of fall under the same umbrella in that the average sports fan probably isn’t going to be on board with crypto right away. This is where price does play a critical role. Seeing that number go up, is more than enough motivation to move a sports fan to action and the sponsored content they’ve been exposed to up until that point will tell them what to buy and where to go to buy it. Consider for a moment that over a billion people are being exposed to cryptocurrency through sponsorships alone. What do you think’s going to happen when the bull market gets back on its feet and all that new money comes pouring in.
Categories: CRYPTO PROJECTS
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