GenZ and young millennial investors are optimistic about cryptocurrencies and the technology surrounding them.

Digital currency and blockchains, such as bitcoin and Ethereum; meme coins, such as dogecoin; nonfungible tokens, such as dogecoin; and DeFi, or decentralized finance, are all examples of this.

Young investors have also participated in recent meme stock rallies, in which retail buyers purchase shares of stocks that have been shorted by Wall Street hedge funds, such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment. The investors think that by forcing hedge firms to pay, they would overcome what they perceive to be an inefficient system.

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A weapon to defying the Established Order?

One reason why so many young people turn to alternative investments like cryptocurrency is that they don’t trust established financial institutions, according to Allison Reichel, 23. Instead of relying on established institutions, such as financial advisors from legacy corporations, they conduct their study. Reichel is included in this group. Reichel is a senior editor at crypto news site Blockworks in Washington, D.C., while working on her Ph.D. in economics. She began investing “heavily” in cryptocurrency this year, and her crypto assets now make up the majority of her portfolio, she claims. Reichel intends to keep her bitcoin and ether for the long haul.

However, skepticism isn’t the only reason GenZ flocks to cryptocurrencies and meme stocks. For starters, many people are enthusiastic about blockchain technology. Second, although they are dissatisfied with traditional investing, many people find camaraderie and enjoyment in the crypto sector. They want their money into something they care about, whether it’s stocks, coins, or digital assets.

Although some new traders gamble on altcoins in the hopes of making a fast profit by buying and selling, many others want to “HODL” their preferred cryptocurrencies for the long term. Someone in the GenZ wrote the term “hold” incorrectly on an early bitcoin forum, and users mistook it for the acronym “hold on for dear life.” It’s now become a sort of meme, with bitcoin purchasers exclaiming, ‘HODL!’ when prices are extremely erratic.

“You have those super-strong network effects in any crypto,” says Reichel, a GenZ crypto investor, “where people believe in it so much that they’re like, ‘I’m never selling because I believe it’s the future of finance.” She said of her plans to hold, “I see the long-term applicability and use of crypto.” Many young investors share this viewpoint, believing in the technology itself.

Crypto and Finance: Bringing Socialization to Finance and making it less “scary.”

Turley claims that “crypto and meme stocks are more memorable to GenZ investors than traditional companies.” “GenZ investors care far less about the bottom line of a corporation and far more about a meme or narrative they can collectively share with their friends.” Dogecoin, for example, was founded in 2013 and is named after the “Doge” meme, which depicts a Shiba Inu dog. Dogecoin’s developers didn’t intend for it to be taken seriously. Still, it is now one of the top ten cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization, with a market worth of more than $22 billion.

“Meme stocks take away those super scary aspects of finance,” Reichel explains. “When you think about the stock market, the typical picture is all of these older guys in suits who have been running it for years.” That’s not true for something like dogecoin.

There’s also the impression that everyone is joining in on the fun. Although many meme coins are wholly speculative, extremely dangerous, and occasionally fraudulent, it might be impossible to resist participating in the transactions. “It can be hard with all the FOMO (fear of missing out) because you see all these coins taking off,” Reichel adds. “The finest example of a meme currency I’ve invested in is unisocks or $SOCKS,” Turley adds, referring to a digital token that represents a claim on an actual pair of socks.

Bitcoin total Supply: Is Bitcoin limited?

Speaking of accessibility, which was said to have been much greater with the advent of cryptocurrency and BTCs, let’s talk about the Bitcoin total supply and what will happen if BTC runs out.

Yes, from the above paragraph, it would be obvious: Bitcoin or BTC is limited. Specifically, after 21 million BTC, no more Bitcoin can be mined. Though this figure is quite unrealistic to reach in our life as it takes 10 minutes for a single bitcoin to be released now after the product has been quite slowed down, comments have been made stating what would happen if the amount is reached. It is a long wait till the year 2140 for the final BTC to be released. 

Bitcoin miners are likely to be affected by Bitcoin reaching its upper supply limit, but how they are affected depends partly on how Bitcoin evolves as a cryptocurrency. If the Bitcoin blockchain processes a large number of transactions in 2140, Bitcoin miners may still earn solely on transaction processing fees.

Where is Bitcoin data stored? Is your investment in safe hands, or can it be corrupted at will?

The final topic on our agenda will be the storage of Bitcoins and cryptocurrency in general. Cryptocurrency is based on Blockchain technology, as we have discussed so far. The blockchain ledger of Bitcoin is securely and in a decentralized fashion stored across various nodes to ensure the safety of the data. In simple words, it will require many computers to process the data of a transaction depending on the level of decentralization that has occurred. This, however, is after the transaction has been completed and verified by miners.

Blockchain is decentralized, and hence it is not stored in one location. As a result, it’s stored on computers and systems throughout the network. Nodes are the systems or computers that make up the network. All nodes possess a copy of the blockchain, which has all of the network’s transactions.

As a result, the blockchain system may be compared to a spreadsheet, with the data in each row representing the value of an address. In addition, anytime a modification occurs, the spreadsheet is updated.

Assume Reichel has sent crypto in the form of Satoshis to Scanlon in our previous scenario. The transaction is completed in this manner: data is created, validated, and recorded on the blockchain. Reichel and Scanlon are both referred to as nodes in this context. Reichel sends the digital currency using her digital wallet. In addition, the digital wallet may connect to the network and maintain a list of other nodes and users. As a result, once Reichel delivers the transaction, it is visible to the rest of the network.

Jim has sent a particular amount to Carry that is broadcast to the whole network. The transaction is disseminated until every other node is aware of it. The transaction is validated by a few nodes known as miners, and once validated, the transaction becomes immutable and irrevocable. Depending on network congestion, the entire procedure might take a few minutes to many hours.