In the financial transactions sphere, we have various modes of payment for goods and services. For example, we have PayPal, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, cryptocurrency, etc. Cryptocurrency is a relatively new system that people still try to figure out. There are currently over 2,000 types of cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency as a mode of payment

Cryptocurrency is a digital payment system that bypass banks to verify transactions, making the financial processes more accessible and faster. Cryptocurrency involves using virtual tokens or coins by private individuals and companies for operational and transactional purposes and investments.

Cryptocurrency in the business sector

<ul><li>It is secure and fast.</li><li>Growth of the company. Using cryptocurrency in your business emphasises the important emerging space for currency evolvement.</li><li>Creates an avenue for gaining high profits. Providing your clients with as many payment options as possible ensures better user engagement and conversion rates.</li><li>It reduces friendly fraud (chargeback fraud). In cryptocurrency, it is almost impossible to do chargeback fraud.</li><li>Low transaction fees. Binance, the world's best-known crypto-trading company, charges a mere 0.04 - 0.10 per cent fee on transactions.</li><li>Removes the middleman.</li></ul>

Pros of using cryptocurrency in business

<ul><li>It's highly volatile. The values can vary considerably.</li><li>It is not widely accepted. Digital currencies are still foreign to some people.</li><li>Complex set-up process. Setting up your cryptocurrency payment options may need extra time and effort.</li><li>You are solely responsible for protecting your digital assets.</li><li>Migration. With over 2,000 different cryptocurrencies, other companies and your clients may migrate from one digital currency to another.</li><li>No established bodies regulate financial activities.</li><li>Highly vulnerable to scams.</li></ul>

Cons of using cryptocurrency in business

Stashed ideas

Pros and Cons of Using Cryptocurrency in Business

AI is coming to the Cardano blockchain in the form of Grace, the AI robot developed by Awakening Health, a joint venture between Hanson Robotics and SingularityNET. They have chosen Cardano to ensure that Grace meets the stringent guidelines set out by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) framework.

Grace has been designed to interact with the elderly and others who have been isolated, whether because of the Covid-19 pandemic or for other reasons. She looks like a healthcare worker, speaks English and Korean, and takes patients’ temperatures using a thermal camera. She can also measure people’s responsiveness and mirror their emotions, helping her not just to come up with diagnoses but also to respond empathetically.

Apart from the inherent security and privacy that it will provide, the move to Cardano will dramatically improve Grace's performance and lead to lower, predictable, and stable costs. Cardano also solves the scalability challenge, meaning Grace’s brain can operate at the highest level and process biodata quicker.

Ben Goertzel, creator of the AI technology for Grace and CEO of SingularityNET, said: ‘While Covid-19 has had a huge impact on physical health, the mental health impacts will echo long after the lockdowns lift.‘This is why solutions like Grace are so important, to combat loneliness and ease the burden on frontline workers. And with Cardano’s market-leading capabilities, she will be able to scale to meet this global challenge.

‘As we gradually ramp up Grace's general-intelligence capabilities over the next few years, she will be able to serve more and more valuable functions in the elder-care and medical space – learning more and more about humanity and absorbing human values as she goes.’

Cardano will become a secure and private environment for Grace's AI modules, so her work can meet international healthcare requirements

Inspirational

Cardano enters the age of AI as it welcomes Grace, the AI robot designed to revolutionize global healthcare

Ever since August, the market has been witnessing uptrends and downtrends in phases. However, during every phase, there have been exceptions defying the broader trend. Cardano, Solana, Avalanche, Fantom and Cosmos have been a few of those resistant coins.Tezos has been fetching market participants lofty returns of late. It is, perhaps, the only “top” alt that has been trading in green for 4 consecutive days. In effect, its price has appreciated by over 25% in just the past 24-hours. For context, the gains of other top alts predominantly revolved in the 1%-2% bracket at press time.

Network related upgrades and novel launches on the network have, by and large, acted like catalysts. Tezos, as such, is a self-amending blockchain. In essence, it is possible to upgrade the network without hardforks. The latest <a data-wpel-link="external" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tezos/status/1423588645785776129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external noopener noreferrer">Granada </a>upgrade was implemented last month and the improvements from the aforementioned upgrade include a reduction in the block time and and gas consumption.

The reduction in transaction costs managed to attract new users on the network and in retrospect, positively impacted the price. Further, earlier this month, Homebase – a protocol for building DAOs, was launched on the Tezos blockchain. Now, this would allow users and developers to form several other entities using the network’s smart contract feature. Not to forget, asset loan services were also launched recently on the Tezos network via its partnership with DeFi platform EQIFI.

Additionally, at press time, Tezos’ official data showed 76.16% of the total supply was staked on the network. Staking has essentially limited the number of tokens available in the market and aided in inducing a price-uptrend pressure.

Consider the network-value-to-transaction value. This ratio explicitly denotes the relationship between the market cap and transfer volumes. Whenever the NVT is high, it indicates that the network value is outpacing the value being transferred on the network.Such trends tend to rub-off quite positively on the valuation of any alt. During the alt’s May rally, the same had been in revolving in the 100-200 range, but has been under 40 since the second week of September.

Is the rally too good to last

Tezos is in the process of catching up with Ethereum’s dominance in the DeFi space and has around 135 projects and dApps in development on its network.What’s more, cryptocurrency firms in Switzerland have been working with Tezos to launch tokenized assets like popular stocks on its blockchain. The same would act like a breather in the future amidst the evolving and competitive environment. Thus, the short-term setbacks would eventually be overshadowed by the favorable long-term prospects.

Future prospects

Tezos has been fetching market participants lofty returns of late. It is, perhaps, the only "top" alt trading in green for 4 consecutive days...

With its future prospects looking bright, can Tezos upset Ethereum's DeFi dominance - AMBCrypto

<ul><li>Cardano has seen a massive surge of smart contracts arrive on its network in the six days. </li><li>However, a significant portion of them is timelocked, as it waits for the right time to be released and used. </li><li>The project’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, said that the second wave of DeFi is coming. </li> </ul>

<a href="https://smartcontracts.vercel.app/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the Vercel App </a>has brought a massive number of smart contracts to Cardano, pushing their total number within its network to 2,200.DeFi is now seeing its second wave and that the winners of this round will feature both, interoperability and liquidity, as well as the ability to move multi-chain, and easily predictable cost.Hoskinson stressed that the crypto industry requires governance, certification, insurance, regulation, metadata identity, and more. However, at the same time, decentralization also remains a major necessity.

Cardano is meant to dominate the second wave, says founder

As for the smart contracts that remain timelocked, there are many of them that belong to some very notable projects. One example is GREED, a rewards token that is redistributing ADA back to HODLers. Another one is SingularityNET, which is a platform that allows users to create, share, and even monetize AI services. Next, there is Liqwid, which acts as a non-custodial, open-source liquidity protocol, as well as Cardax — Cardano’s first DEX.

Which projects are coming to Cardano?

Cardano (ADA) sees 200 smart contracts that can’t be used yet | Invezz

Any coin other than Bitcoin is considered an altcoin.<ul><li>There's a huge variety in the altcoins available, from large-cap coins like Ether and BNB to tokens from newly launched projects. </li><li>Altcoins have traditionally been associated with&nbsp;ERC-20 tokens&nbsp;on Ethereum and the native tokens of other large&nbsp;blockchains.</li></ul>

What is an altcoin?

While&nbsp;Bitcoin (BTC)&nbsp;is the largest&nbsp;market cap&nbsp;coin and the most well-known cryptocurrency, you should&nbsp;diversify&nbsp;your investment portfolio as a responsible investor.To do this in the crypto world, you're going to need to purchase altcoins. <ul><li>You can reduce your overall risk by exposing your cryptocurrency portfolio to different coins and sectors in crypto, like&nbsp;Decentralized Finance (DeFi)&nbsp;or GameFi. This way, if Bitcoin crashes in price, your other crypto investments may balance out some of the losses.</li></ul>

Why should I invest in altcoins?

<ul><li dir = "auto">Ethereum (ETH)</li><li dir = "auto">Solana (SOL)</li><li dir = "auto">Polkadot (DOT)</li><li dir = "auto">Binance Coin (BNB)</li><li dir = "auto">Meme coin: Dogecoin (DOGE)</li><li dir = "auto">Stablecoins: BUSD / USDC</li><li dir = "auto">DAI</li><li dir = "auto">Uniswap (UNI)</li><li dir = "auto">PancakeSwap (CAKE)</li></ul>Don’t Risk More Than You Can Afford to Lose!

Altcoins To Diversify Your Portfolio

Want to start investing in altcoins but not sure how? Here are 9 altcoins across DeFi, stablecoins, and more in the crypto space to create a diversified portfolio.