Blockchains, forks, mining, HODLing, ICO’s, Lambo’s, pumps and dumps, wallets and whales etc etc.

If you are anything like me you would have at least heard some of the above terms before in your lunch hour research around the explosion of Cryptocurrencies from all corners of the world.

Each have their own story complete with so called white papers that sets out the plan of action and end goal for the coin. Squadrons of developers sort out the tech-stuff, funds are raised through crowd-funding, ICO’s or luring investors with promises of growth of atomic proportions and viola, another coin sees the light.

But what is the true value of Cryptocurrencies for the world? For real people. It seems to have taken extraordinarily long for Cryptos to develop into a usable, practical everyday currency of sorts that can be used by the average Joes for day to day transacting and transfers. Adding value, breaking down walls and barriers and changing lives. Filling the significant gaps left by the traditional banks as was originally part of the plan. Surely?

After all what good is this technology if not to steer us into a new global fiscal direction and enriching the lives of all the 7 odd billion people around the world? Surely if it remains the weekend past-time for the elite trading coins and making some gains or losses through invisible and largely inexplicable market forces that drive the prices whichever way, then it will remain just that.

It seems there are a lot of Cryptos that are content with being and remaining just that. Sure the behemoths at the top of the pile has a role to play as a market stabilizer and “gateway currency” for new punters, but then there is a (rather long) list of Coins that seems to launch, grow and all but disappear after a while when the principles and investors have offloaded enough coin to cover their costs (and then some) and decide to take it easy rather than drive development to come up with solutions that can change the world. In their path is a myriad of investors holding (more like hodling at this stage) Coin that is now at the 0.00000000000023 level for eternity with the Captains of the ship sipping cocktails from the beach discussing how the poor guys in the life-jackets timed the market wrong…

So are we at the cross-road? Are any of the coins going to take the plunge and give us real-world practicality? Any of them willing to forego the cocktails and get their hands dirty?

Certainly the world is ready for it. All the statistics indicate that there awaits great reward for those who can solve the fiscal conundrum of the unbanked as well as the huge burdens of cost, bureaucracy and limitations placed on the consumers of the traditional brick and mortar banks we know and love…

Even in the most developed, high-income economies there are on average 11% of adults that do not hold an account at any formal financial institution. This figure increases dramatically to around 59% in developing economies and in the Middle East and North African region this figure is at its highest and is estimated to be in excess of 80%.

The fact that an individual resides in one of these developing economies that are largely cash based, does not automatically diminish the needs of these individual for some form of currency other than notes and coins in order to earn, spend, transfer and save; albeit at a significantly lower level than the global average which may be the reason why the more traditional institutions largely turn a blind eye to the needs of this segment of the global economy.

Whichever Cryptocurrency can win this race stands to gain on many fronts. Relevance is a big one. Being just another coin at this stage is a damp squib of note as just birthing and listing a coin on an exchange and being able to trade has been done and is no longer an achievement in itself. In fact, this can now be done for a fistful of dollars by any one of thousands of online developers offering their services at a small fee (don’t do it. You will get scammed. You definitely will get scammed).

But jokes aside, the Crypto community have progressed past this point and now ask: How will you add value and change the world, rather than what is your price, and what will it be in December?

And having said that herein lies the true value and potential of Crypto as answering the above question with enough credibility unlocks value for the holders while creating real demand for your currency which brings about stability and organic growth. The unicorns of the Crypto world.

One recent mover in this field of practical application that has caught my eye is Tigereum (https://www.tigereum.io/, TIG $ 0.0579, +75.87%, 7 days 1/10/2018, coinranking.com). They seem to be moving in the right direction quite rapidly with their Beta rollout for the instant holding and sharing of currency through their global local partner network.

The broad idea it seems is to allow anyone access by building a global network of physical outlets and agents that can facilitate seamless transfers of funds that transcends all borders and forex limitations. The beauty of their approach is that it really caters for the above mentioned informal market by allowing consumers face to face contact with a facilitator if required that can go a long way to bring this technology to the lowest tier in the fiscal ladder.

They seem to grasp that the unbanked are also likely unphoned and unwifi’ed and may be wholly unable to access any form of technology to gain the crucial access to the services designed to bring them into the fold. Makes sense? Makes a lot of sense.

They also have a very well thought out revenue model allowing local partners to earn a percentage on each transfer and deriving an income from providing a service to their community. So everyone is taken care of. Investors get steady growth and real store of value in their portfolio, local partners can derive an income and attract customers and consumers get access to a service that previously required a trip into town for both sender and receiver along with huge fees and some red tape for good measure.

The other kicker here is the speed and accuracy of the updates and roll-outs which seem to suggest that the development teams are on top of things. I have seen some other good ideas coming to naught as the teams involved failed dismally in converting good ideas into working apps and tangible outcomes.

Whether they will be the ones who win the race remains to be seen but at this stage it doesn’t look like a bad horse to place your bets on.

What I particularly like about this one is the limited total supply of only 20 million with current price still relatively low at around $0.05. They have been around for long enough to have gone through the initial teethings and are at the same time “new” enough to still offer some value in terms of price to investors looking to get in on the ground floor. Tigereum have touched $0.34c soon after launch and have gone through the normal corrections and so forth associated with a new listing. Most of the action on the exchanges have been in the last 30 days with the systematic release of the Beta testing modules for the transfer community with relative success. https://exchange.coss.io/exchange/tig-btc

All in all there are a lot of positives and the potential for growth is there. If they can steer clear of major glitches and continue delivering on their development promises they have the potential to have a big impact in their intended markets.