For most people, cryptocurrencies are a high-risk investment for millennials and Silicon Valley insiders. But behind the hype, the fact is that most decentralized digital currencies, starting with Bitcoin, are created with specific goals. With their help, you can solve quite understandable life tasks. Below we prepared 10 awesome uses of cryptocurrency.

Inexpensive money transfers

The most famous advantage of cryptocurrencies is the ability to transfer money quickly and inexpensively to any corner of the world. For example, a transaction worth almost $ 100 million recently took place on the Litecoin network. It took only 2.5 minutes and cost the sender $ 0.4. If this money transfer went through a financial intermediary, the commission would be much higher, and the payment would take several days to process (especially in the case of a cross-border transfer).

The low fees of Litecoin, Stellar, and Bitcoin Cash make them excellent means of payment for international money transfers.

An alternative means of preserving wealth that is resistant to government pressure

We do not expect our accounts and assets to be frozen, but in fact, it happens more often than we would like, especially in countries with insufficiently strong legal systems. If you have made powerful enemies, you may be accused of violating some financial regulation. After that, they can block your account. So, without doing anything wrong, you find yourself bankrupt. It is here the unique properties of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (Bitcoin) are manifested. Because it is a censorship-resistant means of storing capital, to which only the person who owns the secret key of the wallet has access.

The opportunity to invest in startups at the earliest stage

Raising funds for projects in the form of selling digital tokens allows a person with Internet access to become an investor in an innovative startup.

ICO is a new form of fundraising in which a startup raises capital by selling willing digital tokens in established cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ether (ETH / USD). New engagement in such deals was only available to a seasoned venture capitalist, but the advent of cryptocurrencies has opened up these opportunities for a much broader offering.

Anonymous payments

Anonymous digital money, including Monero, Zcash, and PIVX, allows you to make money transfers without explaining to the bank why you are sending this large amount and where it came from. At the same time, no one can prohibit the transaction or demand any documents.

Cashless money transfers

Another important opportunity associated with cryptocurrencies is non-cash transfers. For example, in Nigeria, a blockchain startup SureRemit was launched. It allows sending funds from anywhere in the world to some African countries.

Representatives of the African diaspora can purchase RMT tokens, which are used in the SureRemit app for making non-cash transfers, for example, to pay for a mobile phone or utility bills for their relatives in Africa.

In December 2017, the SureRemit project will raise 7 million during the ICO, and this money is intended to improve the platform and enter new markets.

Pay for content publishing

The world’s first social network and blogging platform to motivate members with cryptocurrencies to allow publishers to receive rewards for publishing and selecting content.

Steemit provides financial support to its users, rather than the third transfer of its data for onward sale to parties, as is the case on Facebook. Thanks to this, Steemit has become especially popular in all kinds of markets – the project has many users there.

Renting out space on the device

Decentralized solutions based on local storage on the blockchain, for example, Storj, allows users to receive cryptocurrency in exchange for renting space on their hard drive within a peer-to-peer network.

Storj can be faster, cheaper, and more secure than cloud storage services. Faster because multiple machines are running your file at the same time. Cheaper because you rent-free space on their disks from people rather than pay a specially built data center, and safer because each file is encrypted and split into many parts, and there is no need to trust some company or employees.

Buying travel services

Thanks to the explosive growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in recent years, it is now quite possible to travel the world paying with cryptocurrencies.

Travel agencies CheapAir and Destinia accept bitcoin as a method of payment when booking flights. If you prefer an apartment, you can rent it on CryptoCribs – for bitcoins or Ethereum.

Space travel

In November 2013, Richard Branson’s private space company, Virgin Galactic, announced that it was ready to take people into space for bitcoins.

So far, the California-based company has not been able to launch commercial flights. But several future astronauts have already paid for their $ 250,000 tickets in bitcoins, including the famous bitcoin enthusiasts Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

Lamborghini

Last but not least, if you have cryptocurrency, you can buy a Lamborghini with it. De Louvois is a Bitcoin luxury goods market that sells sports cars, artwork, fine wines, and real estate.