For most people, digital money is a risky asset that is primarily of interest to the youth and insiders of Silicon Valley. Along with the regular talk about virtual assets, the real goal of cryptocurrency enthusiasts is gradually being forgotten. In fact, decentralized digital currencies were created with the aim of solving specific problems that we will talk about.

Available financial transactions

The main advantage of digital money is the ability to almost instantly transfer virtual assets, devoid of physical embodiment, with a minimum commission fee, regardless of the recipients geography. Not so long ago, an almost $ 100 million transaction was carried out in the Litecoin payment system, which took only 2.5 minutes. The sender needed only $ 0.4 to complete the transaction. If a similar operation were carried out with the help of financial intermediaries, the commission would be thousands of times higher. The transfer will take a person several days, especially if it is carried out between different states. Due to their low fees, the Stellar, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash payment networks are popular for international transactions.

The ability to save the value of funds

We do not expect that our account will be frozen or blocked, but such cases often occur in global financial practice. Such situations are especially common in countries with an emerging legal system. To do this, it is enough to quarrel with the top officials of these states, after which the regulators block your accounts under an invented pretext. In such a situation, the owners of digital tokens of Bitcoin and various altcoins receive a lot of advantages. The cryptocurrency is not subject to censorship, and it can only be used by people who have the secret key to the wallet.

The ability to invest in projects at any stage

The initial placement of digital coins for the implementation of a startup is a unique opportunity to become an investor, having only access to the Global Network and a certain amount of free assets. In the long term, you can reap significant benefits from the success of this project. ICO is a unique way of generating funds that allows you to raise capital by selling digital securities of a project for a special cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. After the release, tokens go to the secondary market, where their price directly depends on the success or failure of the projects with which they are associated.

In the traditional financial market, investing was available only to large capitalists, while cryptocurrency crowdsales allow everyone to try their luck by investing a minimum amount of finance. The digital coins of the most successful ICOs have grown in value hundreds of times, and the organizers of the companies received over $ 12 billion for the implementation of ideas.

Confidential transactions

Decentralized digital currencies allow transactions to be carried out without too much publicity. For example, the owners of ZCash, Monero and others can conduct financial transactions without having to explain to banks where the funds came from, to whom and why you plan to transfer them. In addition, no one is able to prohibit the transfer or require additional documents for its implementation.

Cash withdrawal

The ability to conduct transactions without banknotes avoids a number of risks inherent in todays financial industry. For example, in Nigeria, the SureRemit project was created, which offers clients the transfer of funds from anywhere in the world to a number of countries. Africans working outside the Black Continent can purchase RMT digital coins used in the SureRemit app to make wire transfers. For example, you can use virtual funds to pay for mobile communications or pay for utilities. By the end of 2017, the developers managed to raise about $ 7 million during the ICO campaign, and they plan to use these funds to modernize the platform and expand the list of partners.

Pay for copyright content

Steemit is a revolutionary social network that is a blockchain-based application. In it, clients receive additional incentives in the form of cryptocurrencies for publishing data and their careful selection. Site users are rewarded for their contributions to the development of the platform. The relevance of such a service is caused by the situation on , when personal information of customers was sold to third parties. Thus, Steemit will become popular in emerging markets where it already has a large following.

Renting out spaces

Platforms based on cloud blockchain storage (for example, Storj) help customers receive digital coins for renting space on a PC or providing other services on a peer-to-peer network. According to the developers, the startup is significantly ahead of traditional cloud storage services. The speed of transactions is ensured by the operation of several computers simultaneously. Cheapness is achieved by renting free space on other peoples disks, and security is achieved by splitting information into many particles. Thus, Storj is not only efficient but also profitable cloud storage.

Purchase of travel services

Holders of digital tokens can travel to any country on the planet by paying with cryptocurrency. A number of travel agencies accept Bitcoin as a means of payment for plane tickets, car rentals and hotels.

Space tourism

Virgin Galactic, owned by Richard Branson, back in 2013 offered customers the opportunity to pay with cryptocurrency for a flight into space. At this stage, the commercial project has not yet started, but several clients have already paid for the service.

Buying luxury goods

Bitcoin is itself a jewel for the world of finance, but today you can buy a Lamborghini car and other unique goods for it. The De Louvois platform is a marketplace offering items of interest to wealthy customers.

Over time, the distribution area of digital coins will only grow, and this is logical, because digital settlement facilities were created like the money of the Internet, and information and computing technologies have now become global.