As the economic fallout of Covid-19 stabilizes, cryptocurrencies have continued to remain in the limelight over the course of 2021 with a growing portion of institutional and retail investors considering bitcoin & co. as an asset to be included in the portfolio. 25% of European citizens expect to own cryptocurrencies in the coming years, according to a survey conducted by ING in 13 European countries.
Central banks and their constant quantitative easing
The risk of seeing one’s purchasing power decrease over time is one of the main reasons for investing in alternative assets such as bitcoin and is increasingly reflected by savers all over the world. A fixed supply asset like bitcoin has a good chance of being an excellent hedge against inflation, as central banks print money at unprecedented rates to react to shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic.
The seamless quantitative easing by central banks has actually been going on for years now. There great financial crisis of 2008, following the crash of Lehman Brothers, triggered a prolonged period of expansionary monetary policies conducted through Quantitave Easing justified by moments of crisis that require central bank intervention to stimulate the economy.
The depreciation of legal tender currency is one of the main investment motivations that push towards bitcoin which is entering an increasing number of investment portfolios.
The algorithm that governs the functioning of bitcoin provides that the supply of the cryptocurrency remains constant over time, regardless of the price and demand. There can never be more than 21 million bitcoins. This is one of the strengths of bitcoin as it gives investors the guarantee that it is a store of value. So the more the Federal Reserve and other central banks print money, the more cryptocurrencies increase in value.
As mentioned, the Covid emergency has led the main central banks to implement record expansionary policies with asset purchases at the rate of 120 billion dollars per month for the Fed.
The more dollars there are in circulation implies that liquidity flows to assets where there is no possibility of easy money creation. And bitcoin is among them. In addition, the trend of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin is distinguished by the limited correlation with other asset classes such as shares, bonds and gold.
Over the past two years, a number of leading investors have bought Bitcoin, from Ray Dalio to Paul Tudor Jones. In addition, large investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Fidelity and Blackrock have set up bitcoin-related funds or advisory services.
Defense of purchasing power
In Italy, as in the other main European countries, the pandemic has led to a sharp increase in the propensity to save. There Steady liquidity on current accounts reached over 1,500 billion euros at the end of 2020. The latest Consob report shows that between 2019 and 2020 the gross savings rate of households went from 10% to 18%. As underlined by Paolo Savona, president of Consob, the high saving capacity is a virtue of the Italians which, however, today does not reward with returns close to zero.
During the last year, in full Covid emergency, the reserves of Italians increased by over 110 billion (+ 6%), from 1.877 billion in April 2020 to 1.988 billion in April 2021 (data from the Unimpresa Study Center). Greater liquidity which largely went to further enrich current account balances.
Leaving the money in the current account is not convenient and we lose the savers in the first place. In addition to the zero return, today there is also the potential future loss with the risk of seeing the purchasing power of one’s money impoverished due to inflation that has been growing rapidly in recent months in the US as well as in Europe.
Crypto Smart, la piattaforma cripto made in Italy
For those who intend to position themselves on crypto assets, it has recently debuted Crypto Smart, the first all-Italian platform (founders, headquarters and legislature) that allows professionals and retail investors to buy, sell and deposit Bitcoin, Ethereum, tokens and digital assets. All this easily, independently and at low cost.
Crypto Smart, unlike other platforms already on the market, is a company incorporated under Italian law, governed by Italian law and based in Italy, to be precise in Perugia. The company has studied its services to meet the needs of Italian users and for this reason it is not necessary to open any account in foreign countries to invest in cryptocurrencies: with Crypto Smart you remain in Italy, with the guarantee and rights of Italian laws. In particular, from tax point of view, compared to foreign platforms such as Binance it is not required to reverse the investment in cryptocurrencies in the RV framework of the tax return, thus ensuring greater confidentiality.
All Italian founders. Entrepreneurs Alessandro Frizzoni, Alessandro Ronchi, Claudio Baldassarri, Massimo Zamporlini and Alice Ubaldi have successful past experiences in the world of innovation. For example, Frizzoni and Ronchi were among the founders of Ariadsl and among the top management of Go Internet, bringing the company to listing on the Aim Italia list in Piazza Affari.
The features present on Crypto Smart
They are different the services available on the platform, between exchanges, payments and digital wallets. There are no intermediaries and no one pushes to sell products or advertise. Account opening and wallet management are free and transaction fees (i.e. for purchase, sale or conversions) range from a maximum of 0.20% up to a minimum of 0% (for more than € 2 million in transaction value).
In detail, Crypto Smart allows its customers to buy, sell, deposit cryptocurrencies or other digital assets. With a simple bank transfer, you can buy cryptocurrencies and digital assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Cardano, Polkadot and Litecoin. The customer can also move cryptocurrencies already in his possession to another platform or account into Crypto Smart.
Deposits can be withdrawn at any time through a bank transfer or by receiving cryptocurrencies: the customer can therefore choose how to be liquidated in total freedom.
The platform also provides the cryptocurrency payment service and digital wallet. That is, it allows the monetary use of cryptocurrency, replacing money or any other currency, for the operations of receiving or sending payments. It is a service designed not only for consumers but also for companies that intend to increase their turnover by giving their customers the opportunity to pay through the use of cryptocurrency, already widespread in other countries. The payment service in digital currencies can be easily integrated with the major e-commerce software (woocommerce, shopify, drupal, magento, prestashop, shopware, wordpress) and very quickly, allows companies to receive payment from their customers.
Among the new services arriving there is CS Pay which will allow ecommerce companies to receive payments in cryptocurrencies.