Nothing has done as much harm to blockchain development, and the consequent potentially beneficial advances in technology that would result from it, than the heavily biased media reports that have been published to criticize cryptocurrencies. There are three major contributing factors to this situation.

The first is that blockchain and the cryptocurrencies that feed it are relatively complicated technologies that can be difficult for non-technical people to understand.

The second is that the people who stand to lose the most from decentralized cryptocurrencies are central banks (which have enormous financial resources at their disposal).

And the third factor is that the early implementation of Bitcoin was promoted in a way that made it attractive to criminals and it was used in a lot of illegal transactions, something that severely harmed the image of the technology.

Wealthy opponents can afford to run extensive propaganda campaigns

Because the main opponents to cryptocurrency advances are central banks, they can buy a lot of media space, and presumably a lot of editors opinions as well. Banks are an important source of revenue for most media production companies, whether for print, radio, or television. Nobody in the media business is likely to get far by antagonizing the banking industry.

The only safe and free space for opinions that go against the mainstream is the Internet, and early efforts to attract people to take an interest in cryptocurrency were actually quite antagonizing to bankers and government authorities.

The main thrust of the publicity efforts back then focused on the facts that cryptocurrency was at that time anonymous and decentralized, meaning it was beyond the control of governments and banks. To some extent it still is.

Mainstream media has mainly focused on scandals and failures

The media dedicates very little attention to successful cryptocurrencies, and typically does not report on useful blockchain innovations. Most people who are curious about these technologies need to turn to the Internet to get their information.

On the Internet anyone can publish what they want and that’s a really good thing because it’s possible to get a diversity of different views on any topic, but can also be a problem because it’s very difficult to verify facts and the sources of those facts.

Unless you are careless, there isn’t really much to fear

It’s true there have been scandals and failures in the cryptocurrency world. This is a new technology and mistakes have been made, and of course there are always people in any industry looking for someone to take advantage of. It’s common in every class of business, and cryptocurrency is no exception.

The simple reason that some people have lost money on bad deals in the cryptocurrency industry is that they just did not do their research.

It’s like 20 years ago when the DotCom Bubble finally burst. People were shocked to find that their failure to research what the Internet companies they were backing actually did was resulting in them losing money.

The same thing has been happening with cryptocurrency investment. People see the huge success of Bitcoin and Ethereum and assume that every new ICO launch is going to be a fast track to immense profit, but that’s a dangerous way to invest.

When investing in any cryptocurrency, and especially an ICO, you should be prepared to put in the same kind of research that you would when considering buying shares or investing in an IPO. If you do that, and you do it correctly, it greatly reduces the chance that you’ll lose money. Throw in other time tested investment strategies like diversification and risk management, and you really would have to be incredibly unlucky to fail.

Don’t let propaganda fool you. Choose your own investments according to how they feel and the diligent research you perform. Everything else is just the bankers trying to keep their hold on power over the way people do business.

The international cryptocurrency market enjoyed a few golden years prior to 2017, but the shine has started to wear off as people began to realize the bubble effect being created by disproportional media hype.

For a little while there, people were making glorious profit from their cryptocurrency investments. Like all booms however, it didn’t take too long before there was a rush, and not everyone who was rushing to release an ICO was really qualified to do so.

Not that there’s an official qualification required, but that more than a few of those ICOs were being issued by people with no real solid background in either finance or technology. A string of embarrassing cryptocurrency failures later, and the whole of the market, including top performers like Bitcoin and Ethereum, was paying the price for the misadventures of a few.

That tends to happen when people see vast fortunes wiped out due to unguided speculation on unproved technology. It’s this kind of problem that slammed the brakes on the cryptocurrency growth rate.

This could actually be a fantastic opportunity

Figuring out the real value of a cryptocurrency is not something that can easily be done. It’s not like investing in stocks or shares where there are easy metrics to base calculations on. Much of what makes a particular cryptocurrency valuable is the market’s opinion of it.

The best way to go forward is research carefully what blockchain sectors a currency is focusing on, and anticipate which sectors seem to have the best long term growth potential.

If you can accurately predict where the demand is likely to originate from, then you are setting yourself in the best position for when a surge in investment comes along. This is the real money making potential of investment in blockchain based currencies, and it is far better to get in early than to wait for the market to move in ahead of you.

With this type of investment, diversification is not as important as it is in most other investment types, but still you should be cautious of putting all your eggs in one basket.

Spreading the risk carefully over a handful of options will give you some protection against short term falls, and also means you have something on hand to trade so you can take advantage of short term gains. Investing in cryptocurrency is not difficult, it just requires common sense and a bit of research to make sure you’re backing a technology that is going places.

There has been quite a bit of resistance within banking circles and certain governments to the growth of blockchain based currencies, and considerable negative press has been launched which could be regarded as a propaganda campaign intended to undermine the public’s faith in decentralized currency markets.

Even though the face value of the major cryptocurrencies has fallen during the past year, these currencies are far from keeling over. In fact, they are still going strong and won’t be that easy to get rid of. Worldwide economies will need to adjust to the presence of decentralized competition, and this is a good thing because it provides people with an alternative to the traditional economic system while simultaneously not excluding them from it.

At the extreme end of the anti-crypto movement, there are murmurings of the desire to exclude people from the option of using cryptocurrency. Given the nature of cryptocurrency, however, it’s very unlikely that bans will prove effective.

Countries which have already banned cryptocurrency include Algeria, Bolivia, Cambodia, Ecuador, Egypt, Morocco, Nepal, and Pakistan. Implicit bans exist in Bangladesh, China (excluding Hong Kong), Colombia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan.

Countries where cryptocurrency is legal but there is a banking prohibition or heavy restrictions include Canada, India, Jordan, Thailand (easing), and Vietnam.

The problem for these countries is that the currencies exist on the Internet. There is no enforceable way for any individual territory to prevent citizens from participating in this economy.

Bans are pointless and set countries back

A citizen of Algeria wishing to speculate in cryptocurrency merely needs to ensure that none of his or her trades are executed inside the borders of Algeria. Traveling outside the country is one option, but VPN and proxy technology make it unnecessary. It is just too easy to thwart bans, making it pointless to enact them.

The serious downside for countries that ban cryptocurrency is that this denies local businesses the opportunity to participate in the lucrative blockchain industry, consequently stifling innovation and research. This sets those countries back, where other countries around them are able to make advances.

Right now that’s not a very big problem, but in the future the results will be easy to see. Those who are surging forward with blockchain innovation now will be very far ahead of the territories which don’t allow use of cryptocurrency (an essential unit of payment needed for blockchain applications).

No matter where you live, you should be able to invest in this technology. The artificially created bear market won’t last, and this has to be a great time to buy into crypto while the prices are holding steady.