Headline, January 30 2022/ SPAIN : ''' '' CRYPTO -DEVOTEES- CRYPTO '' '''

SPAIN : 

''' '' CRYPTO -DEVOTEES-

 CRYPTO '' '''

ON THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY - SCANDALS fail to shake faith of crypto devotees. Despite a disastrous year, true believers continue to push blockchain benefits. All and everybody Welcome to !WOW!.

On the wall in Ruar Street Food, a burger joint in the Sant Antoni neighborhood of Barcelona, there is a framed drawing of a male hand holding up a middle finger, high and proud. The image captures the defiant mood at a gathering of a couple dozen men and women in their 20s and 30s, all employed in the cryptocurrency world.

This industry has plenty of naysayers. But as far as everyone here tonight is concerned, those people can talk to the hand.

Which, given the onslaught of terrible news, goes beyond defiance and tiptoes into the postal code of magical thinking. With spectacular losses [ $2 trillion in crypto assets, poof! ], gruesome bankruptcies [Terra, Luna, Celsius] and fraud charges against the sector's highest-profile entrepreneur [Sam -Bankman Fried, of the now-kaput FTX exchange], few industries were more brutalized in 2022.

The carnage was not merely financial; the reputation and promise of crypto has been badly tarnished. Once touted as the future money, a challenge to the world's central banks, not to mention a clever investment, crypto now carries the odor of disaster.

The notion that it could serve as a hedge against inflation took a beating when Bitcoin fell more than 60 percent. Thousands of other tokens sank even lower or effectively vanished.

Despite this, attendees at the Ruar Street meet-up, organized by a crypto community called Web3 Family, were buoyant and ready for whatever 2023 has to offer. Drinks flowed, crypto-themed T-shirts were raffled off, fries with creamy cheddar and bacon were consumed. There were no hints of anxiety.

IT WAS CLEAR before the second round landed that the crypto faithful are keeping the faith.

The flock included Maria Rebelo, a 27-year-old who works for Canadian company called Ureeqa that helps artists monetize NFTs, a.k.a. nonfungible tokens.

These are digital assets - photos, music, sports memorabilia, whatever - that are recorded and tracked by blockchain, the virtual ledger that enables all things crypto. She rhapsodized about how block chain could lead to ''a worldwide community, instead of one government per country.''

''When we open up the decentralized world, we offer ways for humans to collaborate in ways they never have before.,'' she said.''That's human development.''

Interviews in Barcelona and with executives around the world suggest that a year's worth of fiascos has done little to diminish the enthusiasm of true believers.

Many liken this moment to the dot-com crash of 2001, a calamity that wiped out even more wealth - an estimated $5 trillion - and ultimately yielded some blue-chip companies. [ "Amazon was down 90 percent at one point" is a line uttered time and again.]

A variation of that sentiment was offered by Joe Hernandez, who handles fraud detection for a company called Gitcoin, a platform that promises on its website to ''build and fund open web together.'' He was taking a smoke break on the sidewalk outside Ruar, wearing a purple-and-white varsity jacket, its back emblazoned with an image of an astronaut playing an arcade game.

He is an American who happened to be visiting Barcelona. Other digital nomads have settled here, drawn by the city's beauty and relative affordability and hailing from China, Argentina, Portugal, France, Ukraine and elsewhere.

Many say that crypto is shouldering the blame for bad actors that it attracts. Swindlers are going to swindle.

''Every cycle, a bunch of fraudsters come along and a bunch of tokens go to zero,'' Mr. Hernandez said. ''Galling is a pretty good word for it. Because it scares a lot of people away.''

Some of the crypto faithful see an upside to the wipeout of 2022. To them it was like a four-keg frat party that the cops busted. Those still standing are proud to say that they weren't distracted by the revelry.

''Now more than ever we're encouraged that we are doing the right thing by just believing in the fundamentals of crypto,'' said Elion Chin, the co-creator of Nimiq, an open-source payment system that allows users to hold and spend crypto right from their web browsers .

Like thousands of ventures, Nimiq has also issued a coin, which is down 92 percent from its high in 2021. ''Yet none of its 27 ''full time contributors'' have left.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Crypto, Devotees, and The Marketplace Forces, continues. The World Students Society thanks author David Segal.

With respectful dedication to the Crypto Devotees, Investors and then Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World  Students Society - the exclusive ownership of every student in the world  : wssciw.blogspot.com and  Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless