Once considered an outlier that existed only to be used on the fringes of the darkest space of the internet, cryptocurrency use and acceptance has skyrocketed in recent years. 

There are a lot of factors why crypto has become more widely accepted, from issues of the pandemic to inflationary concerns to a better understanding of the potential among the general public.

In fact, crypto’s reputation has become so embraced that professional sports stars have taken to being paid in cryptocurrency. 

NFL: Trevor Lawrence, Tom Brady, Odell Beckham Jr, Russell Okung, and Saquan Barkley are among the many NFL stars that are receiving contractual payments and endorsements in some form of crypto. 

NBA: Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala headline the stars receiving some form of payment in crypto. Others paid in digital currency include Spencer Dinwiddie, CJ McCullum, and Cade Cunningham. 

MLB: While many still haven’t embraced crypto payments like in some of the other professional leagues, the unicorn that is Shohei Ohtani of the Angels has chosen to receive some payments directly in digital. 

With more and more crypto users and buyers emerging, companies and businesses are increasingly offering payment options that include digital payment solutions. 

For example, Visa has announced that it created a cryptocurrency system patent that is meant to be used in place of fiat currency. The focus will be on blockchain digital currencies. 

Meanwhile, Mastercard has followed suit, working on a variety of digital payment patents, and others like PayPal have created opportunities for users to buy, sell, and hold popular digital currencies. 

As more and more professionals and institutions adopt cryptocurrency as a viable payment option, it is forcing businesses and governments to follow suit. 

The United States is the leader in crypto payments. As such, there are a variety of governmental discussions about the best ways to adopt and regulate digital payment solutions. 

As more people adopt the usage of crypto, businesses have followed suit. Some more prominent brands that accept digital payments from crypto include;

• Microsoft
• AT&T
• Overstock
• Whole Foods
• Starbucks
• Home Depot
• Rakuten
• Twitch
• Cheap Air
• AMC Theaters
• Dish Network

With crypto becoming more acceptable and mainstream, understanding the decentralized finance option is crucial to helping you determine if you should invest in a digital currency or not. 

As opposed to fiat currency like the dollar, cryptocurrency is currently a decentralized currency, meaning it’s not tied to a commodity like precious metal or backed by any government. 

By being decentralized, crypto gains its value by the demand placed on any particular coin and token. As a result, proponents believe that decentralizing finance away from central banks will provide longer-term value than the fluctuations seen with traditional fiat currency. 

As more and more people try to buy a coin, it drives the price upward. This means that investors and speculators can jump into the peak value and gain some of the traction these coins face by minting more of the tokens. 

What do we mean by “mint token?”

It means that you are creating new coins through verification of data, creating new blocks, and documentation of transactions along the blockchain. In other words, it means to increase the number of available tokens in the marketplace with unique metadata. 

Initially, more tokens in the market will lower the price of the tokens, but as their popularity increases, as an investor, you’ll be able to grab a larger share of those coins being purchased. There are two types of token minting, non-fungible and fungible. 

A fungible token allows you to increase the general supply of a specific coin. The creation of a non-fungible token, or NFT, is unique to the particular metadata that NFT creates. 

The main difference between creating tokens and NFTs is that with tokens, they are widely and broadly acceptable and have an amount denominated for them. An NFT, it’s solely unique and does not have a denomination assigned to it.  

With more businesses accepting and more people being paid in digital currencies, the opportunity to create and mint tokens that could catch on is akin to the historical landrush or goldrush of the late 1800s to early 1900s. 

In brief, for interested investors, there is some short-term volatility associated with digital currencies. Still, as their usage becomes more broadly accepted, their value will only increase, and the volatility will diminish over the long term.