Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain. Relevance and risks for companies in the age of digitization

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Economics - Finance, grade: 1,7, University of Applied Sciences Essen, language: English, abstract: The progress of change in society through digitization, globalization and the rapid development of technology prompts new and innovative opportunities for companies across the world. Over the past few years, nearly everything is based on smart devices that are able to communicate among themselves. As a result, new technologies have arisen, been published and are able to be used by people around the world. One of the recently released and most popular topics is blockchain. This term earned its attention through its innovative and unpresented form of technology and has motivated several parties to learn more about this issue, examine it more closely and develop it further. Particularly the range of potential applicability makes it interesting for companies to analyse possibilities for implementation with respect to their own business. In addition, blockchain is related to another term that has arisen along with this technology, namely cryptocurrency. Especially Bitcoin is the forefather in the world of digital currencies. Over the past few years, Bitcoin has skyrocketed in popularity and value since its founding in 2009. Consequently, this digital currency has gained the attention of many people who are trying to predict the commercial development and future per- formance in the world's economy. There are many pros and cons and some powerful businessmen have published their own opinions based upon the respective commercial interests. For example, Jamie Dimon - CEO of JP Morgan Chase - stated that Bitcoin is a fraud and that it will have no future due to its intangibility and its emergence out of nothing. It is understandable that the CEO of one of the largest financial institutes classify cryptocurrencies as a counterparty to the banking business. By contrast, John McAfee challenged the statement of Jamie Dimon and compared the costs of Bitcoin mining with printing money. He said: "I'm a Bitcoin miner. We create Bitcoins. It costs over $1,000 per coin to create a Bitcoin. What does it cost to create a U.S. dollar? Which one is the fraud? Because it costs whatever the paper costs, but it costs me and other miners over $1,000 per coin. It's called proof of work."