An Auspicious Day- The Age of Altcoins

Today, as CBOE begins trading of Bitcoin futures we see what for many has been an ideological and psychological barrier. Whether new, more traditional traders begin taking long or short positions on Bitcoin, this recognition represents something far greater. Though in my personal opinion, a high influx of short sellers is likely and would therefore likely depress the market somewhat, it still ushers in a new era for crypto-currency. Whether they like it or loathe it, they have afforded crypto a modicum of legitimacy, and provided the platform from which tangible connections can be made to the real world and to physical assets. I am sceptical of Bitcoin as a spendable currency, and even as a means by which to store wealth. Much repeated scaling issues leading to high fees and time delays, along with volatility, means that realistically it is unlikely that someone will ever walk into a shop and buy a chocolate bar with satoshis rather than pennies. However, this legitimacy can be the age of the Altcoin. Many projects, whilst still in their infancy, have hypothesised methods by which to streamline transactions of real world assets. These platforms could become vectors by which more traditional trades take place, once established business become more fluent with the tech.

Projects like NEO for example, rely on people entrusting time tested processes, agreements and transactions to the blockchain. The ability to write automated contracts, is useful to the individual, but may be indispensable to the corporation as part of a wave of automizations that will define the coming generations.
As banks pay notice, it will allow greater opportunities for integration between companies and "blockchain providers". Banks will become more likely to offer support, relief , debit and insurance to companies considering interaction with an Altcoin for distribution. Companies like Power Ledger, dependant upon larger providers and other intermediary services involved in facilitating energy trade, will become much more attractive. They will gain the ability to mitigate the risk of token volatility by seeking loans and provisos from financial institutions who can allow them to offset or delay loss and thus allow them to foray into riskier markets.
All of this brings stability, and though that will sadden the day traders, it will incorporate legitimate value into the hazy web of lofty concepts that entails cryptocurrency. More importantly, it will begin to validate those of us with genuine faith in some of these technologies as businesses are given the institutional recognition that they need to move forward in more traditional, mappable ways. Bill Gates may have started in a garage, but he's ended in an office, wearing a smart suit. These futures don' really improve value, or show that established institutions have accepted Bitcoin, but they do show that we are now an option. We're out of the garage and at the table with the big boys, and for whatever reason that might be, people will feel less embarrassed for speaking to us, and finally be able to publicly do business with us. Things like Neo will be the proud new project we show off to all of those who believed blockchain was just about currencies, and finally those "big boys" will be able to codify and digitally contractualize elements of their well established but slightly clunky businesses and step with us into the Neo world.