Cryptocurrencies Are Starting to Affect the Real Economy

Until now, the surge in cryptocurrency markets has been a sideshow to the financial markets or the real economy. Prices have gone up a lot for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and it's fun to joke about things with names like Cardano and Monero going up a lot in value, but if it were to all go up in smoke tomorrow, it shouldn't have any meaningful impact on ordinary people.

But companies with publicly traded stocks are starting to make decisions to show that they stand to benefit from cryptocurrencies, and markets are beginning to reward them in a big way for those decisions. Should this continue, people not involved in cryptocurrencies will suffer when there's a crypto bust. And there will be a crypto bust.