A look at the classification of cryptoactive

Celeste Balladares Barboza is a researcher in the area of Computer Science. Its goal is to maintain is to stay at the forefront of new technologies in the industry 4.0. In this article, he makes an approximation to the notion of cryptoactive, establishing a possible classification of different species.

In January 2009 the first Bitcoin genesis block appears, giving rise to the coin of the same name and to a movement that has popularly taken the acronym crypto, be it crypto-economy, crypto-currency, crypto-active, crypto-mascot, to mention Some examples.

Performing a search on the Internet, there are several publications where it is assumed that a cryptoactive refers exclusively to cryptocurrencies, but technically, that is not correct. If a taxonomy of cryptocurrencies is carried out, that means a classification by species, we easily observe that a cryptocurrency is a derivation of a cryptoactive, which in turn, is a category of digital asset.

In various forums you can read debates on whether cryptocurrencies are the only cryptoactive that exists, but cryptoactives are not limited only to cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies have been the basis for developing new concepts, such as crypto-cats (cryptokitties), an idea similar to the famous Tamagotchi of the nineties, which consists of a digital pet, but with the only difference that a cryptokittie can Worth up to $ 12,000.

It is important to understand the definition of cryptoactive. The word Crypto is defined by Burniske and White as "a mechanism that allows parties to securely transmit information to each other through insecure channels." It is the science of safe passage of messages. Meanwhile, the same authors consider that an asset refers to the unit of account within the security mechanism of cryptography. The class in which the cryptographic asset is classified has the following characteristics: investment capacity, political-economic characteristics, performance correlations (price independence) and risk-reward profile.

Chris Burniske (2018), a former member of ARKInvest's cryptoasset and co-author of the book Cryptoassets, tells us:

I believe in a taxonomy of cryptoactives that goes far beyond coins. That said, within its native protocol, a cryptoactive serves as a medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account. By definition, then, each cryptoactive serves as a currency in the protocol economy it supports. Since the exchange equation is used to understand the flow of money necessary to support an economy, it becomes the cornerstone of the coded valuations.

Therefore, we can define a crypto-asset as a digital asset representing a value or from which it is expected to obtain present or future economic benefits, whose main characteristic is cryptography as a security element, based on a DLT (as blockchain) for guarantee to avoid double spending and allow to be traded on the Internet network.