Second, it means that there is a built-in incentive to get new people to buy cryptocurrencies: not only do they create demand to support prices, but they also allow existing users to grab the money. Reports of rising bitcoin prices are effectively advertisements aimed at getting new people to buy cryptocurrency. NFT accounts and play-to-earn games serve the same function. In recent times there is cryptocurrency advertising everywhere. Crypto.com has produced commercials featuring Matt Damon, Tom Brady, and Stephen Curry, and has renamed the NBA arena in Los Angeles.
A group of celebrities tweeted their support for cryptocurrencies and launched lines of NFTs; Kim Kardashian has even been sued due to a sponsored Instagram story about south africa phone number list EthereumMax. The Washington Nationals closed a $38 million endorsement deal of dollars with Terra shortly before its implosion, so it is possible that the team will spend the next five years promoting a cryptocurrency that has already failed. At least they got paid in dollars. As blockchain cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have become too slow and expensive to be used as functional currencies, they are now little more than speculative investments for people with deep pockets and a high appetite for risk.
This has given rise to another category in cryptocurrencies: stablecoins. While the price of bitcoin varies widely (even simultaneously between different platforms), stablecoins are designed to be exchanged for dollars at a fixed rate. The most prominent, Tether, was pegged to the dollar on a one-to-one basis. Stablecoins are supposed to solve the cash-out problem: there's no need to convert bitcoins to dollars if you can convert them to Tether. That meant Tether needed dollar reserves, dollars it intended to raise from investors. But raising dollars to issue stablecoins does not by itself produce new dollars for investors.