Crypto Awards Season Mean Digital Currencies are Here to Stay

With Fed interest rate moves, stubborn inflation and the dark clouds of recession hanging over the economy, there hasn’t been much news about the world of cryptocurrencies lately. But don’t think the crypto bros and their fans have gone away.

In fact, the industry has been in a celebratory mood lately, with its own awards programs. The latest is the inaugural Binance Awards, sponsored by the cryptocurrency exchange of the same name.

One of the categories was devoted to NFTs or non-fungible tokens, unique cryptographic tokens that exist on a blockchain and cannot be replicated and can represent digital or real-world items like artwork and real estate. The first winner of the Binance NFT Project of the Year award was Remilia Corp., for its Milady Maker project. The NFT project was hailed as a “groundbreaking contribution to the NFT ecosystem” in a media release.

If all this sounds a little over the top, just wait, there’s more. The media release hailed the winning company’s founder for her vision, calling it “a philosophy encapsulating humanity’s next stage of evolution through information networks and a pathway towards a new better internet.”

By itself, those are big claims. But in the world of cryptocurrency it is pretty standard stuff. Much of the crypto landscape is filled with lofty pronouncements about digital currencies as the future of finance, offering the promise of exchange mediums free from the heavy hand of governments. So it’s no surprise that an industry that is so convinced that it is the wave of the future would create its own awards programs to spotlight its movers and shakers and create even more buzz for crypto.

But will it make any difference? Will digital currencies gain more traction because there are awards ceremonies honoring the major players and the new upstarts? Will people begin to see cryptocurrency the same way they view the cash in their wallets or the numbers in their savings accounts?

Every new industry has to prove itself in the marketplace. But digital assets — unlike an automobile or an incandescent light bulb – are not something you can touch and hold. While paper money requires the acceptance of value, at least it is something tangible you can put in a physical wallet or purse. Cryptocurrencies exist on the blockchain, a concept that can be difficult to grasp for some.

There is no small irony that the cryptocurrency business is embracing the old-school concept of industry awards. While NFTs and digital dollars are assets that require a higher level of faith in the reality of things unseen, awards are something everyone can understand. The Academy Award Oscar and the distinctive Grammy award statue are instantly recognizable offer a sense of permanence, signaling that movies  and recorded music are here to stay and not some passing fad.

Perhaps that is the thinking behind crypto awards, to give the intangible a sense of form and substance. That is probably why, with a larger dollop of irony, the Binance NFT Project of the Year award is an actual physical trophy. And that, more than anything else, should tell us the crypto is here to stay, whether we understand it or not.