When a lingerie tycoon launches her own brand of crypto-currency you know there’s a big change coming in the world of finance.
Baroness Michelle Mone may not be the first business figure to make a sideways move into this sector, but it’s a development likely to bring this form of currency to the attention of a new audience.
The initiative to launch a currency called the Equi comes at a time when the value of crypto-currencies have experienced great volatility, with bitcoin topping out at $18,000 last December before falling significantly.
Other crypto-currencies have seen their values strapped into rollercoaster rides, rising and plunging then rising again.
If you work in the financial services sector, you’ll have been watching all of this closely and asking yourself if cyber cash is going to stick around or vamoosh once the bubble bursts.
You may even have heard Bill Gates warning the wave of speculation surrounding crypto-currencies is “super risky for those who go long”.
There’s no surefire way of telling, although there is a precedent to consider.
In 18th Century Holland there was a rush on tulip bulbs. At the height of the craze single bulbs were changing hands for the price of town houses in Amsterdam. Everyone from the rich merchants who made the country’s fortune to the humblest citizen was speculating on buying and selling the most sought-after bulbs.
But there was a fly in the ointment – or should that be Champagne? The petal streaks and colour breaks that were most highly-prized were caused by a virus that ultimately weakened the bulbs.
In the end the entire market collapsed overnight, leaving many people ruined.
But the story doesn’t end there. The craze wasn’t complete madness because time would show there was real money to be made from tulips.
Today the Dutch grow two billion every year, exporting cut flowers and bulbs around the world. It’s the country’s biggest export, a major employer and also a source of international tourism as visitors flock in spring to the bulb fields and tulip gardens.
Will investors be wailing if crypto-currencies bottom out now? Or will they be cool and collected in the knowledge that, like tulips, they may well recover.
Sometimes it’s just a question of waiting for the right time to come.
Meantime, if you want to get in on all the best action, check out the latest vacancies in Financial Services from s1jobs.