Written by Jay Blaskey, Digital Currency Specialist at BitIRA

It’s been a very exciting year for cryptocurrencies. As adoption within financial markets exploded, a surge of people became interested in the massive potential within the digital currency space, and the market value of most major coins grew tremendously.

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In the past 12 months, cryptocurrency projects have devoted substantial resources toward technical development. It was necessary to improve the underlying infrastructure in order to support their wider adoption, and that has come from increased levels of innovation and development across a wide variety of industries. In the long-term, as transaction volumes with cryptocurrencies continue to rise, this type of structural investment will be particularly important.

Another important development this year arose in the international payments market, with some of the top cryptocurrencies now being vetted by major providers of international payment solutions as a means of enhancing their existing networks. Cryptocurrencies are so attractive to these corporations because of their huge potential to transfer value outside of the traditional banking network to the billions of unbanked around the world, quickly and at costs lower than what we perceived to be possible just a few years ago.

All these factors play a significant role in the future, as cryptocurrencies gain wider adoption and the market as a whole continues to mature. But, what considerations should potential cryptocurrency investors take into account before diving in, and are there any tricks to the trade?

Recognizing Short-term Pain

Of course, the news headlines have not been all sunshine and rainbows for cryptocurrencies this past year. Most people are well aware that the market has experienced a huge amount of volatility. That said, the positive developments outlined above put the recent downturn –caused by a few short-term cyclical factors – in context.