It’s 14 years since the person or persons calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the kick-off white paper on Bitcoin. It’s 13 years since the first block on the Blockchain was mined. And 12 since Bitcoin was used in the first real-world transaction to buy a couple of pizzas.

But just as a week is a long time in politics, 12-14 years is almost an eternity in the life of cryptocurrencies. Since March this year alone, crypto app downloads have broken the 100-million mark for the first time. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, was granted a virtual asset licence in Dubai. And Bitcoin has fallen below $30,000 for the first time since July 2021.

This just goes to illustrate that the cryptocurrency landscape is dynamic, diverse, and complex. This inevitably means two things: great opportunities for merchants and their acquirers to get involved in this nascent space and great risks.

The first RiskConnect Insights event in 2022 will shed on key crypto challenges, current trends in the areas of investigative services, regulation, public policy, and cross-border compliance.