Concept

My digital artefact is a trilogy of blog posts which looks far into the future on how cryptocurrency and CBDCs would impact the world and its future economy systems. As a crypto investor, I believe that the blockchain is the revolutionary technology that could drastically change the world in the coming future, hence I felt it was an appropriate topic to present in my digital artefact. We can already notice present trends with mobile payments and credit cards becoming popular forms of payment alongside physical money, and that physical money is sharply declining in popularity among countries like Sweden. Blockchain technology can become the necessary push to drive societies to a cashless future, where the people rely on electronic money rather than physical currency.

Methodology

I decided to produce my digital artefact to consist of three blog posts. The reason behind this is because I wanted to include a wealth of information, made evident with statistics and cultural references to help provide similar connections or analogies for the reader. Videos relay interesting visual information, but they would require viewers to commit to watching the content, which could be lengthy with lots of information. In blog post format, I believe more people can read through the ideas of my digital artefact faster.

The first blog post gives a brief history lesson on how cryptocurrency began, which alludes to the making of CBDCs in the present day. The second blog post connects present day trends which show great statistical increase in electronic payment systems around the world. These trends helped me forecast and envision a future which my related topic would considerably influence, and discuss the foundations on how such a future would look like. My third and final post is built in compliment to my second post, with a greater focus on the social impacts and outlining the differences between the future and the now.

Background Research

As stated in my pitch, I derived much of my research from second-hand sources such as academic sources and news articles. As a crypto investor, I also personally do my own research in looking into the potential of different cryptocurrencies as well. Furthermore, there are also a lot of YouTube videos which introduced me to many new concepts and ideas about the Blockchain which I could incorporate into my digital artefact. These all contributed into building a cohesive mind map of ideas which makes up my vision of the future.

Utility

My digital artefact remains true to my intended target audience as stated in the pitch. Investors, interested students or businesses are the main focus that this digital artefact is aimed towards. The most important thing for any investor is to know the future of their investments, and that necessitates intensive research. This digital artefact may not be immediately helpful for the short-term investor, but I believe it has value in the long term.

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” — Benjamin Franklin

Success & Challenges

Personally, I found the greatest struggle in limiting my ideas of the future to specific applications of the Blockchain. There is an incredible amount of applications that Blockchain technology can offer beyond what my digital artefact discusses, which makes me need to organize my ideas thoroughly to produce an article that isn’t too lengthy for the reader.

There were also a few comments which validates my digital artefact in being helpful, when they noted that they had learned something about cryptocurrency and CBDCs.

Such as:

That’s it for my contextual essay. Thank you for your time.