Anna Tutova is the CEO of Coinstelegram Advisory, a PR firm specializing in technology and blockchain projects. She sat down with Right for Education to talk about her work, the present state of the blockchain space, and where it’s heading.

R: Ed Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your work?

My name is Anna, I’m from Ukraine and we have quite a big cryptocurrency adoption in our country. It’s almost legalised. My company is called Coinstelegram and we have different interests in the crypto space, including an investment fund for new projects, a PR consultancy, and a YouTube channel for reviewing projects and interviewing industry leaders. We have a wide range of services to support projects.

R: Ed Why is blockchain such an important development in the infrastructure of information?

It’s like a recording of data on a chain of blocks and it’s immutable. It’s transparent and has value for removing intermediaries. It’s essentially a very precise and secure form of decentralised data storage.

R: Ed Why do you think crypto is seeing such a surge now?

There are many reasons. As I mentioned, it removes intermediaries, but it’s also very fast and it has a lot of use cases. Blockchains have value in supply chain management for example, and for sending money across borders, as an unrestricted market that’s always open and, again, for its transparency.

R: Ed A word that’s frequently seen in this space is “decentralisation”. Could you tell us what that entails?

It means that no single entity has control over the system and its database. Bitcoin is decentralised in this way. It’s the opposite of the way tech giants operate today. Decentralised finance (DeFi) is getting a lot of attention as a form of currency exchange that allows people to trade with each other directly. Not all cryptocurrencies are decentralised, however.

R: Ed What do you think is the advantage of cryptocurrencies?

The advantage of cryptocurrencies varies. When we talk about Bitcoin, it’s often called “digital gold”. That’s because it has a limited supply and more cannot just be printed as governments can with fiat. So that has value as a long-term holding.

Others offer advantages like smart contracts or even anonymity. I meet people who take that very seriously. They go to conferences with sunglasses and a cap so no one can recognise them. It depends on the coin and how the person wants to use it.

R: Ed What do you think will happen to cryptocurrencies over the next 10 years with regards to regulation?

 I think in 10 years, cash won’t exist anymore, only digital currency. Cryptocurrencies will compete with central banks but overall there will be a big move towards crypto. It’s like the early internet. People were skeptical about the applications and some thought it would fail but it became much more useful.

Cryptocurrencies will support new applications: decentralised browsers, decentralised social media, and so on. I think there will be a degree of regulation that will allow it to go more mainstream. In Ukraine, for example, we put our land registry on a blockchain in 2017 already.

Cryptocurrencies are also the support for Web 3.0. It’s hard to define what that will look like but it’s an ecosystem of decentralised applications.

R: Ed Decentralisation is a big part of the crypto space but do you think it’s important to the average user?

Not really. Like everybody uses Facebook already. People don’t care that much about data. People mostly don’t care that their data is being monetized as long as the product is user-friendly and simple.

R: Ed A big piece of news in the tech space has been Facebook’s rebranding as Meta. Can you tell us what you think the metaverse will be?

For Facebook, I think it’s a marketing stunt. Overall, though, metaverses could do many things. There’s a land of course, and that’s getting crazy prices already but it will also be a place for games, AR, and VR.

Right now it’s all quite hard to understand, but it’s exciting to think about where we’ll be in 5 years.

R: Ed What would be your advice for anyone trying to get into crypto?

The easiest thing is to register with a centralized exchange like Binance, make a deposit and buy some crypto. Of course, there is a lot of volatility so the safest thing in this industry is to buy for the long term. It’s also worth remembering that there are safer cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. If you’re starting you could find the next SHIB (Shiba Inu), but most likely you’ll lose a lot. The important thing is to do a lot of research. Search online, watch videos on YouTube about it, and ask a lot of questions.