Let's Compared it to traditional financial instruments, cryptocurrencies suffer from (at least) four shortcomings. First, they are not institutionally or legislatively backed; while this cuts down transaction costs, it also makes cryptocurrencies unpredictable, volatile, and risky Second, cryptocurrencies are typically pseudonymous, meaning that users are identified by their public key address (a 32-bit string with a combination of characters and numbers) rather than their name and social security.