A digital Australian dollar could remove the role of middlemen and creates a cheaper electronic currency system, while at the same time enabling the government to fully regulate the system.
The development of distributed trust technologies is making traditional institutions like banks, corporations and governments nervous. Those who have power like to hold onto it. What’s next?
As cryptocurrency systems improve, they will better protect criminals’ identities and even allow people to offer anonymous rewards for crimes they want committed.
Despite its name, cryptocurrency isn’t just money. It could also be debt or equity and so it should be regulated and taxed in the same way as other finance.
Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro
Cybercriminals increasingly depend on e-currencies to profit from their misdeeds. They, and their potential victims, could be driving some of the growth in cryptocurrency markets.
Blockchain technology is familiar to us in the form of digital currency bitcoin. And if it makes it way to the mainstream, could it change the way the world does business forever?
Providing security in the blockchain would convert into a degree of predictability in the technology. If this was shown to work in the long term, it would also create trust.
All over the world people who have been harmed by the conventional money systems are devising alternative currencies, challenging the centralised monetary policy approach.
While the current speculation in crypto-currency and assets should make us pause, this is not a speculative driven bubble like tulips, or gold mining stocks.
Fabrice Flipo, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School and Michel Berne, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School
The digital world is taking more and more space in our lives… and dramatically increasing electrical use. It’s a serious problem given the urgent need fight climate change.