Bitcoin – Future global currency or big bubble?

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When I first saw a movie In Time starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Sayfried last year, I began to wonder if it is possible to unify the global payment system. I am not talking about extending a person’s lifetime, as it is shown in the film, but one global currency. For those who like sci-fi and various visions of the future world, I strongly recommend this film. But let’s talk about cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin in particular.

In Time (2011)

Is it possible for Bitcoin to become world’s global currency? With the market cap of nearly $100 billion it surpasses its crypto competitors and is definitely the most popular one. Just imagine how convenient it would be, going abroad and not thinking about exchanging the currency, doing business with international partners and not worrying about the decline in the value of a particular currency against other. America will never accept euro as its own currency, eurozone on the other hand will never accept dollar as the local currency. The same is happening with other great powers and their currencies. And at this point a bitcoin appears. Cryptocurrency, which is decentralized, has no bank over it, and all transactions are extremely difficult to trace. Sounds beautiful? Unfortunately, it also has its disadvantages. Thefts are also extremely difficult to trace and decentralization has its pros and cons.

The questions is what Bitcoin holders are expecting it to be? Do they hold it just to sell it with profit, to speculate, or do they believe that one day it will become global currency, commonly accepted in all countries by all shops and institutions. Right now you can pay using Bitcoin in some restaurants and shops but still it is long way for Bitcoin to be widely used. On the other hand, we are seeing increasing interest from the states and institutions. The Swiss city of Chiasso has recently made it possible to pay taxes with bitcoin, state institutions see a profit in it and we hear more and more about the possibility of taxing all cryptocurrencies. European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi recently said that ECB has no power to regulate Bitcoin and that cryptocurrencies are not mature enough to think about regulating them. So we can breathe a sigh of relief, because in the near future politicians will not put their hands on it, but unfortunately investment banks will, Goldman Sachs is thinking about trading Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. If this happens it will just be another speculative asset.

 

 

Sources:

In Time movie

Cryptocurrencies market cap

Regulating the cryptocurrencies

Swiss town to accept tax payments

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6 thoughts on “Bitcoin – Future global currency or big bubble?

  1. Mariia Manoilo says:

    HI! I enjoyed your article very much!
    In my opinion, bitcoins have a huge potential nowadays, due to fast emerging technological innovations and new ways to implement cryptocurrency everyday. Therefore, it may be a right decision, if you are up to invest in bitcoin. For example, according to LinkedIn, bitcoin soared to $11,000 on last Wednesday before falling sharply to below $10,000 in the late afternoon Eastern Time. The cryptocurrency hit $11,155.20 around 9am EST, according to CoinDesk. Bitcoin has already risen more than 70% since October (Bloomberg) and over 900% since the start of the year (Fortune), and hedge fund manager and “bitcoin buff” Michael Novogratz predicts the digital coin will reach $40,000 by the end of 2018 (CNBC).

  2. Alevtyna Chernykh says:

    Hey) Great article!
    To my mind, it is good to think whether bitcoin will become a global currency or not. For now, it seems to be the most trusted currency, as it does not have major regulations over it, because it stays somewhere over there on the internet and the governments are not really controlling it. So, until it is not that controlled, we might trust it, as there is not that much conspiracy over it. In general, right now, I think, it has already become some kind of international currency, at least in some places, as it is used in different countries. However, this currency is considered to be somehow free and more protected, though it will not stay for long, because, I am sure, as bitcoin gets stronger and rises, the regulations will come and it will become just another currency that is used and is taken into account globally, like gold.

  3. Agnieszka Ryszawa says:

    I think it’s already a global currency – you can pay for things on the internet with it – which means it’s global
    History shows that some people in the past had unlucky moments like buying two pizzas with 10,000 BTC – now we can think of it as “most expensive pizzas ever”.
    Issue for me is that you can quite happily use it to buy weapons, drugs and other illegal commodities – tracing you would be nearly impossible.
    On the other hand it’s really safe – validating over blockchain and so on – so you dont have to worry about hacking.

  4. Valerio Pettinicchi says:

    Excellent article. The Bitcoin theme is very current nowadays! In my opinion the cryptocurrencies have many advantages such as independence from the supervisory of structures such as the state or the banks, being in limited quantity in circulation (21 million units) you can avoid inflation and certainly the globality. Given these advantages, in my opinion, however, there are very worrying disadvantages. Think, for example, of the fact that it is a digital currency and our bitcoin’s wallet is digitally saved; What could happen if our wallet has hacked after we collected a lot of money? Furthermore, anonymity is another disadvantage in my opinion. This hides many risks such as the possibility of buying weapons or improper material. However, as mentioned in the article this could be a financial bubble with other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum (ETH) or Litecoin (LTC) that could replace it in the future.

  5. Myriam Kijowski-Tran says:

    Szymon,

    For me this is the most current subject. Recently, everybody around me talk about Bitcoins. I strongly believe, like you, that the main idea of it is super and gives lot of hope for a worldwide community, but in the near future it would be too difficult to improve it in way that it would be regulated. The money currency of each big power represent in a way the economical power of the country. Loosing it would be too difficult for big regions as American dollar, euro zone or Chinese currency. Moreover most of the people investing in bitcoins do it for the new trend of making profit on this particular new investment that nobody really know how it will finish. I think only few people invest in it for the ideal future purpose. Indeed even big banks now invest in it, which start to be dangerous and show the same schema of the crisis of 2008. So I think that I could invest in Bitcoins for a really short period of time just for an little profit but I would to keep this investment on a long period of time.

  6. Szymon Muzia says:

    Well, a few months after writing this article, we can see what is happening with Bitcoin. It becomes more and more speculative asset. Loss of 50% of the value in just one and a half month just proves that. I really hoped it will be something more…

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