Forum. Financial Innovation launched in 2009, the bitcoin would threaten the States and the central banks, who may find themselves deprived of their power to monetary management with all the related risks. However, there is no real reason – at least for today and probably for a long time – to be afraid of the big bad bitcoin.
The bitcoin is a unit of account that allows you to evaluate the prices of some goods, services, or financial assets ; it is trading against the currencies classic on many platforms. The stock of bitcoins increases at a fixed rate according to a production computer decentralized ; this rate decreases in time, with a maximum limit of 21 million units of account.
At its launch in 2009, a bitcoin was worth $ 12. Today its price is a record breaker : it was trading at 11 000 dollars at the end of November 2017. At this price level and the fluctuations which it has since its creation not have a priori no influence on the monetary policy of the central Banks or economic activity. It can either enrich or impoverish those who participate in that market, and that’s about it…
1.5% of the stock of money is american
Since the bitcoin does not meet substantially any of the three features that characterize a currency : a medium of exchange, numeraire, store of value. This is the first function that the bitcoin is closer to a currency. But it is far from being a medium of exchange widespread ; if it is used to perform some transactions (more than 100 000 traders, and companies such as PayPal, Microsoft, Dell, or Tesla, would accept the bitcoin), it is far from being accepted in exchange of any good or service, such as a real currency. As for the other two functions, given its volatility and the frequent changes of its value to the upward as well as downward, it is obvious that he cannot satisfy, including…
