The whole world is still wondering what this bitcoin is. While regulators, economists and financiers are thinking, the European Central Bank is already thinking about how Bitcoin will influence the global economy in the coming years.
It is foolish to deny that Bitcoin has no influence on the current economic situation. At the moment, the capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is $ 263 billion, while the capitalization of the stock market has exceeded 65 trillion dollars.
But with such a small capitalization, we see that blockchains are actively used in the banking sector.
Bitcoin – New Dollar
Initially, the creator of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto set himself the goal that bitcoin was perceived not as a one-time service or commodity, but as a valuable currency that would be actively used in different areas. Satoshi said: “Bitcoin will become currency when the goods in the head are calculated not in dollars, but in BTC”. Unfortunately, this has not happened yet.
Why then can't Bitcoin become a fiat currency? Most likely the main cause is decentralization. It turns out that there is no central regulator that would control the situation on the market.
Volatility also interferes, the rate is unstable and constantly changing. Because of this, bitcoin does not attract many in terms of fiat currency. Many states because of this refuse Bitcoin.
But at the same time, BTC is useful for counterparties engaged in international trade.
According to the company Bitwage, which deals with cryptocurrency payroll projects, in 2019 alone more than 300 billion dollars passed through it. At the same time, remote employees of Facebook, Google, Augur, Uber, Airbnb and other large international companies get their salaries in cryptocurrency. This practice has become possible due to the high speed and low costs of such transfers.
The ECB came to the conclusion that cryptocurrency is now having little effect on the economy. However, this may change if cryptocurrency will replace money or deposits. This may be true of steaklocks, but they still need further observation.
The head of US Global Investors, Frank Holmes, said that cryptocurrencies are already acquiring an alternative asset class and could become new gold. He is fully confident that despite the “cryptozyme”, the industry continues to actively develop, and the number of Bitcoin users is growing every day.
To my great regret, the likelihood that central banks will suddenly transfer their money to BTC is very close to zero. Except for the high investment risks and the threat of undermining the monopoly of central banks for printing money, cryptocurrency does not represent anything for them.