Cryptocurrency
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A cryptocurrency is a virtual digital currency based on cryptography and peer-to-peer networking, for example Bitcoin.
Sometimes known as 'crypto-assets', also written cryptoassets.
Regulators and some commentators prefer these terms, as a reminder that cryptoassets are not currencies in the traditional sense.
- Cryptocurrency, central bank digital currency (CBDC) & regulation
- "A CBDC would be fundamentally different to cryptocurrencies or cryptoassets.
- Cryptoassets combine new payments systems with new currencies that are not issued by a central bank...
- Our Financial Policy Committee has assessed cryptoassets and concluded that they do not currently pose a risk to monetary or financial stability in the UK. However, cryptoassets do pose risks to investors and anyone buying cryptoassets should be prepared to lose all their money...
- HMT’s proposed approach [is] for an overarching framework to bring crypto-assets into the scope of activities that are regulated – the ‘regulatory perimeter’."
- Bank of England - CBDC versus cryptocurrency.
- Case for cryptocurrency is weaker than for blockchain
- "The use case for cryptocurrencies – from providing an alternative to expensive and entrenched traditional finance to enabling anonymity and an escape from government-held monopolies – seems feebler after the many scandals and frauds that have plagued the sector.
- The idea that cryptocurrencies are an inflation hedge, which is supposed to work thanks to crypto’s limited supply, took an especially hard beating.
- It turns out that not only do cryptos not hedge against inflation, but they act as a typical risk asset, so are extremely cyclical – the demise of the sector has been very similar to the wider tech sector pullback.
- ... the economics use case for cryptocurrencies is not to be confused with the use of blockchain technology.
- Solving an important economic problem – that of trust between contractual counterparties – blockchain is probably here to stay, especially after improvements in its appalling energy inefficiencies.
- It’s true that commercial blockchain technology applications have also experienced several significant drawbacks lately.
- But this seems more a part of a wider tech downcycle, which blockchain is likely to survive – especially as computing power gets cheaper still."
- Tamara Basic Vasiljev, Senior Economist, Oxford Economics - The Treasurer, March 2023, p20.
See also
- Altcoin
- Bank of England
- Bitcoin
- Blockchain
- Blockchain Governance Initiative Network (BGIN)
- Central bank digital currency (CBDC))
- Centralised finance (CeFi)
- Cryptoassets
- Cryptocurrency mining
- Cryptography
- Currency
- Decentralised finance (DeFi)
- Digital currency
- Ether
- Fiat currency
- Financial Policy Committee
- Gold standard
- HM Treasury (HMT)
- Libra
- Money
- Non-fungible token
- Peer-to-peer
- Regulation
- Ripple
- Virtual currency
