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Who will make money? Tokens and the ‘5Cs’ of future currency
Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems,
12
(2),
111-121
(2018)
Abstract
The technologies that have changed the payments industry have, because of their distributed and decentralising nature, the potential to change money itself. The change to smart money — money with a memory, interfaces and the ability to make decisions — has wide-ranging implications, starting with the disruption of the post-1971 world of purely fiat currencies. Given that these technologies mean that literally anyone can create smart money, who will? Is the future Bitcoins or Britcoins? This paper explores the new technology of cryptocurrency ‘tokens’ before going on to explore five potential issuers of token-based smart money: central banks, commercial banks, cryptography, companies and communities. Looking at each of these in some detail, it concludes that the apparently radical scenario of multiple currencies more closely linked to communities is both plausible and, for a number of reasons, desirable.
Keywords: digital money; electronic money; fiat currency; tokens; cryptocurrency
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
David G.W. Birch is an author, adviser and commentator on digital financial services. He is Global Ambassador for Consult Hyperion, Technology Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation and Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey Business School. He is an internationally-recognised thought leader in digital identity and digital money, and was named one of the global top 15 favourite sources of business information by Wired magazine. His most recent book, ‘Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin: From Money We Understand to Money that Understands Us’, was published in 2017. Dave graduated from the University of Southampton with a BSc (Hons) in physics.
