Research: Bitcoin to become 6th most widely spread reserve currency by 2030
Magister Advisors, U.K.-based consultancy which advises the technology industry on mergers and acquisitions, interviewed thirty of the leading bitcoin companies globally to find out a consensus view that bitcoin will become the sixth most widely used global reserve currency within 15 years.
Today the most popular reserve currency (the one which governments and institutions hold in large amounts as part of their foreign exchange reserves) is the U.S. dollar.
Bitcoin is a digital currency that allows
users to exchange online credits for goods and services. It has recently been trading nearly $380. But many market watchers believe the
real value of the cryptocurrency lies in the technology behind the coin
known as the blockchain, a public and transparent ledger of all bitcoin
transactions.
The poll showed that an approximate $1 billion will be
spent by the top 100 financial organizations on blockchain-related
projects over the next 24 months. The blockchain was the most
important advancement in enterprise IT in the last ten years.
"Bitcoin has proven itself as an established
currency. Blockchain, more fundamentally, will become the default
global standard distributed ledger for financial transactions," said Jeremy Millar, partner at Magister Advisors who led the research, in an accompanying press release on Tuesday morning.
Prospects & Criticism
Thirteen of the world's leading banks joined a
project in September to explore the prospects behind using a type of distributed
ledger in the mainstream financial world. Bank of
America, Citi and Deutsche Bank joined Goldman Sachs,
J.P. Morgan and some others which had already signed up.
For many the ledger represents the
real promise while the virtual currency itself is seen by some as having
more of a shelf life.
Besides financials, the public ledger has a batch of other useful applications. Pantera Capital in the U.S. is
investing in a company that is using this technology to help detect forges in the luxury goods industry.
Some analysts consider the interesting part in this story will be the
underlying technology in the bitcoin and whether it facilitates the introduction of
truly digital currencies.
Bitcoin is also well-known for its volatility and has been much criticized for facilitating illegal activity, since it can be used anonymously.
One of the most active critics is Jeffrey Robinson, the author of "BitCon:
The Naked Truth about Bitcoin". He believes bitcoin is a "pretend currency masquerading
as a pretend commodity" and says it advocates resemble "snake
oil salesmen."
Magister Advisors directly addressed this issue of volatility saying that the primary usage of bitcoin today in advanced markets is to speculate. The survey's respondents calculated that 90 percent of bitcoin by value is accumulated for speculation, and not for commercial transactions.
