What are the possible concerns of crypto coins replacing fiat currency? Well, as you may know fiat currencies are backed by the national government and are considered to be the legal tender to buy all goods or services.
It is accepted by all merchants, businesses and people. This particular type of currency is not backed by any physical asset as such, just as the older forms of currencies were.
For around the past 50 years, fiat currencies comprise all dollar bills, coins, as well as the dollars that you hold in your bank account digitally.
Most people and even the governments believe that fiat currencies will last eternally and there will be no shortage of it because the governments can print fiat money according to their wishes and requirements.
However, this is excluding any situations arising due to a drastic transformation or any international takeover such as when EURO became the standard currency for the European Union in the early 2000s.
However, since 2009 with the launch of Bitcoin, a fundamentally different and new type of currency started to emerge – cryptocurrency.
It has a notable growth potential and offers a lot of opportunities. There is an ongoing debate on whether or not cryptocurrencies will be able to replace fiat money or fiat currencies one day.
And, if it does, what will be the consequences of it to the economy, to the current financial system, to the consumers, and to the world on the whole.
If you are wondering about it as well, here is an article that will be of great help.
Contents
What are the Possible Concerns of Crypto Coins Replacing Fiat Currency?
It is true that when Bitcoin first came into existence in 2009, within a year or so most people started to believe that it will create a crypto boom and Bitcoin will be the undisputed leader of the sect.
There is no doubt that over the decade or so it has proved its mettle and has become the fundamental coin of the crypto industry.
According to some reports, until the beginning of this year, Bitcoin accounted for the huge preponderance of the market cap of the crypto industry.
Following its footsteps, other major crypto coins such as Ethereum, Ripple, and more rushed in within a very short span of time to catch up with it. However, Bitcoin is still leading the way.
Nevertheless, it is the huge growth potential and the excessive turnover of the crypto industry that is worth taking a notice.
It has raised a question among the market analysts and financial experts quite naturally – whether or not crypto can become actual currencies and replace cash.
A few of these analysts and experts have even gone a step ahead to predict that there are even bigger changes yet to happen in the financial sector as well as in the crypto industry in the future.
And, this is where the concerns of these analysts and financial experts lie.
However, you can rest assured that it will not happen overnight.
In fact, crypto is as such in its nascent stage and is developing on a daily basis.
Therefore, it will take at least another decade, if not more, even to start making such a complete transition.
Still, such a transformation seems inevitable and therefore the economy, financial sector, and the world on the whole need to take several vital steps in order to do away with the concerns in the minds of the crypto traders, investors and others.
These steps include and are not limited to:
- Improving user adoption dramatically
- Raising trust and building confidence among the crypto traders and investors
- Building the right infrastructure and
- Doing away with the vulnerabilities in the system.
Most importantly, it is required to impose better and more effective rules and laws to control money laundering and other unfair practices that are so common within this specific industry.
However, it should not affect the reliability and spending power of the consumers in any way or at any cost.
Only when the concerns are addressed by the regulators in the right way will it solve the main issues regarding the adoption of cryptocurrencies by the masses.
It will increase the rivalry of it with fiat currencies and will also allow people to reap all the benefits that this new digital financial system has to offer.
However, for that it is required to know how crypto would impact the economy and the concerns when it does replace fiat currencies.
It is only then the viability of imposing new rules will be established.
The Impacts
There is no doubt that crypto by itself will have some significant impacts on the consumer behaviors as well as the entire industry.
As the experts indicate, some of the most significant impacts of crypto in the future would be as follows that may result in a complete crypto takeover.
It will result in a growing interest among the consumers just as the industry witnessed one during the Bitcoin rally in 2017.
There will be a large number of people taking onto crypto buying, selling, investing, and mining.
This will result in an increase in the price of the coins due to the increase in demand.
This is the simple theory of economics – a rise in demand will result in a rise in price.
Therefore, the increased level of interest and adoption of crypto will be the first stage of the transformation and it will be the stable currency of households.
It will also have a notable impact on the industry on the whole as well as in its response to such changes.
As it is, more and more businesses are accepting Bitcoin and other crypto coins already as a mode to transfer funds and also as a medium of exchange.
There are lots of merchants that accept Bitcoin and other specific crypto coins as a mode of payment as well.
This is only expected to grow as the interests in the consumers grow.
There will also be a war for survival between the physical and digital retail stores.
At some point of time, the predominance of crypto coins will make online shopping much easier, faster, and even more attractive.
At that point, the physical stores will have no other alternative but to accept and adopt the virtual coins in order to survive and catch up and stay alive in the competition with the online stores.
On the other hand, other industries such as the finance industry will have to find new ways to create a feedback loop and respond to consumer demands as well as create more of it.
As a result the whole finance industry would gravitate to products and services that are typically crypto oriented.
The impact of such transformation on the government as well as their response will also be worth noting.
As you may know, the governments all over the world have a vested interest in backing fiat currency and keeping it active and its demand high.
This is because it is something that they can govern directly to create an impact on the economy, much unlike crypto.
Typically, the governments do not incentivize and not even tolerate crypto.
That is why China has banned all sorts of crypto transactions in the country since September 2021.
However, with the growing interest and adoption of crypto among the consumers who will indulge in trading the coin the governments will have to create and implement better defined and stricter regulations to control trading crypto freely.
This means that they will have no other alternative but to be compelled to recognize the currency.
Another big impact of crypto will be to the nation when the preponderance of the population will be using crypto freely and openly.
This will ideally be a big leap towards the national adoption of cryptocurrencies.
The federal government will have to create a lot of crypto-friendly policies that will facilitate crypto trades.
Therefore, the government will have to acknowledge the benefits of an all-crypto model.
If they do not, they will eventually have to give in to its inevitability and start creating a plan for the complete transition of the country from a fiat system to crypto.
Crypto transformation will also have an impact internationally thereby pushing its adoption.
Though this process will be slow it will be sure because more and more countries will start to get on board with crypto and follow the same measures for adoption.
This situation will be rife for one or a sequence of very similar currencies that the international system will rely on.
The Concerns
As of now, looking at the growth potential and the market cap of crypto, it is certainly not unnatural to believe that it will be adopted by the masses soon and will transform the existing financial system by replacing fiat currencies.
Now, for every so-called good thing to be adopted, the concerns related to it must be identified and done away with.
There are of course a few big challenges and concerns with crypto replacing cash as well.
It is a fact that when Bitcoin was first launched way back in 2009, it surely created a frenzy and a lot of buzz in the financial sector especially.
There were even a lot of businesses that started to accept Bitcoin as a medium of exchange.
However, over time the frenzy ebbed slowly and the list of businesses accepting Bitcoin started to dwindle.
This brought the initial skepticism regarding crypto being accepted as a medium of exchange back and raised a lot of concerns among lots of people.
Here are the possible concerns for crypto replacing cash.
Typically, the traditional currency will lose its value if crypto takes over cash, and there will be no scope for recourse in terms of usage and value as well.
This is a significant fiat currency woe because most people rely on it now and will also do so in the foreseeable future.
Cash will become incompatible all of a sudden and there will be a lot of difficulties faced by the people as well as the government to cope up with such a transition.
This may even leave a lot of people with their fiat savings lost, forever.
It will also need building a completely new infrastructure in order to allow crypto to function properly and let the world adapt to it. It is not easy to recreate a financial system completely from scratch.
It will take a tremendous amount of effort, time, and money even for the most modern and developed country.
All established banks and financial institutions will also have to scramble to find quick ways to respond and change their ways of functioning and the entire mechanism that supports it.
And, in addition to the impact of crypto on the individual consumers and the financial organizations, the governments will also not be exempted from their own share of sufferings when crypto takes over.
The governments usually control the fiat currencies but crypto, being decentralized and unregulated, will operate with less or no governmental purview.
This means that the governments will no longer be able to dictate the amount of currencies to be printed.
In fact, generation of new crypto coins will depend entirely on the autonomous mining operations.
Transition of crypto from cash in a newly created financial system may also lead to financial volatility.
It may also result in an increased consumer uncertainty. All these will negatively affect the financial industry and result in its collapse.
They will not be able to hold assets of the consumers as reliably as they used to or charge transaction costs that help them to function and survive.
The fact that everything in crypto, right from maintaining the supply of coins to transferring of funds, is done electronically and typically based on the Proof of Work consensus mechanism, it lacks capable, experienced and proper oversight.
This may lead to other significant issues.
There will be a lot of confusion among the consumers as well as the government since there are hundreds and thousands of different types of crypto coins available in the market right now.
As it is, with the number growing significantly with each passing day and new ICOs or Initial Coin Offerings being made daily, a lot of confusion has already been created in the market and among the consumers.
In such a situation it will be really impossible for anyone to decide which particular crypto coins to select as the standard or whether to accept a variety of different types of crypto coins and how the exchange rates can be tracked.
There will be a lot of issues and questions arising in relation to investing in crypto in particular when such a transition happens as well.
As you may know, investing in crypto coins or trading with them to make profits need a significant amount of technical skill and at least the basic knowledge about the working process of blockchain.
This means that people who do not have such knowledge will not be able to make any investments leaving the market short on its expanse.
Moreover, storing and trading crypto coins need a crypto wallet which is a digital wallet that can only be accessed with the private key.
Loss of this key will mean losing the asset forever.
Therefore, storing this key is an elementary and primary concern of the crypto investors and traders to prevent it from loss, theft, destruction or compromise otherwise.
This will prevent any unauthorized person from accessing your crypto wallet.
Crypto trading or transfer of funds is usually done on dedicated crypto exchanges or third party platforms.
These service providers may not have adequate and sophisticated security measures in place.
This will enhance the risks of hacks and other types of cyber threats and crimes.
Once again, this will mean loss of funds forever since there is no central authority to complain and request to take any action.
There is also a chance of a malicious actor or a group of them taking control of the blockchain network by performing a 51% attack.
Though this is very costly and a less likely thing to happen, if it happens then the blockchain may be altered and the money transferred to the address as desired by the attackers.
This will result in loss of assets forever, once again.
Since crypto transactions are usually peer-to-peer in nature, there are some risks related to it as well.
Since there are no intermediaries to oversee these transactions, there is always a high chance of double selling or double spending in a transaction.
Moreover the trading platforms and exchanges offer very little transparency with regards to their operations.
This increases the risks of fraud, scams, business failure, and security breaches.
If any such thing happens with an exchange there will be no way to compensate the users for their losses.
This may not need to happen only when you trade on these platforms.
It may also happen when you use them to convert fiat to crypto or otherwise.
Seldom do these exchanges have an emergency fund to deal with such circumstances.
There is a significant concern regarding the value of a crypto coin in the market.
This is because this value is typically dependent on the market sentiment, which, in turn, depends on the confidence of the participants in the market.
If their confidence drops they will not trade with a specific type of crypto anymore which will result in the drop in value of it.
Therefore, if this specific crypto is considered as a standard for the new financial system the overall value of the market will be left to uncertainty.
The regulations regarding crypto, whatever little it has now, is inconsistent and varies across jurisdictions.
This is another concern because if cash is replaced by crypto, should there be any dispute, it will be very hard to settle.
No one will be certain as to which particular jurisdiction will be favorable and which will be against it.
Therefore, businesses may not be very keen to expand their operation beyond the jurisdiction they already know and favor.
This will result in restricted trading.
Talking about regulations, the regulators themselves are concerned about the possibilities of using crypto to launder money or to fund terrorism activities by the bad players.
Therefore, they are quite apprehensive about giving it a green signal.
In fact, a few financial experts believe that in the future the regulators of a few countries may even impose restrictions on acquiring, owning, holding, selling or using these virtual currencies.
This will once again result in restricted trading.
A crypto transition will result in interruptions in deposits or withdrawals depending on the policies followed by specific governments of specific countries.
This will impact international business. Such interruptions will not only impact the trading volume but will also decrease the value of the currency as well as the products to be traded.
There is a lot to do to ensure that the government gets proper returns in terms of taxes from crypto as it does from fiat currencies.
As it is, there are lots of substantial uncertainties regarding tax treatments when it comes to the investors of the digital currencies.
They themselves do not know in the first place which particular transactions should be considered as a capital gain and should it be reported to the IRS or the Internal Revenue Service in the tax report.
Moreover, the tax implications on crypto also vary from one jurisdiction to another.
In some jurisdictions it is considered as assets while in some others it is considered as a currency.
Therefore, the investors and traders do not know for sure whether or not sales and Value Added Taxes or VATs are imposed on buying and selling of crypto coins in a few jurisdictions.
Such lack of uniformity will create a lot of confusion and a lot of traders and investors may face legal and economic consequences unnecessarily.
Therefore, a uniform tax rule is required in the first place.
When crypto replaces cash, it is needless to say that the activities on a particular blockchain network will increase incredibly because a very high volume of transactions will happen at the same time.
Each of this large number of transactions will need to be verified instantly which is not an easy process and involves a lot of other allied costs as well.
This will slow down the network since every node will be working overtime and often beyond their capacity.
This is against the principle of crypto which is to help people make a transaction fast.
Last but not least, crypto can result in dilution because increase in competition among the miners and workload on the network may result in a fork in a blockchain.
As you already know that cryptocurrencies operate on specific protocols that govern the P2P interactions between the different users.
If there is any dispute between them as to which protocols to be used or any other, it may result in a fork.
This means that there will be two separate networks of the same digital currency. This will only add to the confusion.
Typically, the investors will have no hand or role to play in the switching of traditional cash to crypto no matter how they feel individually about the prospects of it.
Still, to end on a positive note it can be said that the good news is that there is a lot of speculation on the crypto industry which is considered as nothing but a bubble that will eventually burst.
This makes it quite likely that the possible prediction of crypto taking over the financial system altogether in the future is overblown.
However, what is very difficult for the people, especially the crypto investors, is that everything that is related to crypto tends to change very quickly and therefore it is very tough to always make a right prediction.
Most importantly, until and unless the issues, challenges, and concerns in the present crypto environment are resolved, cryptocurrencies replacing fiat currencies is not going to happen, if at all, soon.
Therefore, at this moment you can invest in it or continue to trade with crypto coins just like before and have trust in the regulators and governments that they will surely do something fruitful and effective to save you, others, and the economy overall.
The Benefits
However, there is no reason to believe that transition of the current financial system will have negative effects on the economy and the people only.
There are also a few good sides of it as pointed out by a few crypto analysts and financial experts.
One of the most significant advantages of crypto surpassing fiat currencies is that it cannot be manipulated quite easily as it is possible with the fiat currencies.
This is mainly because it is decentralized in nature and operates in an unregulated market system.
No single person can take control of the system which increases its reliability, safety, and security quotients.
In addition to that, cryptocurrencies will also support the theory of a universal fundamental income in a much better way than the fiat currencies would.
As a matter of fact, there are quite a few programs that have been experimented already using crypto as the mode of disbursement of universal basic income.
And, not to forget the fact that crypto would help to do away with the need of intermediaries such as banks to make everyday transactions which will cut down the cost of businesses, allow faster fund transfer, and help out the consumers in ways more than one.
Since, supply of crypto cannot be more than its hard cap, the chances of it creating a hyperinflationary situation is eliminated.
Fiat currencies can be printed as much as it is required which may lead to inflation.
Therefore, even the coins with a smaller cap will not be prone to price manipulations because sufficient volume and a fixed supply will make them immune to such strategies.
The cost of circulation can be eliminated entirely because crypto coins exist only digitally and therefore there is no cost of printing involved as such.
As for fiat money, the cost of creating an American penny is more than 1 cent and its value is dependent completely on the trust of the consumer.
The funds will be more protected against frauds than cash or any other method to exchange conventional currency.
This is because cryptocurrencies typically rely on and all the transactions are made on the blockchain.
Every record is verified and approved by all members of the network to establish its legitimacy.
Conclusion
It is not absolutely impossible for crypto to replace fiat currencies altogether in the future and outdo the usual financial system.
However, it will have serious other impacts that the world is concerned about, just as this article pointed out.
I have special interest in crypto and intend to help common people to gain knowledge about the digital asset as well as its potential. Follow Me at Linkedin.
