Who will make money? Tokens and the ‘5Cs’ of future currency

David G.W. Birch
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David G.W. Birch: Global Ambassador, Consult Hyperion 15Mb Ltd. 1 Armadale Road, Woking, Surrey GU21 3LB, UK

Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems, 2018, vol. 12, issue 2, 111-121

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 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E5 G2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:jpss00:y:2018:v:12:i:2:p:111-121

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