The Bank of England (BoE) has published an article on the role of money in the modern economy and one topic was the future of digital currencies and payment technologies. The currency v commodity debate has been going on for a while and the Bank of England is clearly on the commodity side of the argument.
“Digital currencies are not at present widely used as a medium of exchange. Instead, their popularity largely derives from their ability to serve as an asset class. As such they may have more conceptual similarities to commodities, such as gold, than money,” the bank concluded.
Not a generally accepted medium of exchange
Digital currencies were brought up in the context of alternative currencies and recent developments in payment technologies. The advent of e-money and services like PayPal and Google Wallet was discussed and the bank concluded that these forms of money have similar features to bank deposits.
March 13, 2014 at 01:02PM
