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While the concept of hard cash is ancient, the world is entering a new era in which currency is no longer controlled by individuals or governments. For as long as we transact and exchange services, money will power the world. But to appreciate how malleable currency is, we need to wrap our heads around the greatest illusion of the modern world: We invest hours of each day earning it, but in reality, it has no intrinsic value.
The concept of cash is an ancient one, and it is ingrained in every society around the world. In the seventh century BC, the Lydians replaced goats with coins to make bartering more convenient. They imbued a physical object with nominal value, and that concept evolved over the centuries into the paper bills and coins we carry around in our wallets today.
In , the story of money hit a turning point, and how we measure its value changed forever. When President Richard Nixon took the US off the gold standard, he hammered the final nail into the coffin of the Bretton Woods system and turned the US dollar and, by extension, every other currency in the world into a fiat currency.
In effect, it was the first time that money became divorced from the physical and became its own belief system, puppeteered by the invisible hands of the government.
Today, confidence in central banking systems like the US Federal Reserve is waning rapidly, especially in the world of Trump and Brexit. We are also living at a time when the technological ceiling gets shattered on a daily basis, and consumer needs are driven as much by convenience and novelty as they are by wants and needs. As intimidating as this may sound to the layman, the great advantage of this digitised form of currency is its decentralised nature.
Litecoin, Ethereum and DOJ coin are among the other cryptocurrencies gaining popularity, while the digital currency revolution is even stepping beyond the realm of cryptography. Stan Stalnaker, founder of global collaboration network Hub Culture, created Ven, a digital currency with no borders and no fees — hidden or otherwise.
In , a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation brought Ven to the growing mobile fiat currency system of many third world countries. Stalnaker has boasted that Ven is the most stable currency in the world, making it of particular interest to currency traders, who welcome safe-haven investments during politically unstable times. While some regulated forex brokers accept bitcoin, the decentralised nature of cryptocurrency and its total reliance on hack-prone computing devices have dissuaded most brokers from using it.
At FXTM , we are paying close attention to the ongoing evolution of bitcoin, and though there is not currently a significant demand for it from our clients, it is something we will continue to monitor and consider as a viable option for the future.
Frictionless alternatives Beyond peer-to-peer currencies, there are other alternatives that remove the friction of handling physical money. Payment networks like PayPal and Apple Pay are becoming increasingly common as they embrace the growing digital fiat system. Even in third-world countries, we are seeing a growing trend toward mobile payments: M-Pesa in Africa, for example, uses mobile phones as the primary device for transferring payments and even sends money through text messages.
Carrier billing is another form of payment that connects your phone to an online account, allowing you to book a hotel room with your phone number instead of a credit card, paying for it via your phone bill. In Sweden, the Swish app, which lets people transfer money using their smartphones, has become so popular that many hail Sweden as a trailblazer for cashless societies.
The nature of money changed when it was uncoupled from tangible commodities and measured instead by government policies. Besides mobile-friendly systems, there are also corporate value currencies, which many companies have integrated into their development. Value is derived from what consumers get out of the products and services the company offers, rather than legal tender.
What it comes down to Ever since the US left the gold standard in the s, public confidence in the fiat system has dwindled, fuelled in no small part by a general mistrust of banking corporations and government-controlled mechanisms.
Now it is changing once more, as money moves away from the physical world into frictionless, digitised forms. Consumers too are rapidly doing away with paper money, transacting mostly through credit cards, mobile phones and online payments instead. That said, these systems are still chained to bank accounts — for now. Current technological trends are veering away from traditional banking systems towards a purely democratic system of decentralised currency.
Time will tell whether this technology will be able to overcome its current disadvantages, but one fact remains: We set the value that money represents, so we have the power to take that value away and place it in something else, like a chip or a code.
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