Is Bitcoin a Real Currency? An economic appraisal

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A bona fide currency functions as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account, but bitcoin largely fails to satisfy these criteria. Bitcoin has achieved only scant consumer transaction volume, with an average well below one daily transaction for the few merchants who accept it.

Its volatility is greatly higher than the volatilities of widely used currencies, imposing large short-term risk upon users. Bitcoin prices of consumer goods require many decimal places with leading zeros, which is disconcerting to retail market participants. David yermack is bitcoin a real currency faces daily hacking and theft risks, lacks access to a banking system with deposit insurance, and is not used to denominate consumer credit or loan contracts.

Bitcoin appears to behave more like a speculative investment than a currency. Part of this research was completed while I was a visiting professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Screen reader users, click here to load entire article This page uses JavaScript to progressively load the david yermack is bitcoin a real currency content as a user scrolls. Screen reader users, click the load entire article button to bypass dynamically loaded article content. Please note that Internet Explorer version 8.

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Click the View full text link to bypass dynamically loaded article content. Abstract A bona fide currency functions as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account, but bitcoin largely fails to satisfy these criteria. Recommended articles No articles found.

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The bitcoin bible all you need to know about bitcoins

To continue reading this article, please exit incognito mode or log in. Visitors are allowed 3 free articles per month without a subscription , and private browsing prevents us from counting how many stories you've read. We hope you understand, and consider subscribing for unlimited online access. Travelers toured the world subsisting on bitcoins. Senate committee held hearings at which regulators commented favorably on Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.

Bitcoin is not issued by a government or a business but by computer code that runs on a decentralized, voluntary network. Money is supposed to serve three purposes: Bitcoin arguably satisfies the first criterion, because a growing number of merchants accept it as payment. But it performs poorly as a unit of account and a store of value.

During its volatility was three to four times higher than that of a typical stock, and its exchange rate with the dollar was about 10 times more volatile than those of the euro, yen, and other major currencies.

Nor does it correlate with the value of gold. With a currency whose value is so untethered, it is nearly impossible to hedge against risk. Bitcoin also lacks additional characteristics usually associated with currencies. There is nothing comparable to the deposit insurance relied on by banking consumers. No lenders use bitcoins as the unit of account for consumer credit, auto loans, or mortgages, and no credit or debit cards are denominated in bitcoins. Even if volatility subsides and the currency finds a place in the world payments system, it has another fatal economic flaw.

Only 21 million units can ever be issued, and a fixed money supply is incompatible with a growing economy. In a bitcoin-dominated economy, workers would have to accept pay cuts every year, and prices for goods would gradually fall. Everything included in Insider Basic, plus the digital magazine, extensive archive, ad-free web experience, and discounts to partner offerings and MIT Technology Review events.

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