All Posts in "Money"

Economics Book Review – The Ascent of Money, a Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson

Cryptocurrency is a digital asset used mainly as a medium of transaction to secure financial transactions, control creation of additional assets and verification of any asset transfers with the help of a strong cryptographic technology. It is also known as a form of digital currency or virtual currency. Unlike central banking systems, it is a decentralized control and financial transaction system that works through a blockchain used mainly for financial transactions.

The first decentralized virtual currency to be developed in 2009 is Bitcoin known as a virtual monetary unit and it works independently without the assistance of any central bank or administrator. Since then, around 4000 altcoins of diverse variants of bitcoin have been developed. Bitcoin is considered as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system where users perform transactions directly without any intermediates.

Blockchain is a data file consisting of numerous blocks that keeps records of all the previous bitcoin transactions and also creation of new ones. The normal average time between each block is around 10 minutes. The most frequent use of bitcoin, is supported by an external software named Bitcoin wallet. By using this software, one can easily store, receive and manage the transaction of bitcoin units. In order to perform transactions using bitcoin, one needs to have an account in any one of the bitcoin exchanges across the globe and has to transfer fiat currency into that account. Thus the account holder can perform future transactions by using these funds. Apart from the bitcoin, some of the other … Read more

Marion Kozub by — December 17, 2023 in What'S Cryptocurrency
What Is Bitcoin, How Is It Different Than “Real” Money and How Can I Get Some?

Bitcoin is a virtual currency. It doesn’t exist in the kind of physical form that the currency & coin we’re used to exist in. It doesn’t even exist in a form as physical as Monopoly money. It’s electrons – not molecules.

But consider how much cash you personally handle. You get a paycheck that you take to the bank – or it’s autodeposited without you even seeing the paper that it’s not printed on. You then use a debit card (or a checkbook, if you’re old school) to access those funds. At best, you see 10% of it in a cash form in your pocket or in your pocketbook. So, it turns out that 90% of the funds that you manage are virtual – electrons in a spreadsheet or database.

But wait – those are U.S. funds (or those of whatever country you hail from), safe in the bank and guaranteed by the full faith of the FDIC up to about $250K per account, right? Well, not exactly. Your financial institution may only required to keep 10% of its deposits on deposit. In some cases, it’s less. It lends the rest of your money out to other people for up to 30 years. It charges them for the loan, and charges you for the privilege of letting them lend it out.

How does money get created?

Your bank gets to create money by lending it out.

Say you deposit $1,000 with your bank. They then lend out $900 of it. … Read more

Marion Kozub by — December 16, 2023 in What'S Cryptocurrency
What to know about ‘stablecoins,’ the ‘bridge’ concerning cryptocurrencies and classic money

In the exploding realm of cryptocurrencies, a new line of monetary products has emerged that has caught the consideration of both of those buyers and regulators — so-referred to as “stablecoins,” which are backed by money or one more reserve asset.

Stablecoins find to provide the finest of each worlds: the steadiness of a standard government-backed forex as well as the privateness and ease presented by crypto transactions. They are generally promoted in direction of traders who might not have the tummy for the volatility associated with Bitcoin, Ethereum and other popular cryptos — which have been acknowledged to see-saw widely in worth on a working day-to-day foundation.

The current stablecoins sector is value some $113 billion, U.S. Securities and Exchange Fee Chair Gary Gensler said previously this month during a speech at the Aspen Stability Forum. He extra that in July, practically a few-quarters of investing on all crypto trading platforms happened among a stablecoin and some other token.

Even social media behemoth Fb is making an attempt to get in on the action, trying to get to launch a stablecoin-like job of its personal of its very own right after its first Libra cryptocurrency efforts fizzled.

As their reputation rises, stablecoins have also recently drawn new scrutiny from authorities and regulators. Federal Reserve officers mulled

… Read more
Marion Kozub by — August 24, 2021 in What'S Cryptocurrency
If Bitcoin Is not Money, What Is It?

Crypto-belongings will disrupt financial marketplaces, crypto-currencies will not.

Talking at the Paris Fintech Forum in June, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, the Governor of the Financial institution of France, claimed that there is no this sort of detail as a cryptocurrency, only crypto-property. I comprehend what he means. Brett Scott, who is always considerate about these kinds of things, recently made a related point. He claimed that just as a little one buying and selling an motion figure for a football “does not undermine the Federal Reserve (which troubles pounds that the two are priced in)” so “swapping a dollar-priced Bitcoin collectible for dollar-priced merchandise does not essentially change the framework of the monetary system”. Indeed it does not.

I have to say, I concur with Francois and Brett. Although some persons (rather rightly, in my opinion) constantly saw Bitcoin as additional of a protest motion than as a practical choice to Bretton Woods and some other men and women observed it as a way close to a rotten international monetary technique, I’ve been quite dependable in my perspective that Bitcoin is not dollars but a new kind of electronic asset that might, in specific conditions, show dollars-like traits.

Some people go more and see it as a new dawn. In the really early times of Bitcoin, I fulfilled a amount of folks who observed crypto-belongings as the foundation for an substitute financial system, a type of trustless base layer for a common “internet of

… Read more
Marion Kozub by — July 13, 2021 in What'S Cryptocurrency