According to a joint study of Imperial College London (ICL) and the eToro investment platform, crypto-currencies are " the next step in the evolution of money" and are on the way to becoming a full-fledged means of payment.
Researchers analyzed the fundamental role of traditional currencies and estimated how much the cryptocurrency is close to matching with it.
Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies already act as a repository of value, as millions of people use them as such. In order to meet the remaining requirements, crypto-currencies need to overcome the problems of scaling and regulation.
"Crypto-currencies develop as quickly as a significant set of terminology that accompanies them. Decentralized technologies can improve everything that is now used in financial systems and financial assets", said ICL professor William Knottenbelt.
"Today, many skeptics deny the possibility of using cryptocurrency as a daily payment system. However, our study showed that the crypto-currencies have already made significant progress in meeting the basic conditions in order to become a generally accepted method of payment. "
"New payment systems or asset classes do not appear overnight. The concept of money is constantly evolving and even now the process of replacing paper money with digital or contactless payments is underway. Crypto-currency and crypto-currency assets are the next natural step if they manage to deal with certain problems: scalability, usability, volatility, and confidentiality, " said Dr. Seiner Gurguk of ICL.
Researchers note that every step in the evolution of money makes the payment process easier. That's why the technology of cryptocurrency makes them the next natural step in the way of reducing friction payments.
One of the possible ways to use cryptocurrency in the near future may be cross-border transfers, which today are expensive and most importantly, very slow. To date, the decentralized nature of crypto-currency already copes with these tasks much more effectively.
"The history of money is the history of the evolution of technologies that replace the old in order to improve the transfer of value from one person to another. Crypto-currencies are the next step along this path, " said Iqbal Gandham, managing director of eToro's UK branch.
"Given the speed of acceptance of the Crypto-currency, there is every reason to believe that in the next decade, bitcoin and other crypto-currencies will become the main payment systems."
