I was going through my old notes when I encountered the topic Money in my business studies note.
Money was defined as anything that is generally acceptable in making payment and in settling of debts. It was a simple definition but with lots of hidden information. The hidden information are in form of the qualities of money.
This made me have a kind of thought that when will cryptocurrencies attain the money status. When you look at the definition, you can see different cryptocurrencies tick the boxes.
We have
Hive that can be used to make purchase on https://nftshowroom.com and a number of other sites.
There is the Neoxian bank that offers loan in hive with the user repaying in Hive/HBD too
Bitcoin is also a means of payment in numerous merchant sites. Namecheap a giant in domain name registration and hosting accepts Bitcoin as mode of payment.
There are numerous lending platforms like Nexo and others that offers crypto loans and accepts repayments in crypto.
This means cryptocurrencies fulfill the definition of money. The big question now is what is missing?
This will bring us to the qualities of money.
We have Divisibility, Durability, Recognizability, Portability, Homogeneity, and Acceptability. Those are the major qualities cryptocurrencies need to fulfill to achieve Money Status.
Divisibility
This is the ability to have smaller denominations. Cryptocurrencies tick this box. Bitcoin is currently at $49k+ and you can purchase $10 or even $1 worth due to it having smaller denominations called Satoshi. 1 Satoshi is 0.00000001 bitcoin which means it is massively divisible. Other cryptocurrencies out there are also divisible. This mean Cryptocurrencies tick the Divisibility box.
Durability
This is the ability to last long without getting spoilt. This one is a major win for Cryptos. It's digital currency unlike the notes other countries parade. You see some notes dirty and they act as a vector for numerous diseases. Cryptocurrencies can't get spoilt because it's digital currency. Even if your ledger wallet breaks, you can import your wallet using your private key elsewhere.
Recognizability
It means everyone recognizes it. This is one thing Cryptocurrencies need to work on. A huge percentage of users in the world only know bitcoin and maybe Eth as the only crypto out there. They don't believe we have more than 6000 cryptocurrencies. They don't believe we have some coins and tokens that can be earned by proof of brain such as Hive/HBD/Leo/SCR and others. This is because they don't recognize them. Platforms like coinmarketcap earn, Coinbase earn are doing some good job in that respect. They are trying to enlighten users on the different cryptos we have in exchange for little form of incentive.
We need to spread the word out to more users. The cryptos out there are more than 6000 and it's not about bitcoin alone.
Portability
This means money is easy to carry about. This falls into the same category as durability. What are you carrying around? You can carry $2bn worth of bitcoin in a ledger drive. There are bitcoin ATMs now which makes everything easier. Crypto ought to be termed the most portable form of money out there because your private keys can't utilize 10kb of space.
Homogeneity
This means money spent in one place is the same in another place. Well, crypto ticks this box too. 1 BTC is 1 BTC on any exchange. The dollar value may differ though. This is the same with bringing $100 to a bureau de change operator. The value will be different. There is no difference between Crypto and Fiat here. Infact, crypto offers more transparency and ability to dictate price. You can simply move to another exchange or another OTC user to exchange your coin. Leo and Wleo is another example. They are both the same despite the fact one is on Hive blockchain while the other one is Wrapped Leo on Uniswap.
Acceptability
This means it is generally acceptable by people. This is the main issue cryptocurrencies are facing now. A huge percentage of the world population especially adults don't believe in anything crypto. Infact, they laugh it off no matter how hard you try to explain. I had a conversation with a big school owner in Lagos State concerning investment opportunities. I pitched crypto payment idea to him and urged him to make more research into it since the bulk of his students guardians are young adults. He laughed it off citing it has something unreal and I should stop interacting with anything crypto because it's an obvious scam.
Well, the above is ignorance and also one of the results of unacceptability. The Nigerian government recently banned Crypto transactions and that gave cryptocurrencies more bad light easily exploited by the unsuspecting public. If the government's accept cryptocurrencies everywhere, the citizens won't have a choice than to look at the numerous cryptos out there and pitch their tent with one.
I imagine cryptocurrencies becoming accepted globally, hive and leo with other tribes would be a bomb. Exxp wordpress plugin will be one of the highest installed in the world with many blogs using it.
The opportunity is there for cryptocurrencies to attain money status once the problem of Recognizability and Acceptability is solved.
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Do you think cryptos can attain Money status? Let me know in the comment section.