Open AccessDigital currencies: a problem of trust
Author(s) -
Віктор Козюк
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
ekonomìčna teorìâ
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2523-4293
pISSN - 1811-3141
DOI - 10.15407/etet2021.02.093
Subject(s) - digital currency , cryptocurrency , monetary economics , currency , issuer , electronic money , business , economics , financial system , virtual currency , payment , monetary policy , commerce , finance , computer security , computer science
The rising cryptocurrencies have revived discussion about the prospects of monetary order and the central bank’s role in it. Functionality is in the core of the competition between the forms of money and the payment landscape could be fractionalized affecting further decline in the efficiency of monetary policy. Central bank digital currency (CBDC) is looked by monetary authorities as a way to respond to technological challenge and fulfill the gap of the market failure related to some imperfections of privately issued digital money. The success of each money form is dependent on the trust as a collective experience. The paper raises the question if the central banks are more credible than private digital money when probable change in the age structure matters for the spread of fintech. Based on empirical analysis, it is found that economic agents differentiate digital money of central banks from those of private issuers. Private cryptocurrencies are considered more reliable when inflationary experience is stronger, while central banks’ independence level and financial stability are not factors of higher trust to CBDC. Also, a country’s institutional features do not indicate that successful central banks can use the “the umbrella” of trust to their own cryptocurrencies while the factors of technological advance fail to show a clear significance. Social capital better contributes to the trust to private digital money. At the same time, the age structure is the strong factor due to which digital currencies are more reliable in younger societies. It is concluded that in the case then trust in cryptocurrencies is not grounded on institutional factors that historically contributed to stability of the monetary order, preconditions for the latter’s higher vulnerability are likely to rise. With the growing role of age structure as a factor of higher trust to digital money, the quality of social interactions will become a very important institutional precondition for the stability of monetary order.