Bitcoin Forum

Deloitte has released its annual Blockchain report
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/articles/US144337_Blockchain-survey/DI_Blockchain-survey.pdf


These are the first words of the paper...

For those who do not know this company Deloitte is one of the Big Four accounting organizations and the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of professionals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte)

Notice they don't mention "Bitcoin" per se. Instead, they use "digital asset" since they considered CBDC as well, or "crypto-assets" .
Cybersecurity and regulations are the main barriers to mass adoption but they will be very important for decentralized finance.
But overall, the path to digital finance is soon complete.

Forget the cheques, it's good for grandpa. :D (just joking, I still use it myself)
We will all be living with digital money and digital wallets. 5 or 10 years, it's like tomorrow.

The paper is based on a survey of 1,280 executives with an understanding of crypto, digital assets, and blockchain. 320 were from the financial sector, including 70 digital asset pioneers. So not the teenagers at school.

Almost 80% of all respondents said that digital assets will be "very/fairly important" in the near future.

A time period like 5 years or 10 years is really short to witness fiat currencies just being gone. Someday, this will definitely happen. I haven't any doubt about it. FED is continuing to print money like it is nothing. But their action is very important in fact. As they print an amount of money which is more than needed, US dollar continues to lose its value against many other fiat currencies. If governments follow policies like this, fiat currencies can really be gone before the time even most people expected.

A good percentage of fiat cash based transactions cannot be tracked.

Ex: how to track men slipping cash into the thongs of strippers, tips for waiters/waitresses/pizza delivery or businesses that pay employees strictly in cash under the table.

Many cash based transactions cannot be tracked, and so some demographics seek to eliminate cash based transactions, to make it easier for them to track and regulate everything.

Digital assets also can be difficult to regulate and track in some instances. Essentially what we're seeing is an arms race between the surveillance state wanting to track and control everything and paper cash and digital assets which make that job harder for them.

"5 to 10 years" is a running joke at this point. Its what they say when they have no idea how long it will take, but want to throw a random number out there in the hope of people believing "its real" helping to make it a reality.

Its starts with one step and gradually digital assets are going to take over. The greatest experiment of Bitcoin is that El Salvador, it's happening. Government observing the effects in that country influencing crypto companies to come over there and start building business to join the development in the country.

Although CBDC is the most preferred by governments, there will still be no stopping for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, they are going to be used. 5-10 years these countries will also have CBDCs.

Given how we love electronic these days, I am pretty sure that it's a possiblity that can happen but I don't think that fiat will ever be gone, we still have snail mails even though there's already an email right?

Fiat would never be gone and its impossible as long do government exist. Everything might go digital but fiat would still remain.There are transactions where fiat is efficient than on doing digital.

Hence, not all are really that literate if everything would go to digital aspect thats why its really hard to believe on that kind of such full integration but we know on what would

happen in the future thats why lets just take a pinch of salt as of now.

I'd reckon digital fiat would still stay even after said years, Transitioning from the usage of fiat to CBDC seems like it would take quite some time, and I hardly doubt the world could rapidly adjust to the usage of CBDC even. It will happen that we are sure of, but saying it would in the span of 5-10 years seems to be rushing it imo. Not to mention that the only country so far with a solid study and research on CBDC is China, and the rest are still in the process of developing and researching about it. Plus, it's still questionable whether fiat would actually disappear in the first place even with CBDC in place.

In the near future, the most urbanized and technically developed countries with a high level of income of the population may abandon cash. However, even in this case, I am not sure that this experiment will be successful. We see from the example of El Salvador that the population, especially the elderly, are not yet ready to switch completely to the use of digital currency, even if they are decentralized. I want to say that people will only lose from the transition to digital fiat. After all, cash is the least tracked by governments. Therefore, I am not happy with the statements that in 5-10 years we can switch to using only digital money. Of course, digital fiat will go anyway.

I totally agree with the timing given with regards to digital assets taking over Fiat currencies. I do however believe just like you that this might be Inevitable for a number of reasons now seeing how some countries' Fiat currencies are almost worthless but saying or thinking that this will happen overall within 10 years time frame is a bit of a stretch. So I am asking this question, Today Sept. 7 is the rollout of a new law set to make the cryptocurrency legal tender in El Salvador, does this mean that their Fiat currency will be totally abandoned? I guess time will tell with regards to the "Take Over" digital currencies V Fiat.   

Each country is preparing its own country's CBDC. However, there will still be legal currency (paper currency).
Few people in the world have no electronic equipment. If digital currency is implemented, electronic equipment is required. This still needs to be popularized in every country.
The elderly are relatively weak in accepting new things. Popularization takes time.

Yeah, the usual smoke selling from the big 4 that has happened with so many technologies. Once something falls into their hands they will pump the smoke until people think that this technology is pretty much a snake -oil for all the problems in the world and is going to be the next revolution in humanity. They will pump the peak of inflated expectations until they have extracted all the money they can from their clients and then move onto the next thing.

Believe or not, this is NOT good news ... perhaps is not news at all.

You do not have to be a wizard to know that digital assets (aka crypto mainly) disrupts the regular markets. However it doesn't have to mean that they will no longer exist, of course they will be fine however that means we are going to end up with basically crypto AND fiat together, not with just crypto. Fiat will be here forever, it will be 100% guaranteed to be here in 5-10 years, that is already way too quick to make an assumption, like maybe in 100 years that would be true but in 5-10 years we will definitely have fiat.

The only difference to past 10-20 years will be the fact that more and more places will accept crypto and less and less people will use fiat. This doesn't mean that fiat will be gone neither, it will be 90% main option but it will just have lesser usage rate, that's it. Think about cash vs cards right now, a lot less cash is used these days right? People mainly use their cards to pay, same logic.

This is the most important part, it doesn't mean they see government-controlled currency going completely away, they will just be replaced by a different version of "fiat money".
But even so, the period is way too short, debit and credit cards weren't able to even outrank digital payments methods, with Germany, Italy and Spain still having over 80% cash purchases at PoS, no way combined digital payments, meaning CCs, crypto, and CDBC will be able to overcome that difference in just 10 years.


There is no such thing, Salvador is using the united states dollar as a currency.

Not trying to brag anything about fiat but we have to understand that:

1. We cannot get rid of fiat currency so easily since at the end of the day fiat is something which is the only way that the not so fortunate part of the society use.
Do you expect the side vendors in poor parts to use visa? Card? Even bitcoins?
-No
How about we sort this probelm out first, the entire reason so as why fiat is very important is because not every sector of the society is same and therefore we cannot generalize these kinds of terms.

2. Fiat does not really need any mathematics, energy, science, extra education and knowledge, therefore it can be used by the elderly, kids and even the non educated sector, but with Bitcoins and other online banking you might be well off if you would actually know these basic things since these things are a little more complicated.

I disagree. Let me explain

1) Of course, we will not get rid of cash for good. It is simply a matter of usability. For example, it is quite understandable that elderly people have problems with the new technology. Even using a bank card is already a problem.
But society is evolving and must evolve along with progress. It's sad to say but once the elderly persons are dead, the new old people will already know.
Look at cheques, nowadays hardly anyone uses them anymore.

And yes Visa is accepted even in poor countries. Look at my country "Beggars to be equipped with payment terminals to accept credit cards (https://www.actubis.com/mendiants-equipes-tpe-paiements-cartes-bancaires/)" Look in India https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2gy6y8
It costs cheap to use a terminal, the sellers who don't use it is because there is no demand. If there is no demand its because the population is unbanked. In the US there are millions. But Bitcoin solves that

2) Fiat doesn't need energy? Are you sure about this? How the banks are running? How printing money is done?
Education is needed as well. How can you use a bank if you don't understand how it works? No need for mathematic when you want to know how much left can be paid with the card?. Do you know what I mean? The weekly and monthly limits credit card companies have.

Forget what we know as bitcoiners. The population will mainly use "ready to use solutions" with easy-to-use UI etc. They won't even need to be worried about their private keys.

Fiat will surely NOT be gone within a decade.  While digital currencies will be more heard of and known about within the next 10 years, removing cash is going to be hard.  There will always be a way around and cash will probably therefore never cease to truly exist.

Yes, the elderly of our days hardly get accommodated even to the more basic methods of payment such as card.  Times will change soon enough however.  The more this technology sticks with us, the more of the elderly will get accustomed to it and simultaneously, methods of payment become even more user-friendly and newbie-friendly.

Let's think about Bitcoin.  From Bitcoin Core, we now have wallets that are ready for use within seconds post-install.  This is a huge improvement (although SPV is not the best thing) and it did help getting more newbies onto the Crypto train.

On the other hand, card and other digital payment methods are nowadays being kind of forced into our lives.  How many of your local stores have recently (in the recent years) swapped cashiers with payment terminals at which you do the job yourself and how many of these allow cash payments?  What if one day they will have no more cashiers and the only way to pay at your favorite store will be digital?

You see, the more they remove the possibility of paying in cash from our lives the less humans will use it in their lives.  Once accommodated to instant wireless payments, it's hard to bring them back to the ol' paper.  As far as I am concerned, teens nowadays prefer card over cash due to the lack of having to count bills and due to the rapidity of digital payments.  Faster payment equals more Instagram time, right?

Even if they get to at least partially eliminate cash from our lives, it is not going to be a natural switch but rather a forced one.  They want your transactions to be traced and they will try to achieve this through all the possibilities they have.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

5 or 10 years is a really short time period for seeing fiat currencies to be gone. We still need more time to enter the digital currency era completely. Firstly, governments will need to develop their digital currencies and make sure of them about being useful. They will want to be sure about if it will not be detrimental to their economy especially. After making sure of the crucial things, governments will start to decide leaving fiat currencies for good. And this might take more than 10 years I believe.

The President of El Salvador has not issued a law that stops US dollar from being as a currency. I know it will never be eliminated as easy as that as most of the citizens will still prefer to use fiat especially for those who are not inclined using the new technology.

So this will also be applied worldwide. Even if digital coins will become mainstream, the use of fiat will still continue and as long as the government unable to control crypto, so it will not allow fiat transactions will be replaced as easy as that.

This is my major concern.

They are probably referring to CBDCs when they say that digital currencies will completely disrupt paper fiat currencies.

Don't forget that Deloitte, PwC etc. all base themselves on the fiat economy in order to thrive. They will try their best to appease the regulators etc. and it would be too much of a radical truth to say that BTC and decentralised cryptos will disrupt in the near future.

Which means the survey results may not be representative of the public's general sentiment. The respondents have relatively high appreciation of the subject because they know and understand what it is. However, I believe only a minor percentage of the overall population in the world knows about crypto and blockchain. If the respondents were chosen randomly and widely scattered from different classes of people, economic status, education, and so on, the results could have been very different.

Anyway, I don't think the fiat currency will be gone in 5 to 10 years.

I think that it's a pretty wild statement, not everyone is going to cope with the changes because not everyone is as privileged as me or this man who is obviously hyping the market for the possibility. Also, there's going to be a big resistance in order to keep fiat the most used form of currency for transaction.

Well I guess the statement has some possibility to happen but I am worrying for those people who couldn't have the ability to adopt the technology of digital finances. You're right mate not everyone has a privileged like us to be able to learn, to execute and to make ourselves more knowledgeable enough to cope up with a fast changing technology. But at some point also, I am still thinking that digital assets will be one of the circulating finances worldwide but if in terms of internal economy of each country the presence of fiat currency will still be existed.

Digital finance doesn't necessarily mean cryptocurrencies.
Digital fiat money,like the money we have in our PayPal accounts will continue to exist in the next decades.
The global elite is pushing the global economy towards a cashless society,and this process doesn't necessarily mean that cryptocurrencies will dominate global finance.I don't consider CBDCs to be cryptocurrencies.
This survey is kinda made up.They are asking expert in digital finance.Or course that digital finance experts will predict a future without fiat money.They are pretty much biased.

I think the most important word to mention is, "digital currencies" .... because they know it is not going to be a "token" or "currency" that will not be controlled and manipulated by the different governments.

Governments have an issue with the monitoring of Fiat currencies and they want more control over the movement of cash. (When cash change hands, those transactions are anonymous and that is the issue)  

So to make all transactions transparent, governments will get private companies to develop a "GovCoin" that will be 100% regulated. All users of this token will be identified and all transactions will be traceable by these governments. The governments will also have full control over the "supply" of tokens, so expect it not to be a capped supply...but rather a digital version of Fiat currencies.  ::)

Fiat currencies will not be gone in such a short time period I believe. Governments still prefer fiat money to cryptocurrencies. Until they finish developing their own digital currencies and start using it, we will be continuing to use fiat. But when the digital currencies are ready to use, I believe that fiat money will lose its importance and we will all leave them. But I'm not sure about the time period we need to witness this. Maybe I will be wrong and in 10 years, we will enter a completely new era.

Indeed, the poor class is still extended every year and proliferated like leeches in society, it clings to the lives of many people and has never made them escape from the darkness of the economy, human civilization may be more advanced but this class is still intact with its old nature, so fiat is still a detail that will be talked about a lot in the future, serve a lower class section of society. The higher classes will use the online and offline reach for more convenience in the way of life and work, which is necessary to keep up with innovative thinking.

Well it's true that CDBC could become a very important aspect of our financial system in the future, but the concern is that even with the advent of CDBCs, what would change? except that governments would get more transparency in the transactions of the users, currency minting or mining whatever it is called in the new regime would still stay in hands of governments or central authorities which means they could still put out their weapon of inflation by increasing supply of these coins. Secondly government transactions would obviously still be secret and no public keys would be made available of government treasuries which means a common folk would still not know where is his tax paid going.

In fact, the departure from classic fiat is a process that began long before blockchain technology. I have one of the practical experience of work - working in the banking sector. So, servicing fiat money is an expensive pleasure! Cash desks, ATMs, cash collection and much more - these are all costs that are cyclically charged by the costs of each bill or coin that the bank serves! Likewise, retail chains also have money worth money! And as you know, the transition to completely "non-cash" payments will save a lot of money and simplify many processes. And blockchain, today, is another technology that can be a partial solution to these problems. So these predictions are quite predictable!

Fiat will be gone in 5 to 10 years is a delusional statement. The Fed exists and will continue to exist. National governments will continue to issue their national FIATs.
CBDC is also just a solution for the economy and banks to manage money. The recession will continue for years to come and banks will continue to print money to bail out the economy.

Wonder which form of fiat the @Deloi.. is talking about, the physical, digital/virtual fiat currencies or both the physical and digital?
I think whoever the people of that time sees as their government will most likely control their currency especially in centralized manner.
So, if you end up with single world government, it will have ultimate control over the centralized currency/currencies.
It will be difficult for the entity/govt on Bitcoin unless it centralizes it which will be really hard for them at this point. Red line has been drawn, will they dare cross it? Bitcoin should remain a neutral currency and we should be able to print and use it on physical things when necessary.
Will fiat currency still remain by then? Well it depends on the definition fiat currency.

I agree. Fiat is not going anywhere. Digital currencies is just another side of the coin. They should both be respected. One should not be demonized in favor of the other. No one can actually give a true prediction of what will happen in the future. As you have said, "lets just take a pinch of salt as of now".

There is always possibility for everything. The question is how likely that this scenario will happen?
We know what digital assets is doing right now in the financial market but saying that fiat currency will be gone in 5-10 years? I don't think that is appropriate knowing that not all of the people have access to these digital assets that we are using right now.

There are still some people who are just using Fiat currency and don't have any digital things like smartphones etc. Fiat has been there for a long time already and saying that it will be gone for a short amount of time?? It will not happen. Well they might be a big company but still, 5-10 years is a short time frame knowing that all of the people in the world are using it.

When they have their own digital currencies that will be considered "crypto currency" as well, which people may start to use as well. If it is made by the government itself then they will make so much lax laws that will allow people to use it like a regular currency. Think about it, do you use cash or do you use a card? Most of the time people use cards to pay for stuff, which means digitally money moves from my account to business' account when I buy something from them.

Like when I buy from amazon I never pay in cash, I always pay from my account. If everything is so digital already and money moves hand from one account to another account, then why would it be hard for governments to do their own digital currency to be used the same way? That means we are going to see digital currency that governments created take the place of the bank account digital money.

I agree, for me, it is just basically with the time at which they believe that Fiat will no longer be needed which I think is short and it is not possible even though I still believe that digital currency e.g cryptocurrencies will at some point be more popular as some people have already pointed out and when you talk about the elderly being relatively weak in accepting new things, the elders then will be the young now that are already acquainted with cryptos and other digital assets.

Well most of the money of the world is already digital so this is not really surprising and since he is including digital assets backed by governments then this is not really a prediction at all as this is already happening.

However this illustrates very clearly what governments will try to do, they are trying to confuse the people with statements like this, they have realized there is not stopping this revolution and now they want to be in front of it when they have been opposing bitcoin with all their might, but many people can see right through them and they are not going to let themselves be deceived and will invest their wealth on bitcoin and not cheap imitations.

I'm not sure where they got that figure from.

I personally think that central banks simply won't relinquish control that easily.

As keen as I am for fiat to be replaced by cryptos, it is likely only the paper based fiats that are going to be replaced by electronic fiat currencies which is arguably even worse for privacy concerns. So definitely don't think that this prediction will materialize.

I don't think we need to strive to replace paper money with any digital asset. It should be borne in mind that paper money is the most untraceable by governments. States will still not allow their national money to be replaced by cryptocurrency. If we do not want to fall under the general financial control of governments, paper money must remain, although its circulation will be reduced.
Only a few highly developed states can afford to abandon paper money in the foreseeable future. For others, this is still unrealistic.

And also, they should know that not every country or even every jurisdiction in a region will see the definition of "digital currency" in the same way, and I think as you point out most governments will only want the term applied to fiat they control.

I think they will keep crypto to "virtual currency".

I know that anything is possible, but 5 to 10 years isn't enough. Maybe more than that in my opinion. El Salvador is already doing that by making Bitcoin a national currency in their country, being the 1st in the world. We are indeed transitioning to digital ways, so I don't know if fiat currencies will be completely gone unless the respective governments of each country might introduce their own national currency like what China is planning to do it as they're really anti-crypto.

I concour! Very cleverly, Deloitte didn't mention cryptocurrency in their report. Because cryptocurrency is not going to take over the financial controls. It's just that CBDCs will be taking over instead of paper money.

And there's a good reason for it. With CBDC, government will be able to track all our finances, spending and investment. Black money would cease to exist, tax revenue will be all time high and effectively fight money laundering and terrorism financing. There are number of benefits if you think from government perspective. So I completely agree to the fact that in next few years, paper money will cease to exist and CBDCs will take over.

They have reasons to believe that it will be gone, given that the current state of research on CBDCs and the overall trends and interests in cryptocurrencies around the world is improving. More and more huge companies, together with banks and governments, are recognizing the potential of digital currencies if it is integrated in the economy, hence why Deloitte thought that maybe the end fiat is nigh. Perhaps their projection is very sudden, but I can see that fiat will soon be outdated and replaced by digital currencies.

As far as i know, even if digital currencies will become mainstream and be adopted legally, i don't think fiat will be totally gone. They will definitely stay and maybe digital currencies will only be integrated into fiat so that fiat will still be functional in the long run.

I know i am very enthusiastic and optimistic about bitcoin and the rest of cryptocurrencies but admit it, fiat is still benefited by the most part of the world so we can never really tell that 5-10 years from now, fiat will lose its value and will be replaced totally by digital currencies.

I doubt that every nation will see the "virtual currency" as the same thing, there will be different explanations of it depending on the person. However at the end of the day we are talking about so much in the future that we should not really be looking to make that a big deal for right now. If we get to see crypto becoming more and more common, become legal tender and all that, then we will definitely end up seeing something that is more accepted by the governments of other nations as well.

Right now it may not really change the opinion of states in USA just because El Salvador made it a legal tender, but if you see all of Latin America moving towards that, and we see other stuff as well, then we are going to end up with a lot more impact on bigger nations too.

I don't believe this. There have been some news claiming that fiat currencies will be replaced by digital currencies in a short time period like this. But they are missing a point that it is not easy to convert everything to digital in a short time period. We may need even more time than 10 years to be able to use digital currencies everywhere as they will be the main currencies of all the countries. Governments are just doing a detailed research about these currencies now before making a serious move.

That's how it is! We are approaching the digital financial world.
We all know that the current banking system is crying out for change.
Bitcoin pushed the creation of digital money directly and indirectly when it demonstrated the power of money through P2P.
Deloitte is a privileged firm, today we are discussing the future according to its statistics and we have already given a taste of how it will work with all people around the world.
The progress of the inclusion of digital assets is booming.

I am not sure if this will happen only in 5-10 years later, too fast and this world seems not ready enough. Moreover, every country has different conditions. many people are still living in traditional ways, markets, and also payment methods.
Crypto has been more than 10 years, but in my country itself, most people still don't even attract or know about crypto. And crypto is not legal as payment here. So, the government will not let fiat over only 5-10 years later.

Actually, how we use our credit cards, for example, is not a lot different than using digital currencies. The same could be said with our bank accounts. It's all about money with numbers recorded and managed by computers, databases, and algorithms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_deposit). Almost everything is automated nowadays.
Since you think it takes a long time before being able to implement it, take a look at the recent examples we got. It didn't take China, Venezuela, or El Salvador 10 years to set up a digital currency. We already have 3 countries using crypto and/or CBDC.

Years ago we couldn't imagine that.

The fact of being able to use a currency everywhere in each country depends only on the determination of each country to do without the dollar and its "empire".
If the dollar is an international currency, it is solely the result of the Bretton Woods Agreement and the fact that the US is the world's leading power. But this will not last, as we all know. When they are no longer the leader, the dollar will be no more. China is on its way to overtake the US in the next few years.
Even if that doesn't happen, a lot of countries will be tired of the dollar. Look at Iran which is trying to do without petro-dollars because of US policy. By the way, by using crypto



Nowhere the paper says cryptocurrencies will dominate the finance


It's all about information so.

That's a good argument: the persons already know about CBDC and crypto. But why shouldn't it be the same with the mass population? People just need to be educated about it. As I said, it's just a matter of educating people. And believe me, when it's about money, people quickly understand


It depends on how you define "minor". I believe the US citizens are a good sample, right? 11% of the population has already bought/invested in cryptocurrencies (saw it on the news last week). Yet they're no expert in finance, they're the average Joe.

I am pretty sure mainly the physical one. Let's be honest cash has been a thing that is getting less and less used which means that there is a good chance we may not see that in the near future. Of course it is going to be around some more, there are way too many elderly people that still can't use smart phones or even credit cards and scared of what may happen or if they will be scammed only if they use a credit card, think of how hard it is for them to use something so simple.

However as the younger generation grows older and becomes those elder population, then we are going to see much less cash, and much more digital stuff. I do not know about 5-10 years, but in 30 years I am pretty certain that there will be only a few people that use case and we may end up not seeing any new cash printed while digital currencies of nations may get more attention.

Wont happen even on 20 years.Everything might go digital but in the sense that fiat did really make a great role in the past and as long government do exist then its impossible that it would be overtaken
or having some total swap or integration through digital but since we dont know on what would happen in the future then its really that not a sure thing if this would happen or wont.
Basing up on how fast we do progress on then we can really tell that there might be some chances of probabilities but its hard to believe that it would really gone exist that easily
considering government do exist.

I believe that in any case, cash should exist at least for state security, because the presence of electronic devices is not necessary for the functioning of the fiat system, and fiat can exist and function in the most severe conditions of natural disasters and technological disasters. Although, of course, all the emphasis has been transferred to the world of digital currencies for a long time and all states have been betting on this for a long time. Another issue is that digital currencies that are promoted and implemented by states are mostly ordinary fiat centralized currencies under full state control, which operate on new technological platforms, including blockchain.

Yes, I agree with you. It is indeed all about education. A long process of education should precede any step to adopt the use of CBDC or crypto. Incidentally, El Salvador somehow lacked this. However, it might matter a lot whether the country that is about to implement it has a technologically-aware population.

Anyway, people quickly understand only if the talk about money is particularly about how to have some. If it is something else, I'm afraid they are not interested and they don't care. People don't know and care about how the current money works.


I don't think the US citizens are a good example. You guys are simply much ahead. Your homeless has an iPhone. My country's poor doesn't have food on the table. But if the figure in the US is 11%, that simply means the figure in developing countries, which the world has in abundance, is much lower.

Wait of everyone comes from the blockchain sector then who will support the fiat and centralized economy? ;D

I agree that in the next 10 years we may hardly use the physical cash anywhere in this world but the fiat maybe converted into digital or CBDC which are same as Fiat using blockchain technology, we are not growing towards the decentralized finance we are just moving towards digitalized World.

I think they are completely disregarding the disparity among developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries in terms of technological advancement and priorities.

While I do see that developed and some developing countries may be able to adapt, underdeveloped countries would be heavily prejudiced assuming that this shift is soon to be implemented. Transacting using cryptocurrencies require the use of some sort of 'technology' or device that would allow a person to trade their coins. Remember that not all countries have the luxury of shifting toward this kind of implementation as there are other problems that they are more focused on dealing first.

If you are considering central bank digital currencies as one of these digital currencies that they are talking about, then I guess saying fiat doesn’t really make any sense to me. Why I am saying this is because I also consider central bank digital currencies to be fiat, there’s really no difference between the two of them, they are still the same currency just that one is digital and the other is traditional.

If you check the central bank digital currencies that we have been seen so far such as the Chinese yuan, You will see that the value is the same for both currencies. But, this is not the same when you compare the fiat to order cryptocurrencies that are decentralized. So practically, the fiat system is still not going to be Dropped in five to 10 years like they have said, I can’t even imagine that taking place.

One thing I learned from the pandemic is that, if we actually want, things can be much faster than they currently are. If we compare before and after the pandemic era (not over yet but still) the digital transactions have taken a significant growth whether it's online shopping, payments or anything else.

It's not looking likely that fiat currency will be gone in the next 50 years, let alone 5 or 10 years. I am sure we will shift from cash to digital currencies very soon but that doesn't mean fiat is going anywhere at all.

It looks like many people confuse fiat with cash. Fiat means a currency regulated by the government so even digital currencies can be governed by governments.

Fiat won't be gone in 5 or 10 years, there are a lot of countries that massively use cash and also there are a lot of small cities in "these" countries that use only cash and you'll never find POS terminals.
If fiat currency is gone in 5-10 years, this mean that every bank should have internet and mobile banking + it's customers should have fully adopted those technologies. At the same time consider that it's the UI/UX designers job to create user interfaces that will be friendly and easy to use, that's where the Google mentioned that they are working and doing researches for the next billion users that they are waiting for to become part of the digital world. If we add the next billion users and fiat will be gone, then the ui/ux system should adapt the demand of both, the current and the upcoming users.

Btw this process can't be done in such a short time frame, don't think only from your personal experience and from the city where you live. There are countries where people search for jobs and apartments offline, in real life instead of websites because they just don't know. There are people who don't know how to install any app on windows too and there are people who can't do more than call / take photo on their smartphone. I wouldn't be in rush in this case about the adoption time.

I don't think fiat money will be gone in the future. 5 to 10 years is still a short period of time to be fully transitioned to digital money and digital wallet all in all. It would be hard most especially for the poor and developing countries to adapt and adjust to such changes. In addition, I don't think that the government and the central organizations would allow such a thing to happen given that the fiat currency is what runs the economy of a country. If everything will be digitalized, many people will have a difficult time such as the older generations, indigenous people, and the lower class. Because not everyone is privileged enough to have smartphones, Internet connection, and knowledge about the technology.

What I think is the most probable situation that could happen in the next 5 to 10 years is that digital assets and physical fiat will coexist as mediums of exchange. People will have more options and alternative for paying for their transactions may it be online or face to face scenarios. Hopefully, improvements on transacting with either mediums will be smooth and hassle free, giving the convenience and security to both buyer and merchants.

It is true, we are slowly transitioning from fiat to digital, no more paper money, most of us right now are switching to digital money, although it may seem like the world is turning digitally, fiat will still be around, seems unlikely for fiat to disappear in just 10 years, as long as people are still heavily using it and is still a legal tender, fiat won't disappear in such a short period of time.

This is the most likely scenario. Even now all of us are using credit cards, receive their salaries on cards, pay using cards or mobile apps in shops. What is this entire if not transformation of fiat money into some kind of “digital asset”. If terminals will be put everywhere and 24-hour internet connection will be provided the need in paper money will be exhausted. I understand that it’s not that simple but we are definitely on the way of getting rid of paper money.

Obviously fiat money will not be gone. However believe me when I say this, when there is a fall it will not be slow and painful, it will be very quick. Because at the end of the day, bitcoin is a much better version of money than fiat we know all of that, what is fiat really?

It is just showing a paper that proves that you do have that much money, normally that was a gold thing, you deposited gold to a bank and they gave you a piece of paper that showed that you owned that much gold, that turned into the fiat you hold in your hands these days, or digitally in your bank account. It really sucks, and when people start to realize this, and everyone starts to move to crypto, the crash of fiat will not be slow at all, it will literally crash.

It can be seen that you live in a big city, where ATMs and other amenities are at every turn, and you may have enough funds to use it all. Unfortunately, not everyone on this planet lives so well, and such forecasts do not take this into account. In addition, we are now entering a period of climate change on the planet, which will entail continuous disasters and this will significantly slow down the plans of some to introduce digital technologies. There are many more reasons why paper money is unlikely to disappear from our bypass in the foreseeable future. And you shouldn't strive for this either. Paper money is the most untraceable by the government and serves many useful functions.

"With Apple Card, we completely reinvented the credit card. Your information lives on your iPhone, beautifully laid out and easy to understand."

Quote from Apple about their Apple card. In a couple of years you will hardly find any tech company that is not into payments. If you check out how Apple is approaching digital payments, they are trying everything in their power to also find their place in the digital payments industry. Looking at the design of the card, it is quite obvious that they to stick to their overall strategy, which is supposed to suggest exclusivity and special social status.

As for fiat payments going away within 5 to 10 years time, this has been said before - it is not really gone. It just takes on a different form, namely digital. There will still be endless printing and inflation.