Interesting statement recently by
The Bank of England on bitcoin.
Amongst other things (including a good explanation of monetary systems and bitcoin) it states that :- "
Potential risks to monetary stability would only be likely to emerge once digital currencies had achieved substantial usage across the economy."
Earlier it states that :- "
The majority of financial assets — such as loans, bonds, stocks and derivatives — now exist only in electronic form, meaning that the financial system itself is already simply a set of digital records. These records are currently held in a tiered structure (that is, with records of individuals’ accounts stored centrally at their bank, and banks’ reserves accounts held centrally at the central bank), but it may be possible in the future — in theory, at least — for the existing infrastructure of the financial system to be gradually replaced by variety of distributed systems (although this article makes no prediction in this regard)."
Put yourself in their shoes -and lets say the B of E sees bitcoin as a threat. They do however understand the potential of blockchain technology.
How would you, in their shoes, get around the threat posed by bitcoin ? Could they, for eg., utilise the blockchain to issue their own "coin" to confer (most of) the benefits of btc - and thereby take the wind out of its sails ? Or maybe as a reserve currency ?
Just thinking aloud here. Interested in your thoughts. What would be their next move ?
ps. for the BofE you can read the Fed etc etc.
