Could a country survive and maintain economic stability if it phased out cash?

[larks500]

Economic model will be very unstable due high volatility of crypto. Current rate of crypto connected with market manipulations and country will not able to protect economic from such manipulations with price.

[jorneyflair]

If a country entirely phased out cash and replaced it with digital currency would it become destabilized?

I think a country would be able to survive just using crypto, but there are some things to consider:

1. The country would have to be technologically advanced and able to support the blockchain and Bitcoin. It would also have to be very supporting of Bitcoin and support for bitcoin would have to be over 80 percent of the population.

2. The cryptocurrency would have to be trustworthy and would have to be able to support heaps of transactions a minute and still be running super well. A congested blockchain would not be good for business.

This would be interesting to watch for sure, and might actually happen sometime in the future.

[iram1011]

Our economy around fiat is setup in the way that we can't really imagine how will Bitcoin work as a national currency. But might be in future we would see a Bitcoin based monetary system. It might sound impossible for now but adopting Bitcoin as a national currency could help countries like Zimbabwe and Venezuela because such a currency contains the potential to prevent the financial roller coaster. But it would create many problem in the ways monetary system is being run today. There is a requirement for Bitcoin based monetary system.

[rickadone]

If a country entirely phased out cash and replaced it with digital currency would it become destabilized?

It depends on the country. From where I come from, it simply won't survive. This digital era has not yet reached many corners of my place. The majority does not have smart phones, much less internet. Digitalized transactions in the market will be very foreign to them. I don't know in other countries who are much more advanced if it is possible.

Exactly! The removal of cash from any state depends on the level of technology used there. If all citizens are well educated and have access to internet all the time, they can go with cashless society but the developing countries can’t think of going cashless at least for coming century. Even the developed countries won’t completely go cashless. They can use digital and paper money parallel.

[olubams]

If a country entirely phased out cash and replaced it with digital currency would it become destabilized?

A. country can not entirely phase out cash but reduce it significantly and that is what is going on with the several cashless policies put in place by the country's highest banking authority and the policy is gradually recording some level of success in which there is still stability in the economy in which I believe same thing will happen in the case of the adoption of crypto-currency because it relies majory on the cashless economic system which aligns with what government is trying to enforce.

[icecube45]

If a country entirely phased out cash and replaced it with digital currency would it become destabilized?

If the country makes its own digital currency and develops itself properly and cautiously it might be stable because it is well managed. Unless a country adopts bitcoin (for example) and wipes out cash it will not be good, because the economy will depend entirely on the development of bitcoin, which indirectly the country will depend on others (bitcoin) because bitcoin is used by many people in world. Fluctuations will depend on the development of bitcoin rather than on the country itself. It may be different if the country makes its own digital currency, whose fluctuations depend on the country's own development. But I do not think it will be done in the near future because it takes careful consideration because it will be a big risk if one goes wrong. And now in fact the production of money is still very high, so real money is still needed.

[Przemax]

Being out of cash for a country is not an issue in todays world. What is a possible issue is two fold:

1. A lack of willingness of people to take a credit - hence creating money
2. Inflation caused by a bad credits.
3. A lack of ability to pay up the interests on the credits.

So its not a problem of lack of money, but its the problem of lack of ability to get money, wheter its a cash or not. Having the access to too easy money for economy might means problems as well. Its a balance between to easy or too hard accesible credits.

It was looooong time ago since the economy ceased to be a cash economy. Its now a credit economy with the appertheid boundaries to access the credit. Some people have too easy access and some have too hard acess to credit.

I think that its not a problem for a country economy to be 100% digital. Its a problem for people living in it though. So if people would agree with it. Whats the problem?

[Nahl]

basically the cash exist to facilitate people for every transactions in this world and indeed the advantages from digital currency is people can do any transactions without bringing big wallet to save their money but digital currency doesn't not provide stable movement and volatile always be the major problem in for cryptocurrency world so i think it doesn't gonna works if government remove the cash and consider digital currency as instead of it

[AK47-]

I think it is completely impractical to make a currency with high volatility a national currency phasing out cash. If a country accepts any of the cryptocurrency as its national currency, the entire national economy could collapse due to currency volatility. Bitcoin will reach its ceiling of 21 million in 2140. If it is accepted as standard money, that will inevitably lead to deflation and constrain economic growth.

[pitiflin]

Yes. Crypto-Currency is very volatile, the economy of that country would be unstable all the time, sometimes you would be in the Heaven and then some time later you would be in the Hell... To make the country's economy stable it's necessary a stable currency and I don't know any Crypto-Currency that corresponds to this requirement.

Very well stated and its a true fact indeed. At the moment no crypto is stable enough for an economy,and ruling cash out of the scenario is definitely a road way for the doom of that specific country. Ruling out cash out of a country would eventually lead to ruling out people of the country  and with recession all over world ,making any crypto currency as their main currency will not result as expected.Cash and gold need to present in any economy ,because those 2 things are the things that matter to the world and not bitcoin.

[xuan87]

If you mean digital currencies are crypto currencies then yes it will be disaster and there will be uncontrollable inflation and deflation, crypto currencies never meant to be created as main currency in a country because it is decentralized, making crypto currency as your country main currency can cause your country being controlled by whale

[kodtycoon]

If a country entirely phased out cash and replaced it with digital currency would it become destabilized?

The economy of a country will not be stable if it eliminates the cash. I think digital money is only suitable for adoption and legalized and digital money not should used as the primary currency of a country.

[Kronos21]

I am also sure that any crypto currency will never be recognized as a major. It will be the currency of the Internet. Who knows maybe it was invented by the secret services to kill the weak currency countries.

[Baofeng]

If you mean digital currencies are crypto currencies then yes it will be disaster and there will be uncontrollable inflation and deflation, crypto currencies never meant to be created as main currency in a country because it is decentralized, making crypto currency as your country main currency can cause your country being controlled by whale

So true. A government wouldn't let the crypto control  the faith of the nation. It will be a disaster if a country, how stable it is, would totally depended on crypto. One reason is the price volatility. How can a citizen do a budget for a family if the price continues to fluctuates everyday and can be manipulated by the rich and powerful. Those country would be at the mercy of those big entities which any government in the world would not want happened otherwise, a total collapse not only of their financial industry but the whole nation itself.

[olushakes]

If a country entirely phased out cash and replaced it with digital currency would it become destabilized?

I feel yes stability will be maintained because for a country to phase out an existing system to adopt a completely new mechanism then series of infrastructures would have to be put in place which would include a regulatory body to match the demand with supply and in this case if we have a fully digitised currency economy, its continuous rise will mean a doom for the country if its not matched with corresponding production and that's what the country will have to ensure through regulations before adopting it.

[virasog]

Economic model will be very unstable due high volatility of crypto. Current rate of crypto connected with market manipulations and country will not able to protect economic from such manipulations with price.

The Current up and down of the bitcoin / altcoins prices and that too very often  is no good for the running the government as they need a stable currency to be able to run the country. However i think we should keep both fiat and bitcoin and use the best of both for the benefit of government and the people themselves.

[Boov]

If a country entirely phased out cash and replaced it with digital currency would it become destabilized?

For now, NO. The lesser physical the thing is, the harder it is to control since it has no actual form. And everything that goes out of control would lead to chaos. Digital currency is already being used and is accepted widely but, its sytem still has to go through a very long process before it will becone stabilize. In this digital era, evrything is almost possible and this includes the negative side. Security and economic stability would be greatly affected.

[pixie85]

I think it could. Some of you seem to think cash is needed but 50 years ago, before the beginning of internet banking, we thought cash is the only viable way of payment. Then 10% was in electronic transaction and nobody cared to stand against it. Nowadays at least half of all transactions in developed countries is made without cash. I could bet that when it's 100% you won't feel the difference.

[|Bitkoin|]

If you mean digital currencies are crypto currencies then yes it will be disaster and there will be uncontrollable inflation and deflation, crypto currencies never meant to be created as main currency in a country because it is decentralized, making crypto currency as your country main currency can cause your country being controlled by whale

So true. A government wouldn't let the crypto control  the faith of the nation. It will be a disaster if a country, how stable it is, would totally depended on crypto. One reason is the price volatility. How can a citizen do a budget for a family if the price continues to fluctuates everyday and can be manipulated by the rich and powerful. Those country would be at the mercy of those big entities which any government in the world would not want happened otherwise, a total collapse not only of their financial industry but the whole nation itself.

Also, if a government wanted it could easily stop crypto from working as a currency altogether. All they need to do is block websites related to Bitcoin and everything would come crashing down.

[Yuhee]

If you mean digital currencies are crypto currencies then yes it will be disaster and there will be uncontrollable inflation and deflation, crypto currencies never meant to be created as main currency in a country because it is decentralized, making crypto currency as your country main currency can cause your country being controlled by whale

So true. A government wouldn't let the crypto control  the faith of the nation. It will be a disaster if a country, how stable it is, would totally depended on crypto. One reason is the price volatility. How can a citizen do a budget for a family if the price continues to fluctuates everyday and can be manipulated by the rich and powerful. Those country would be at the mercy of those big entities which any government in the world would not want happened otherwise, a total collapse not only of their financial industry but the whole nation itself.

Also, if a government wanted it could easily stop crypto from working as a currency altogether. All they need to do is block websites related to Bitcoin and everything would come crashing down.

I dont see any downfall if a country fully adapts digital currency but what would really affect a country is if its infrastructures would go down or a country has no businness to conduct. It would just be another era if governments would acknowledge cryptocurrencies. Because an entity has lots of gain once it adopts btc in its core if they know how to manipulate it. We cant just block or stop cryptocurrency jusy because its a disease, we have use it as our advantage.