[2018-08-04] UBS: Bitcoin Can Replace Fiat Money When It Hits $213,000

[Jgilpulg]

Fiat money and traditional banking have to be replaced by a neutral, borderless, and frictionless system, such as a decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system: Bitcoin.

https://bitcoinist.com/ubs-bitcoin-replace-fiat-money-213000/

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[1Referee]

Pretty poorly written article.

I expected a more in-depth article exactly explaining why they think Bitcoin can replace fiat, but it seems to be a rushed article targeting noobs with flashy figures.

Important is to not focus on Bitcoin to replace fiat currencies, but to give people the option (freedom) to choose what currency they want to use. Fiat won't be going anywhere, banks won't be going anywhere and governments won't be going anywhere. Instead of wasting time on waiting for them to vanish (which won't happen), use Bitcoin right now and stop using fiat and banks where you can. I have been doing that for ages and it works perfectly fine. No excuses.

[Slow death]

Fiat money and traditional banking have to be replaced by a neutral

this will not happen even if they spend more than 100 years, as I said in a previous comment, governments are a small group of people who are to defend their own interests, they will not give up their centralized system that allows them to have control of their interests to put a centralized system where they have no control and can lose everything. Power is something addictive and so many people kill hundreds of other people just because of power.

[cryptofonia]

I've tried to figure out a link to this report but didn't find 

[BitHodler]

Instead of wasting time on waiting for them to vanish (which won't happen), use Bitcoin right now and stop using fiat and banks where you can. I have been doing that for ages and it works perfectly fine. No excuses.

I wish more people were like that but I'm afraid that we haven't seen the worse yet when it comes to people's greed. The only reason they want Bitcoin to replace the established system order is because the price will increase.

They don't realize that if Bitcoin replaces fiat, Bitcoin remains Bitcoin and we will only change the way we look at value by that time. It means that with or without fiat, 1BTC is always 1BTC and nothing will ever change that.

The only question will be what value Bitcoin or one single satoshi have without it being able to use fiat as benchmark currency, but that's a problem for later. We'll find out when we're forced to find out, that's how things seem to work.

[onaiwusun]

It is not likely ever, too many factors at play, no doubt bitcoins has all the unique characteristics of money, all those reasons stated are discarded when politics and national interest is at play

[onaiwusun]

Pretty poorly written article.

I expected a more in-depth article exactly explaining why they think Bitcoin can replace fiat, but it seems to be a rushed article targeting noobs with flashy figures.

Important is to not focus on Bitcoin to replace fiat currencies, but to give people the option (freedom) to choose what currency they want to use. Fiat won't be going anywhere, banks won't be going anywhere and governments won't be going anywhere. Instead of wasting time on waiting for them to vanish (which won't happen), use Bitcoin right now and stop using fiat and banks where you can. I have been doing that for ages and it works perfectly fine. No excuses.

Me too, I was beging to wonder if the article suggesting the market cap of bitcoin will be 4.4 Trillion $  to beat the other currencies.(21M X 243000).That will not be enough to hold global trades.Bitcoin will do better as a supplement, we should focus on its unique contributions

[bbc.reporter]

Pretty poorly written article.

I expected a more in-depth article exactly explaining why they think Bitcoin can replace fiat, but it seems to be a rushed article targeting noobs with flashy figures.

Important is to not focus on Bitcoin to replace fiat currencies, but to give people the option (freedom) to choose what currency they want to use. Fiat won't be going anywhere, banks won't be going anywhere and governments won't be going anywhere. Instead of wasting time on waiting for them to vanish (which won't happen), use Bitcoin right now and stop using fiat and banks where you can. I have been doing that for ages and it works perfectly fine. No excuses.

Agreed. The price has no effect on the present system if the people do not change their thinking on money and what gives it value.

Also, bitcoin can reach $1 million tomorrow and it will still not replace fiat if Mr. Banker will not give up its power and influence on the market, the government and on the people.

[Irvinn]

Bitcoin is unlikely to ever reach a price of $ 213,000. We already saw what happened when he just reached $ 20,000. Therefore, such a high price is simply not real for bitcoin.
Also, no decentralized crypto currency will ever replace fiat. No state will ever allow this to happen. It would simply mean in a short time to disregard the economy of any state.

[Vektrum]

The price of bitcoin, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the possibility of replacing it with ordinary paper money. Bitcoin is not at all capable of substituting for itself fiat, because it must be a decision of the state, and the state will never make such a decision, because this would be a real disaster for him. State money should be linked to the state of the country's economy. Money can not exist on its own, apart from the development of the economy.
In addition, I do not think that bitcoin will ever reach a price of $ 213,000. As soon as the price of bitcoin starts to rise, many factors will appear that will prevent such growth.

[timerland]

I really don't think that bitcoin will ever replace fiat.

It's just too far fetched of an idea at the moment. I'm not saying that there's no chance of it happening, but more realistically I think we're probably going to see bitcoin be an alternative form of money to fiat instead of just replacing it altogether. It's very likely that bitcoin will instead serve a niche group of people that want to preserve their wealth long term in a safe haven, and transact internationally independent of the fiat system.

I think that the report is suggesting that bitcoin would exceed USD's note and coin supply once it hits the figure in the title. However, I think that the main thing to consider isn't price, but rather, adoption. For bitcoin to truly replace fiat currencies, just overtaking US's M1 currency supply would mean absolutely nothing. There needs to be a large enough user base, and also a large enough market cap to constitute a good amount of market share on the international money supply.

[guybrushthreepwood]

Why does it need to be worth $213,000? I think that would be a very optimist outlook as well. I think hitting 20k was a push and we may never even see that value again (though I certainly still have hope.) I doubt it will ever replace fiat, though. I'd prefer it to just be an alternative to fiat and one that exists outside of the mainstream. MY biggest hope for bitcoin is that it will become some sort of universal currency where you can spend it anywhere wherever you are in the world. Alternatively, it may even fail - of not fully catch on as a currency - but people can still use it as a speculative asset like it being a digital gold and I think the majority of people who are either using getting into bitcoin at present are doing so for it as a potential high return investment (which isn't a bad thing as it is certainly driving the growth).

[Betwrong]

The very fact that a financial mogul like UBS with its almost 1 trillion USD in total assets presumes the possibility of such replacement is a great news imo. No doubt that they are taking it seriously, and it looks like they are only waiting for Bitcoin scalability problem(a major setback from their point of view) to be solved before embracing it with open arms. It's not for the first time Switzerland shows positive attitude towards Bitcoin. It's more than a year since you can buy BTC at any SBB ticket machine. Also, according to a recent article in Forbes, almost 500,000 people in Switzerland voted for a Bitcoin-like financial system.

[jjacob]

Bitcoin is unlikely to ever reach a price of $ 213,000. We already saw what happened when he just reached $ 20,000. Therefore, such a high price is simply not real for bitcoin.
Also, no decentralized crypto currency will ever replace fiat. No state will ever allow this to happen. It would simply mean in a short time to disregard the economy of any state.

As far as the price is concerned, it might still get there if we give it enough time. It reached $20,000 last year when it seemed like Bitcoin would never cross $2000 until 2016. So a bull rally might take it really high.
The point about governments allowing it to become widely adopted is valid. Once it grows bigger, they will try everything in their power to stop it.

[Theb]

Tried reading the article in Bitcoinist which you have provided in your post, luckily Bitcoinist had linked the original article (rare for a news grabber/recycler to do) posted under Bloomberg.com. And as always this unreliable news source have cut the content of the original article yet again stating only that Bitcoin needs to go up on this certain value ($213,000) before it replace the US Dollar. Bloomberg has stated on the other hand that :

UBS says they may have to wait a while since it can’t be considered money or even a viable asset class yet. For Bitcoin to replace U.S. money supply -- paper bills, coins, travelers’ checks and the like -- its price could need to hit nearly $213,000, or its network’s processing capabilities would need to dramatically improve, a new report by UBS found

Which is pretty far from what Bitcoinist have just provided in their news article as they focused more on the price aspect and has not provided the other ways where BTC can be a viable mode of payment in the future. On the original news article it is said that UBS have also provided that Bitcoin needs to improve their network's processing capabilities as it is still a "fraction of the payment volume that companies like Visa Inc. handle" if we ever want to see BTC replace the USD.

[Leyss]

Neither bitcoin nor other decentralized crypto currency will ever be able to replace conventional national money and under no circumstances. Moreover, it does not depend on the price of bitcoin. If it costs 213,000 dollars, or a million dollars, it does not matter. No state will be so reckless to replace its national money with a decentralized crypto currency. National money is always a reflection of the country's economy. Decentralized crypto currency has absolutely no connection with the economy of a particular country and therefore, even theoretically, can not replace its national money. It will be a suicide for the state.

[audaciousbeing]

Bitcoin is unlikely to ever reach a price of $ 213,000. We already saw what happened when he just reached $ 20,000. Therefore, such a high price is simply not real for bitcoin.
Also, no decentralized crypto currency will ever replace fiat. No state will ever allow this to happen. It would simply mean in a short time to disregard the economy of any state.

I don't know how someone would only invested his time in writing an article and the result of which is speculation when interpreted further would only result to garbage. Reading the article is just bunch of information from several sources merged together without having a good overview on what is being reported exactly. A quote from an organisation like UBS claiming such an high value for bitcoin without telling and saying how it will get there, or a timeline to it is not different from all other crypto enthusiasts that would go to the media and exercise their ignorance about how $100,000 would be reached in two years or six months in the name of predictions.

Reaching a $50,000 won't happen in five years from now as the only reason would be if countries starts to adopt bitcoin as its legal currency. That alone is changing their identity which does not take few years to achieve as it involves changing government orientation down to the citizens value that they attached to their own currency. The best is for everyone to just play according to the rules and stop giving ourselves some unattainable goals and objectives.

[gentlemand]

Bitcoin is unlikely to ever reach a price of $ 213,000. We already saw what happened when he just reached $ 20,000. Therefore, such a high price is simply not real for bitcoin.
Also, no decentralized crypto currency will ever replace fiat. No state will ever allow this to happen. It would simply mean in a short time to disregard the economy of any state.

Yes it will.

Even if adoption froze today and the excitement levelled out completely to an absolute flatline inflation would get it there eventually.

As for replacing fiat completely, no I don't believe that'll happen in our lifetimes at least.

I will assume this article is basing that figure on every single bitcoin being available for use as money which we know will never be possible. Hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions are lost, millions more are not leaving the hands of holders any time soon.

[fortresscoin]

It’s confusing that this article doesn’t define what $213,000 is based on.  Actually, that’s just the point.  People don’t like what they don’t understand.  Stock accounts make sense and government printing money even with all of its vulnerabilities to debt and inflation makes sense.  Holding precious metals and/or gems makes sense.  And lastly, if you’re a survivalist, your garden, fuel, access to fresh water and ammunition makes sense.  Independent of some doomsday scenario many take solace in the adage ‘cash is king’…especially if it’s the cash of their country and it happens to be strong.   
Other coins such as LTC would pick up some slack.  Why would we think Bitcoin would garnish that much central control to reach $213k?  Wouldn’t some of the coins in the top 10 take some market cap from them?  And with so much speculation that the whales are determining the BTC market for the rest of us, it would be dangerous to to put so much faith in Bitcoin for fear that it would be a false sense of security.

[kevoh]

$213000! Now that's a lot of faith-backed-speculation and of course wishful thinking and not reasoning backed wih facts.

There's no solid explanation on how we will arrive at this figure! It's a pure waste of time really!