[2018-10-11]Crypto Prophecy: the Economist's Date Arrives as Bitcoin Prices Stag

[Vladdirescu87]

Crypto Prophecy: the Economist's Date Arrives as Bitcoin Prices Stagnates

Wednesday October 10, 2018, has been reached — this is the date that The Economist reveals we stand “ready for a new global currency.” Should Bitcoin without warning satisfy that role right now?

October 10 marks a debatably great date in Bitcoin’s history — but as of now, nothing seems any different.

Read the details in the article of Coinidol dot com, the world blockchain news outlet: https://coinidol.com/crypto-prophecy-economists-date-arrives-as-bitcoin-prices-stagnates/

[buwaytress]

Ah, for something a little different. We just don't get headlines like that any more, not from the Economist anyway (who'd been getting progressively farther away from that viewpoint if I ignore that I haven't been reading it for... about ten years!). Not that Bitcoin isn't a good candidate for precisely that sort of currency. Prices aren't yet quoted in BTC but it's certainly readily used by all the citizens of major economies - as much as from broken ones.

Here's another article almost ten years on from that 1988 one that was written as Asia was caught in the throes of its worst financial crisis to date - one I lived through myself: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/1998/09/24/one-world-one-money

It would take another decade and another financial crisis to help trigger a concerted effort for a global alternative.

[Slow death]

funny, they said the word: "Prophecy", this reminds me of the Matrix movie

Should Bitcoin without warning satisfy that role right now?

bitcoin is already a currency used by many different countries, I think people forget that. I'm from mozambique and I use bitcoin, there are people from the USA who use bitcoin, there are people from Brazil that use bitcoin, there are people from portugal who use bitcoin. bitcoin is already used by many different countries. But we must not deceive ourselves and think that the Fiat will be replaced by bitcoin because it will not happen even if it is 30 years and the same way I do not believe that they were to create a Fiat that will be used in all the world because for that we already have the American dollar.

[BitHodler]

But we must not deceive ourselves and think that the Fiat will be replaced by bitcoin because it will not happen even if it is 30 years and the same way I do not believe that they were to create a Fiat that will be used in all the world because for that we already have the American dollar.

People don't know what they are talking about when they want Bitcoin to replace fiat. The best possible outcome for everyone here is to have as many competing currencies as possible. What else can we really wish for?

If one implodes, we can hop over to the next one. If that one implodes as well, there is another one. The more currencies we can use as hedge the more overall strength the financial system will have.

Bitcoin complements the current financial system as yet another alternative, but one not directly tied to a government. Sounds like a great safe haven asset to me, just like gold is right now when things go bad.

[magneto]

I think that this has been hyped way too much, and there is a very high chance that the initial writer's vision might not even have been a decentralised, global currency, but a centralised one which is issued by some form of world central bank.

So it might not even be as relevant as some people are trying to make it, imo.

It's interesting though to ponder whether or not bitcoin fulfills the role of a global currency, which I think it does perfectly. There is still a general lack of acceptance in terms of physical merchants for bitcoins as a means of payment, though, which should improve in the future.