After a first report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the end of last April, in which we read that cryptocurrencies "do not pose major risks," the international institution released a new report on cryptoactives.
The IMF makes an admission in this report: it is worried about the influx on cryptocurrencies, which could lower the demand for currencies-debts produced by the central banks (who are having fun, in terms of monetary printing).
"Cryptoactives could one day reduce the demand for central bank currencies. Extract from the report
Among the other elements of the report, we can note this:
"We can not exclude the possibility that some cryptoactives are more widely adopted and better fulfill the functions of money in some regions or in private e-commerce networks. "
And also :
"Such a change would result in a change in the way money is created in the digital age: from credit money [debt] to commodity money (...)"
In addition, the IMF also presented a drawing of the evolution of money with an image of a bitcoin as the ultimate evolution, drawing posted on the front page of the IMF website.
Cited by CCN, Dong He, deputy director of the IMF's Monetary and Capital Markets Department, added that:
"As a medium of exchange, cryptographic assets have certain advantages. They offer much of the anonymity of cash while allowing transactions over long distances, and transaction units can potentially be more divisible. These properties make cryptoactives particularly attractive for micropayments in the new digital economy based on sharing and services. "
The report notes, however, that cryptocurrencies are struggling to become a standard unit of account. According to Dong He, for the moment, cryptoactives are too volatile and too risky to pose a threat to fiduciary currencies.
The IMF report concludes by saying that central banks will, on the other hand, have to adapt and offer a more attractive fiduciary currency than at present, or even create their own digital currency. In any case, the match (and the future) seems to turn in favor of cryptocurrencies in the long run, and it is the IMF that says it!