In 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto offered the world a crypto currency, a currency that is issued not by the central bank, but by the users themselves. Anonymous intangible money that can be sent over the Internet almost instantly and almost free, and which can not be faked.
After nine years in the world already 24 million active bitcoin-purses. The cost of one bitcoin increased from $ 1 in 2011 to $ 19.7 thousand at the end of 2017. At the same time, the global economist Deutsche Bank called the collapse of bitcoin one of the key risks of 2018.
Meanwhile, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have identified three options for the destruction of Bitcoin crypto currency.
- Creation of state crypto-currencies:
The first national currency was created by Venezuela. El Petro tied to the cost of a barrel of oil and hope that with the help of the crypto currency, the country will be able to overcome the financial blockade from the US, attract investment and exit the crisis.
Although many rating agencies refer to El Petro as fraud, the volume of its pre-sale amounted to $ 3.338 billion.
Great Britain, Israel, Japan and China are also planning to introduce national crypto-currencies. They intend to tie them to the pound, shekel, yen and yuan exchange rates, respectively.
The central banks will emit and regulate crypto-currencies. This will help reduce the amount of cash, control illegal transactions, identify senders and recipients of crypto-currency transactions.
The same goals are guided by Belarus with the thaler and Estonia with EstCoin. According to the creators, national crypto-currencies will not compete with conventional currencies. Their goal is to help attract investment and develop small and medium-sized businesses.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to develop a cryptorubl. The goal is to bypass international financial sanctions. In Ukraine they create cryptography, and scammers even launch a fake national crypto currency.
According to Sahil Gupta, who was exploring the possibility of introducing Fedcoin - the state crypto currency, gradually people will understand that it is more convenient for a crypto currency than paper money for a company - that crypto currency is cheaper than credit cards, and banks - that it is safer.
Thus, national crypto-currencies will be able to replace not only national currencies, but also to squeeze out crypto-currencies, led by their leader bitcoin.
- Facebook-killer:
The first crypto currency can sink the first social network. If Facebook takes advantage of the idea of Telegram and decides to create its own crypto currency, it can topple bitcoin from its pedestal.
Audience Telegram has a little more than 200 million users. At the ICO messenger managed to collect twice for 850 million dollars, ahead - the final round of funding.
If Facebook with its two billion audience decides to do the same, then its crypto currency can be a very powerful competitor.
While analysts are trying to calculate whether Mark Zuckerberg's social network can take such a step, MTI scientists are proposing another, more insidious version of "enslaving" bitcoin by Facebook - to accept it and adapt it to themselves.
The plan is quite simple: first you need to create a personal bitcoin-wallet for each user and integrate it into all accounts.
Facebook will do everything to qualitatively stand out from the background of other wallets, and that users transferred their funds to him.
Those who previously did not own a crypto currency will be able to earn it by looking through advertising content or by allowing Facebook to use the power of its device to extract bitcoins.
So Zuckerberg will be able to gain control over the first crypto currency in the world. Of course, he will be able to do this after he has solved all the security issues of the social network.
- The invasion of altcoyins:
Creating a set of digital currencies can also output bitcoin from the game.
In one theory, all products and services will be represented by tokens. In the grocery store you can pay only tokens of this store, and on the digital wallet will be conditional Fedcoin, Facebook Coin and many others, even special coins to pay for babysitting or metro travel.
Already, in the field of blockbuster startups, there is a tendency to create services, for which you can pay only with the built-in crypto currency, developed specifically for the application. This is what even companies do that appeared many years before the creation of the detachment.
For example, Kodak is working to create its own Kodakcoin crypto currency, with which photographers can register their work, obtain a license, sell and track copyright compliance. However, in order to implement such a scenario, time and an entire innovative ecosystem are required.
What remains of bitcoin? Its main advantage is anonymity. If the state or Facebook takes over the crypto currency, the transactions will cease to be anonymous. Already, the authorities are making attempts to deanimize.
If, however, the crypto currency is widely spread, it is the society that will choose the leader of the crypto currency and determine its fate. Then the idea of Nakamoto about a single world currency of the future is not destined to come true.