While Critics continue to worry, Developers work hard to make digital payments a reality

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Forbes - Billy Bambrough has brought my attention to a paper published that discusses about the future adoption of cryptocurrencies. Once again, I thank Forbes news for publishing well-written and neutral articles. Bambrough has written many good articles that keep us informed of the digital world today.

Back to the paper titled, "Cryptocurrencies: Overcoming Barriers to Trust and Adoption", talks about the backing received by researchers to bring Bitcoin and other digital currencies to the mainstream as a way for payment. Professor William Knottenbelt from Imperial College London and Dr Zeynep Gurguc from Imperial College Business School discusses about how cryptocurrencies could act as a store of value.

The three criteria are as follows:

1. Store of value: allowing individuals to make intemporal choices on when to spend their purchasing power
2. Medium of exchange: facilitating the exchange of goods and services by eliminating the inefficiencies associated with a barter economy
3. Unit of account: acting as a measure of value in the economic system.
   Source: prnewswire - eToro

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Bitcoin currently faces challenges in terms of scalability, design and regulation. Currencies have evolved through time and contactless payments and mobile transactions are the most recent advancements.

The research also notes that each evolutionary stage of money has brought about a reduction in payments friction. Given their design principles, the paper concludes that the widespread use of cryptocurrencies is a natural next step to reduce friction in the global economy.

Source: prnewswire - eToro

Professor William Knottenbelt from Imperial said that decentralized digital currencies have the potential to change our perspective on the nature of financial systems and financial assets. While skepticism shrouds over the man on the street, research shows we are gradually making significant headway and resolving the outstanding challenges.

Iqbal V. Gandham, UK Managing Director of eToro, who commissioned the research said that the physicality of money has already been evolving and the way we transfer credits to one another have changed. Gandham sees digital currencies in the mainstream to resolve issues with cross-border payments.

Lastly, Dr. Zeynep Gurguc from Imperial hopes to see the the maturity of cryptocurrencies as a mainstream payment method when the challenges have successfully been overcome.

See the detailed report on: prnewswire - eToro

-tysler

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