Cryptocurrency

Money is what money does. We are living through several concurrent financial revolutions, with the rise of crypto, Fintech, and Open Banking taking place simultaneously. Just a few short years ago, it seemed unlikely that crypto would enter the mainstream. But that’s exactly what’s happening today. Countries like China, the US and the UK are currently working on Central Bank cryptocurrencies, which would be digital versions of the Yuan, Dollar and Pound. Facebook recently launched a pilot of a crypto-wallet called Novi and is also developing its own stablecoin (a cryptocurrency pegged to another asset) which will be called Diem. Notably, MasterCard is about to give banks and merchants on its network the ability to integrate crypto into their products.

As crypto adoption grows at a rapid pace across the world, the big question on everyone's mind is - will cryptocurrency be the future of money? There is a growing intersection between the traditional financial world and the crypto world, particularly between banks and non-banks. Traditional banks are looking to offer more digital asset services and this will drive more interoperability because at the end of the day people, companies and governments need to be able to use different sources and mediums of money interchangeably and seamlessly.

The concept of currency is something that is constantly evolving. There was a time when currency was in in barter which got evolved to physical money (notes) which existed only in the physical form, but today, we can't imagine a world without digital payments. It may come as no surprise that at some point in the future, cryptocurrencies too will work as exchange currency. Many experts have estimated that the recent pandemic has hastened the decline of cash by almost half a decade, a few are asking whether digital currencies will actually succeed. Instead, it’s a matter of when they will go mainstream.