Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are considered global currencies as they transcend borders. Many cryptocurrency exchanges today facilitate the investment and trade of these global currencies. But even before Bitcoin was conceived in 2008 and launched in 2009, various leaders, economists, and educationalists have proposed ideas for the establishment of a single currency without borders.
The SDR or the Special Drawing Right, though not a currency but a unit-of-account, is the very first attempt at establishing a world currency. The SDR is relevant today only for Governments and not for the general public as their sole purpose is to act as securities in times of need.
A 1998 article in The Economist mentions the creation of a global currency. It states that Dr. Richard N Cooper, the American economist and former U.S Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, proposed an idea for a world currency as early as 1984.
Interestingly enough, that was the year set in George Orwell’s dystopian novel of the same name, written in the ’50s, which describes a future Britain in a state of disrepair, with poor economic and political freedom. Perhaps Dr. Cooper had felt Orwell’s predictions in his novel come to fruition in the U.S. during the 1982 to ’85 recession when he thought of unifying the world’s economies and eliminating disparity due to devaluation of currencies by introducing a single global currency. Or maybe he just felt that economic differences ought to be wiped out.
Whatever the case for his proposition, people were listening.
The Phoenix Zone
In 1988, the magazine cover of The Economist bore the image of a Phoenix standing atop burning dollars and wearing a medallion. The medallion or coin, seemingly a denomination of a currency bore the words ‘Phoenix’, ‘Ten’ and the year ‘2018’ on it. Ten signifying its denomination, 2018 referring to the year in which the coin was being used, and Pheonix being the name of the currency. The article explains the then economic instability insinuated by volatile exchange rates of currencies and uncoordinated economic policies of Governments.
‘Governments are far from ready to subordinate their domestic objectives to the goal of international stability,’ the article quotes. It also stated that the countries of 2018 in the Phoenix zone will see the world’s economy gradually and inadvertently adjust to shifts in prices.
It further envisaged Phoenix to proliferate employment, remove currency risk, support international trade, fix one price for goods and services, and eliminate inflations and bubble bursts through the monetary union of different nations.
The Predecessor to Bitcoin
In 1989, American cryptographer David Chaum who was already in development of a digital currency founded Digicash which some consider, the predecessor to Bitcoin. Though unsuccessful, Digicash’s cryptography laid foundations for the development of digital currencies.
Twenty years after the article came out in print in The Economist, Satoshi Nakamoto published Bitcoin’s Whitepaper for the mobilization of a decentralized, digital, world currency.
By 2009, the first digital world-currency, Bitcoin, was launched almost 10 years before it was prophesized.
But where are we today?
Cryptocurrencies have toppled the financial world upside down. Even though the concept of a world currency was proposed decades ago, with the sole intention of unifying economies and propelling trade under one banner of currency, the advent of cryptocurrencies gave people a different, better objective — ‘Financial Freedom’.
Banks have absolute control over an individual’s monetary funds. As cryptocurrencies are decentralized and cannot be monitored, they are not under an authority’s control. They are irrevocable and secure. Even so, complete financial freedom seemed to be a far fetched idea. Currently, a crypto trading platform takes on a bank’s role while Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies give out too much information barring the user’s financial freedom.
Beldex: A private world-currency
A privacy coin as a world currency will empower freedom of trade. Any trade made with privacy coins will stay truly anonymous. It will inhibit the risks inherent in transactions and encourage active participation. Given that it anonymously connects the people from different geographies and economies, it removes cultural and socio-economic barriers to trade. The sender needn’t necessarily know the receiver or vice versa.
Beldex (BDX) is a complete privacy coin that endeavors to create an ecosystem where people can buy and sell products and services. By introducing a hybrid cryptocurrency exchange, Beldex has moved in the right direction and one step closer to this ideal.
Source: https://blog.beldex.io/transcending-borders-global-currencies-of-the-future/
