Book Review: The Future of Money

The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance. 2021. Eswar S. Prasad. ‎The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

In the present day, you may’t activate the tv or the radio with out listening to an advert for cryptocurrencies or crypto exchanges. Quite a few celebrities are touting crypto buying and selling platforms, together with skilled athletes LeBron James and Tom Brady and actors Matt Damon and Larry David. Are cryptocurrencies the subsequent huge funding, a fad, or a foreign money that may rework the financial and monetary panorama? What are among the benefits and shortcomings of digital currencies? Who will profit from these new currencies?

Eswar S. Prasad makes an attempt to handle these questions in The Way forward for Cash: How the Digital Revolution Is Reworking Currencies and Finance. Prasad, the Tolani Senior Professor of Commerce Coverage at Cornell College and the creator of a number of books on currencies, offers an attention-grabbing and insightful exposition on the shifting panorama from conventional paper notes to digital currencies.

Prasad begins his dialogue of the way forward for cash with a quote from Cecilia Skingsley, the deputy governor of Sweden’s central financial institution: “In the event you extrapolate present traits, the final be aware could have been handed again to the Riksbank by 2030.” Skingsley is just not the one authorities official who sees a grand future for digital currencies. China is one other nation that has been transferring away from paper foreign money. In the US, President Biden, recognizing the significance of recent digital belongings, signed an government order to make sure digital belongings’ accountable growth in March 2022.

The guide is split into 4 components. Half I, “Laying the Bedrock,” seems on the future and promise of digital currencies and offers an introduction to finance for these with little background. Half II, “Improvements,” focuses on the historical past of fintech and the crypto revolution. Half III, “Central Financial institution Cash” makes a case for central financial institution digital currencies (CBDCs). Half IV, “Ramifications,” considers the potential penalties for the worldwide financial system.

The “Improvements” part of the guide begins with a chapter titled “Will Fintech Make the World a Higher Place?” Right here, the creator takes us by the historical past of fintech, which he factors out is a catchall time period for novel monetary applied sciences. It was first coined in 1993 with Citicorp’s creation of the Monetary Providers Know-how Consortium. Nevertheless, some improvements, such the ATM, have turn into so ubiquitous that we neglect these have been as soon as novel applied sciences. The historical past contains an attention-grabbing have a look at newer improvements, comparable to M-PESA, which allowed people in Kenya to conduct banking by a cell phone, in addition to peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding, and on-demand insurance coverage. Many of those new companies will pose challenges to conventional monetary companies firms.

In the present day, fintech is most intently related to cryptocurrencies, comparable to bitcoin and Ethereum. Nevertheless, a dialogue of cryptocurrencies can not start with out understanding the blockchain and the way this expertise is reworking enterprise and finance. Blockchain expertise has been touted as the way forward for finance and of quite a few different areas of enterprise, together with securing of medical information, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces, and provide chain and logistics monitoring.

Most funding professionals will pay attention to the blockchain and the idea of a decentralized ledger throughout a peer-to-peer community, however many could not perceive the expertise completely. Prasad offers an in depth however accessible clarification of how the blockchain works, from its historic origins to the expertise underlying the system. The time period “blockchain” is related to quite a lot of cryptocurrencies. Nevertheless, the protocols used to validate transactions differ for varied blockchains. Moreover, every protocol has benefits and weaknesses. Will many various protocols proceed, or will one emerge as the usual for the business?

Bitcoin makes use of a “proof-of-work” protocol to validate transactions, which requires block creators, referred to as miners, to unravel a randomly generated cryptographic drawback. The method permits transactions to be validated with out a trusted third celebration. Nevertheless, this methodology requires vital computing assets, which want massive quantities of electrical energy to energy the computer systems. One other draw back of this method is that it permits solely a comparatively small variety of transactions to be validated concurrently.

Ethereum makes use of a “proof-of-stake” protocol. Proof of stake was created to cope with among the inefficiencies of the proof-of-work method. Right here, the privilege of validating a block relies on how a lot has been “staked” by competing nodes. Nevertheless, as Prasad factors out, this much less resource-intensive method is just not with out its shortcomings.

Prasad debunks among the myths of crypto and different digital currencies. For instance, many view utilizing cryptocurrencies, comparable to bitcoin, as a option to preserve anonymity. The truth is that, in contrast to money, digital currencies require identifiers for shoppers to obtain the products bought with digital currencies, which removes the anonymity. Blockchain has additionally been considered as a safe expertise. Though this expertise gives larger safety than different strategies, Prasad factors out ways in which people can hack the assorted protocols.

Like all new applied sciences, the fintech revolution has introduced with it a complete new language to outline the brand new choices, together with hashing, safety token choices (STOs), good contracts, preliminary coin choices (ICOs), hash time locked contracts (HTLCs), and steady cash. The Way forward for Cash permits traders to study the brand new vernacular of this discipline and contemplate which improvements could supply the best investable alternatives.

Studying by the guide is unlikely to supply any insights into the right way to worth cryptocurrencies or how digital currencies, comparable to bitcoin, are prone to change government-issued cash as a retailer of worth, a medium of change, or a unit of account. Nevertheless, Prasad gives a glimpse into the potential for digital currencies within the chapter “The Case for Central Financial institution Digital Currencies.” He maintains that CBDCs can enhance effectivity on the wholesale facet by bettering the best way central banks distribute reserves to business banks for fee, clearing, and settlement. On the retail facet, CBDCs could supply a number of advantages, together with offering a backup fee system, selling monetary inclusion, and bettering financial and monetary coverage.

Though these chapters could appear to be of larger curiosity to financial economists and central bankers than to traders, Prasad offers some insights from which traders could profit. He recaps a research that analyzed how insurance policies by some European nations to scale back the usage of money shrank the shadow economic system and elevated tax revenues. The considerate investor may ask which investments will profit from these elevated tax revenues. Will the extra revenues be used to fund infrastructure spending? Will nations use the windfall to finance different power tasks? Maybe nations dominated by conservative lawmakers will select to return the cash to residents and companies by tax cuts. If that proves to be the case, which industries are prone to profit?

Improvements produce winners and losers by creating new alternatives and challenges for incumbents. Monetary business improvements are not any totally different. Understanding among the present and potential future modifications will allow analysts to raised decide which companies and industries are prone to prosper and that are prone to undergo. The Way forward for Cash offers readers with a window into among the alternatives and challenges that lie forward for the monetary sector.

In the event you appreciated this put up, don’t neglect to subscribe to the Enterprising Investor.

All posts are the opinion of the creator. As such, they shouldn’t be construed as funding recommendation, nor do the opinions expressed essentially replicate the views of CFA Institute or the creator’s employer.

Skilled Studying for CFA Institute Members

CFA Institute members are empowered to self-determine and self-report skilled studying (PL) credit earned, together with content material on Enterprising Investor. Members can file credit simply utilizing their online PL tracker.