This paper takes an overview of the concepts and features of central bank money and private sector money and focuses on the actual performance of these types of money in selected advanced and emerging economies. In addition, digital coins (crypto assets), such as bitcoin, are newly emerged...

The Bitcoin Market Potential Index conceptualizes and ranks the potential utility of bitcoin across 178 countries to show where the cryptocurrency has the greatest relative potential for adoption. The index utilizes a data set with 40 variables from the following areas: technology penetration,...

Just as network effects can dramatically increase value through positive feedback, value can be lost as networks shrink due to competition or incompatibility. In the instance of cryptocurrency as a network and with Metcalfe's Law as the methodology, we illustrate by numerical example that...

An overlapping-generations model with income heterogeneity is developed to analyze the impact of introducing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) on financial inclusion, and its potential adverse effect on bank funding. We highlight the role of two design parameters: the fixed cost of CBDC...

The ongoing initiatives to offer central bank money to consumers in the form of retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) have triggered discussions on its optimal design. So far, the perspective of potential users has not been considered widely. To strengthen this perspective, we survey 2006...

Bitcoin is digital energy. This is part metaphor, part description. It is part explanation, part prophecy. It is part engineering, part finance. The digital energy that is Bitcoin is not mechanical, chemical, or electrical. It is the same “stuff” that saves you time when you draw on a store...

The article proposes a critical perspective on the potential impact of the growing cryptocurrency ecosystem on the process of democratizing money. After examining the various interpretations of the term "democratization", we focus on one interpretation: that of financial inclusion. We propose a...

Digital currencies are surely an evolution of money 'as we know it'. What is emerging from the economic debate, is that digital currencies need a specific framework, both in the monetary and financial sphere. They have the possibility, thanks to huge technological developments, to perform some...

Fractional reserve regimes generate fragile banking, and full reserve regimes (e.g., narrow banking) remove fragility at the cost of suppressing the role of banks as lenders. A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) could provide safe money, but at the cost of potentially disrupting bank lending....

In this paper, the authors investigate the statistical properties of some cryptocurrencies by using three layers of analysis: alpha-stable distributions, Metcalfe's law and the bubble behaviour through the LPPL modelling. The results show, in the medium to long-run, the validity of Metcalfe's...