Zukunft digitaler Währungen

Im neuen Buch Eric Schmidts und Jared Cohens werfen beide einen kurzen Blick auf die strukturelle ökonomische Bedeutung, die virtuelle Währungen wie Bitcoins zukünftig einnehmen könnten:

"More effective communication across borders and languages will build trust and create opportunities for hardworking and talented individuals around the world. It will not be unusual for a French technology company to operate its sales team from Southeast Asia, while locating its human-resources people in Canada and its engineers in Israel. Bureaucratic obstacles that prevent this level of decentralized operation today, like visa restrictions and regulations around money transfers, will become either irrelevant or be circumvented as digital solutions are discovered. Perhaps a human-rights organization with staff living in a country under heavy diplomatic sanctions will pay its employees in mobile money credits, or in an entirely digital currency." ("The New Digital Age", Chap. 1)

Eine wichtige Entwicklung gibt es für beide Autoren allerdings im Auge zu behalten, nämlich die mögliche Ausbeutung der Eigenschaften virtueller Währungen für kriminellen Handlungen.

"If illegal activity is the primary concern for governments, the real challenge will be the combination of virtual currency with anonymous networks that hide the physical location of services. For example, criminals are already selling illegal drugs on the Tor network in exchange for Bitcoins (a virtual currency), avoiding cash and banks altogether. Copyright infringers will use the same networks." (Chap. 2)