In 2009, Bitcoin created a world-first decentralized alternative currency that has spawned over 1,700 imitations by private parties. In 2018, governments finally joined the race, as Venezuela issued a world-first sovereign digital currency. Major economies like Canada, China, Singapore and the United Kingdom are all developing their own versions. These new versions differ significantly from Bitcoin and among themselves, creating the potential to flood the global financial system with a myriad of new digital currencies. Existing taxonomies of currency struggle with the speed of change (frequently due to inadequate understanding of the underlying technology) and, as a result, remain incomplete and filled with confusing and conflicting vocabulary (with terms like “virtual currencies,” “digital currencies,” “cryptocurrencies” frequently being used to refer to the same thing).
Anton N. Didenko
Ross P. Buckley