Poate Bitcoin să înlocuiască dolarul SUA ca moneda de rezervă globală a lumii?

De la sfârșitul celui de-al Doilea Război Mondial și Conferința de la Bretton Woods, dolarul american a fost moneda de rezervă globală; astăzi, mai mult de 59% din rezervele băncilor străine sunt exprimate în dolari SUA, conform Fondul Monetar Internațional.

But the dollar’s position as the global reserve currency has been looking somewhat shaky of late.

În iulie anul trecut, strategii de la Goldman Sachs a susținut that the U.S. government’s COVID-19 response, taking in fiscal stimulus packages and money printing, is triggering “debasement fears” that could see the dollar toppled from its position as the world’s reserve currency. And China’s yuan continues to nip at the dollar’s heels as the country races ahead with an ambitious programme of inovații în moneda digitală.

With the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency potentially up for grabs for the first time in decades, Bitcoin avocații au profitat de oportunitatea de a vorbi despre criptomoneda ca o posibilă alternativă. 

„Imprimanta de bani du-te brr” 

În decembrie 2020, Ruchir Sharma, strateg șef global la Morgan Stanley, a scris un Financial Times op-ed prezicerea sfârșitului statutului dolarului ca monedă de rezervă globală și eventuala înlocuire a acestuia cu Bitcoin. 

“Fearful that central banks led by the US Federal Reserve are înjosind valoarea monedelor lor, many people have bought bitcoin in bulk since March,” wrote Sharma. In Sharma’s thesis, wary savers are drawn to Bitcoin because its oferta este limitată artificial, spre deosebire de dolarul și alte valute fiduciare, care nu au limită de ofertă.

 “The printing of fiat currency is debasement; it is the theft of value from current holders,” Erik Voorhees, CEO of digital asset trading platform ShapeShift, told decriptaţi. “We have come to embrace this phenomenon,” he said, “but historically, regimes that debase their currency tend to collapse their currency.”

O consecință a înjosirii este inflaţiei. An established international currency can indeed lose ground to others and may eventually lose its dominant position, explained George Selgin, director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the think tank Cato Institute. However, he added, “it’s not an easy thing to happen.” It has to become sufficiently unstable in value.

SUA au înregistrat anul trecut un rata inflației de 1.25%. Iar conform a Calcul Rezervei Federale din Minneapolis released last month, there’s a 33% chance that the U.S. inflation rate will jump above 3% over the next five years. This all gives Selgin some reason to be concerned in the longer run, “but even then it’s not by any means certain that we are looking at double digits in the medium or long run.” The U.S. inflation rate is nowhere near Argentina’s 36% or Turkey’s 15%.

“It takes a heck of a lot of inflation for people to decide it’s worth jumping off that bandwagon onto anything else,” Selgin said. 

Efecte de rețea

If the dollar were to collapse, the next bandwagon people would jump to wouldn’t be Bitcoin, Selgin added, but other fiat currencies. That’s because they’re popular—liquid—and that’s what matters in global transacting. It’s the idea behind what economists call “efecte de rețea".

Sharma’s argument for Bitcoin as a reserve currency doesn’t rest solely on debasement from money-printing, however; the cryptocurrency would also need to function as a useful medium of exchange. “Smaller businesses are starting to use bitcoin in international trade, particularly in countries where dollars can be hard to come by (such as Nigeria) or the local currency is unstable (Argentina),” he wrote.

Dar poate Bitcoin să reprezinte o provocare serioasă pentru utilizarea dolarului ca mijloc global de schimb?

“The dollar’s massive liquidity and network effects are the strongest headwind against Bitcoin’s ascent,” Voorhees told decriptaţi, while noting that Bitcoin has risen from nothing to a trillion-dollar market capitalization over the course of a decade. “Bitcoin’s earning its own network effect with time,” he said.

Capitalizarea de piață a Bitcoin de 827 de miliarde de dolari pare uluitoare. La urma urmei, există 2 trilioane de dolari în circulație și puțin peste 1.43 trilioane de euro în martie 2021. 

Dar aceste cifre nu oferă exact o comparație între mere și mere. Dolarii și euro sunt utilizați în mod activ în tranzacțiile de zi cu zi, spre deosebire de Bitcoin, chiar dacă poate fi adoptat în unele cazuri izolate. Un raport Deutsche Bank lansat în martie 2021 a remarcat că tranzacțiile cu Bitcoin sunt în medie de aproximativ 0.5 miliarde pe zi, echivalentul a 0.02% din tranzacțiile în euro și 0.009% din tranzacțiile în dolari. 

“Bitcoin’s liquidity is much closer to the Thai baht”, said the report. And the Thai baht—not even a remote contender for the status of global reserve—isn’t the sort of rival Bitcoin’s poised to take down. If “international transacting” is the necessary condition for the reserve-currency status, then the odds don’t stack in Bitcoin’s favor, at least in the foreseeable future.

Holding instituțional

The status of reserve currency doesn’t just boil down to its use as a medium of exchange. It’s also understood in terms of assets held by global financial institutions.

Sharma mentions the dollar as an “anchor against which other nations value their currencies.” That happened during the Epoca Bretton Woods, Voorhees said. “Anchor [was] an apt descriptor,” he said, but since it dezlegat de aur în 1971, “the dollar has been pure fiat.”

“Bitcoin will similarly earn the position of reserve asset, because it is scarce, immutable, and apolitical,” Voorhees added.

Nu există nicio îndoială că dolarul deține confortabil acea poziție dominantă astăzi. În ultimul trimestru al anului 2020, bănci centrale din 149 de țări deținea 7 trilioane de dolari, reprezentând 59% din toate rezervele alocate, urmat de euro cu o cotă de 21% și renminbi chinezesc cu o distanță de 2.25%.

But central banks hold a variety of assets. “That doesn’t mean currencies like the Chinese renminbi pose a threat to the dollar’s status simply because it’s part of the central bank portfolios,” Selgin told decriptaţi. Acest lucru este valabil și pentru aur și ar fi valabil și pentru Bitcoin, a spus el.

But central banks shouldn’t be the yardstick, according to Voorhees. There are many other financial institutions. “Central banks will likely be the last to acquire Bitcoin and will do so only when its dominance has become obvious.”

Acces refuzat?

Nimic nu leagă valoarea Bitcoin, a declarat Jeff Miron, lector superior în economie la Universitatea Harvard decriptaţi. “It is worth whatever the market thinks it is worth unless Bitcoin somehow manages to become a dominant means of payment.”

But Bitcoin can’t become a dominant means of payment, Miron explained, because the pervasiveness of governments in economic activity—not just taxing but also spending—makes the official government means of payment “the most natural default for a large fraction of other transactions.”

“Governments want control over the means of payments in their economies, and they can make it difficult for any new means to emerge by regulating that new approach out of existence,” Miron told decriptaţi.

And governments aren’t incentivized to allow money that isn’t theirs—Bitcoin—to replace what is ale lor — fiat. În primul său adresa către Parlamentul Regatului Unit în 2010, Steve Baker, Conservative MP for Wycombe, noted that “The Bank of England controls the price, quantity, and quality of money.” He asked fellow parliamentarians, “if money is a product of the state, we should ask ourselves: Is this a good idea?” 

Nu este, a spus Baker decriptaţi, but “in a hypothetical world, I would expect a market economy to choose commodity money in the future as it has in the past.” He’s convinced that the most likely candidate in the future is one that’s “enabled by technology,” if not necessarily Bitcoin.

And if it ever happened…

The dollar losing its reserve-currency status could single-handedly reduce the welfare of Americans, Selgin explained. “Looking at the debt we have, we’d be in big trouble.”

Dar aceasta este doar o durere pe termen scurt, susțin apărătorii Bitcoin, și una care va da roade pe termen lung.

Și spre deosebire de american dollar, Voorhees pointed out, “Bitcoin is no nation’s burden, and no nation’s privilege.”

Sursa: https://decrypt.co/71139/can-bitcoin-replace-the-us-dollar-as-the-worlds-global-reserve-currency