Electronic Currency

     Over the past several decades there has been a clear shift in how we spend money in America. More often than not people head into malls to do their shopping with cashless wallets, relying only on their credit card. Plastic usage is only reinforced by the popularity of online shopping, but you don't necessarily even need your credit card on hand. Services like Paypal offer ways to electronically access your money, essentially temporarily loaning you an electronic currency to make your purchase before withdrawing with your bank.

     As e-currency becomes more and more popular, shifting entirely to an electronic currency appears increasingly practical. The benefits in cost and efficiency would be huge, but being all electronic would have its downsides. Many people fear that shifting to an all electronic currency would allow the government increasing control of where money could go. Cash is anonymous, but for every electronic transaction there would be a record. You could never detach your identity from your money, and you might be noticed if you supported an unpopular cause, or spent your money in a way society questioned.

    There has, however, been some evidence that a completely electronic system could exist in a decentralized fashion, allowing for complete monetary freedom. I was browsing the BBC the other day and tripped across this article. The article talks about how people are now able to use an electronic currency called Bitcoin to purchase pizza.

     Bitcoin is a decentralized electronic currency that uses a transaction log shared by all users of the currency through a p2p network that tracks all the transactions made. Since every user has a copy of the log that is validating itself against the rest of the network, there is no one person or central organization that controls the currency. You can purchases your coins anonymously, and spend them where you choose!

     I'm not sure of all there merits of this systems, or possible complications with popular usage, but a decentralized currency with complete anonymity certainly sounds great at a time when the EURO is unstable and the dollar is weak. Perhaps complete deregulation of this nature would help curb some of debt problems. Consider investing, this could be the currency of the future.