IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rdg/emxxdp/em-dp2019-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why private cryptocurrencies cannot serve as international reserves but central bank digital currencies can

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Clark

    (Department of Economics, University of Reading)

  • Alexander Mihailov

    (Department of Economics, University of Reading)

Abstract

This paper begins by a recap on the ambition and mechanism behind Bitcoin, followed by an overview of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Our focus is on their price dynamics and volatility relative to those of fiat paper money and gold, assets that have traditionally served the functions of money and international reserves. We then perform a counterfactual analysis using the Bank of England's foreign currency reserves to determine the hypothetical performance in terms of relative volatility of two alternative reserve portfolios consisting of 0.1%, 1%, or 10% holdings of either Bitcoin only, since July 2010, or of a portfolio of 50% Bitcoin and 50% Ethereum, since July 2015. Revisiting in this light the functions of money and international reserves, we expound on why private cryptocurrencies do not meet the inherent requirements for both money and international reserve assets, whereas central bank digital currencies do meet these requirements. We, finally, "scale" the magnitude and dynamics of the recent Bitcoin bubble into a historical perspective, and conclude by a discussion of areas where blockchain-based and FinTech technologies could be beneficial in international trade, payments, banking and finance.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Clark & Alexander Mihailov, 2019. "Why private cryptocurrencies cannot serve as international reserves but central bank digital currencies can," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2019-09, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    • Handle: RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2019-09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research.reading.ac.uk/economics/wp-content/uploads/sites/87/2023/09/emdp201909.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:pacecr:v:23:y:2018:i:1:p:43-50 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Pierpaolo Benigno, 2023. "Monetary Policy in a World of Cryptocurrencies," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 1363-1396.
    3. Jean-Pierre Danthine, 2017. "Negative interest rates in Switzerland: what have we learned?," Working Papers halshs-01571635, HAL.
    4. Clark, Peter B, 1970. "Optimum International Reserves and the Speed of Adjustment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 356-376, March-Apr.
    5. Winston Moore & Jeremy Stephen & Caroline Elliott, 2016. "Should cryptocurrencies be included in the portfolio of international reserves held by central banks?," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 1147119-114, December.
    6. Sean Foley & Jonathan R Karlsen & Tālis J Putniņš, 2019. "Sex, Drugs, and Bitcoin: How Much Illegal Activity Is Financed through Cryptocurrencies?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1798-1853.
    7. David Andolfatto, 2018. "Blockchain: What It Is, What It Does, and Why You Probably Don’t Need One," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 100(2).
    8. World Trade Organisation WTO, 2017. "World Trade Statistical Review," Working Papers id:12024, eSocialSciences.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrew Clark & Alexander Mihailov & Michael Zargham, 2024. "Complex Systems Modeling of Community Inclusion Currencies," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 64(2), pages 1259-1294, August.
    2. Ansgar Belke & Edoardo Beretta, 2020. "From cash to central bank digital currencies and cryptocurrencies: a balancing act between modernity and monetary stability," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 47(4), pages 911-938, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sean Foley & Jonathan R Karlsen & Tālis J Putniņš, 2019. "Sex, Drugs, and Bitcoin: How Much Illegal Activity Is Financed through Cryptocurrencies?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1798-1853.
    2. Hanna Halaburda & Guillaume Haeringer & Joshua Gans & Neil Gandal, 2022. "The Microeconomics of Cryptocurrencies," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 971-1013, September.
    3. Stephen D. Williamson, 2018. "Is Bitcoin a Waste of Resources?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 100(2), pages 107-115.
    4. Cynthia Weiyi Cai & Rui Xue & Bi Zhou, 2023. "Cryptocurrency puzzles: a comprehensive review and re-introduction," Journal of Accounting Literature, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 46(1), pages 26-50, June.
    5. Goodell, John W. & Goutte, Stephane, 2021. "Co-movement of COVID-19 and Bitcoin: Evidence from wavelet coherence analysis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    6. Harald Uhlig & Taojun Xie, 2020. "Parallel Digital Currencies and Sticky Prices," Working Papers 2020-188, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    7. Binh Nguyen Quang & Thai‐Ha Le & Canh Nguyen Phuc, 2022. "Influences of uncertainty on the returns and liquidity of cryptocurrencies: Evidence from a portfolio approach," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 2497-2513, April.
    8. Mayer, Thomas, 1980. "Zum Zusammenhang zwischen Exporterlösschwankungen und Investitionsgüterimporten in ausgewählten Entwicklungsländern," Kiel Working Papers 109, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Anil Donmez & Alexander Karaivanov, 2022. "Transaction fee economics in the Ethereum blockchain," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 265-292, January.
    10. Erdogan Kaygin & Yunus Zengin & Ethem Topcuoglu & Serdal Ozkes, 2021. "The Evaluation of Block Chain Technology within the Scope of Ripple and Banking Activities," Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice, Central bank of Montenegro, vol. 10(3), pages 153-167.
    11. Antonio Francisco A. Silva Jr, 2011. "The Self-insurance Role of International Reserves and the 2008-2010 Crisis," Working Papers Series 256, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    12. Raphael Auer, 2019. "Beyond the doomsday economics of "proof-of-work" in cryptocurrencies," BIS Working Papers 765, Bank for International Settlements.
    13. Jason Scharfman, 2022. "Additional Crypto Operations and Compliance Topics," Springer Books, in: Cryptocurrency Compliance and Operations, edition 1, chapter 0, pages 205-221, Springer.
    14. Daniela Balutel & Walter Engert & Christopher S. Henry & Kim P. Huynh & Marcel Voia, 2024. "Explaining bitcoin ownership in Canada: Trends from 2016 to 2021," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 777-798, August.
    15. Ashton, John & Burnett, Tim & Diaz-Rainey, Ivan & Ormosi, Peter, 2021. "Known unknowns: How much financial misconduct is detected and deterred?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    16. Bordo, Michael D. & Macdonald, Ronald & Oliver, Michael J., 2009. "Sterling in crisis, 1964–1967," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 437-459, December.
    17. Smales, L.A., 2019. "Bitcoin as a safe haven: Is it even worth considering?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 385-393.
    18. John F. O. Bilson & Jacob A. Frenkel, 1979. "Dynamic Adjustment and the Demand for International Reserves," NBER Working Papers 0407, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Dyhrberg, Anne H. & Foley, Sean & Svec, Jiri, 2018. "How investible is Bitcoin? Analyzing the liquidity and transaction costs of Bitcoin markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 140-143.
    20. René M. Stulz, 2022. "FinTech, BigTech, and the Future of Banks," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 34(1), pages 106-117, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bitcoin; cryptocurrency; blockchain; FinTech; central bank digital currency; international reserve assets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
    • E59 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2019-09. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alexander Mihailov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/derdguk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.