Deutsche Bank has released a report in which it claims that “a new digital currency could become mainstream within the next two years” and “a digital currency could eventually replace cash.” However, it adds that this won’t happen in the next decade, although they believe that the 2020s will witness the rapid decline of the plastic card in favour of mobile payments.
China to Lead the Crypto Revolution
Deutsche surveyed 3,600 customers across the US, UK, China, Germany, France and Italy and asked them about the future of payments, which they used to analyse potential future trends in cash, online, mobile, crypto, and blockchain. Contrary to many other predictions, they suggest that cash will still be around for a long time but that the coming decade “will see digital payments grow at light speed” alongside “the death of the plastic card.”
Deutsche also says that China’s imminent national digital currency “could be used as a soft- or hard-power tool” as much as just an alternative payment method, suggesting that companies dealing with China could be forced to use the digital yuan, which would “certainly erode the dollar’s primacy in the global financial market”, a development that is already worrying some in the US.
Crypto to Grow Like the Internet?
Delving deeper into the subject of cryptocurrencies, Deutsche compares the potential growth of cryptocurrency use with that of the internet, as have many in recent years. This would mean that by the end of the 2020s there would be some 200 million blockchain wallet users, with adoption apparently “encouraged by governments, banks, corporates, and payment providers who all stand to benefit from the digitalisation of payments.”
This would represent quite a change in attitude from governments who are currently generally very sceptical about cryptocurrency, except in rogue states like Venezuela where it is being openly forced on nationals. It makes an equally bold statement with regard to cryptocurrency’s potential to shake up the present financial system:
Still in their infancy, digital currencies have the potential to radically change payments, banking, central banking, and the balance of economic power. We have already moved away from the gold standard to fiat money, so why could we not take the next leap toward a digital currency?
Why not, indeed.
