Since the birth of Bitcoin supported by blockchain technology, it has set off a storm of technology, currency, finance, science and technology.
Parallel to the existing monetary system and financial system of the currency, show a strong vitality, through the safe-haven asset attributes, such as "digital gold" narrative is gradually accepted by more and more people, coupled with high power gain wealth effect, let speculators, develop large user groups and powerful user agreement.
Although bitcoin is still questioned, criticized, banned, and dismissed as "garbage" by Warren Buffett, Munger and others, the decentralized, peer-to-peer bitcoin has begun to gain popularity.
After more than ten years of efforts, finally preliminarily stepped on the stage of Wall Street:
Bitcoin futures are listed, cryptocurrency exchanges are listed, banks offer crypto-related services and more.
More importantly, bitcoin has emerged as a legal tender:
Three countries or regions have adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, including El Salvador, Prospera (a special economic zone on Roatan island off the northern coast of Honduras), and the Central African Republic!
But bitcoin's "money" function has been under attack.
At the 2022 International Symposium on Government and Market Economics, Eric Maskin, the 2007 Nobel Prize winner in Economics and co-chair of the International Society for Government and Market Economics, delivered a scathing attack on bitcoin and praised China's ban on cryptocurrencies.
Eric Maskin believes that money was originally invented to make it easier to exchange goods. Unfortunately, as soon as Bitcoin came along, we went back to the original barter direction.
So Eric Maskin thinks bitcoin's supposed advantages will disappear as countries create digital forms of standard central bank money. Not only that, but cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin can be very harmful. Eric Maskin sees the potential harm in two ways:
One is monetary policy, counter-cyclical monetary policy.
Every responsible government will use monetary policy as one of the important tools available to fight recession on the one hand and inflation on the other. When the economy is in trouble, the government will increase the money supply. That makes it easier to get credit, which helps pull the economy out of recession. But when the economy is booming, the central bank must shrink the money supply. Cryptocurrencies can interfere with good monetary policy. If people use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, monetary policy has correspondingly less impact, making it harder to get out of a recession.
The other has to do with banking.
Eric Maskin says cryptocurrency supporters sometimes argue that it eliminates the need for banks. People can send money safely without a bank. They can save money without a bank. However, this view ignores the crucial role played by banks, which is to assess and provide loans to entrepreneurs.
Bitcoin is a brand new form of money. From the perspective of the current social development, it can't meet the demand for money, let alone bear the complete monetary function, which is beyond doubt.
As a result, more countries tend to define cryptocurrency as a brand new financial product and classify it into securities:
Nigeria has classified digital assets as securities, providing clearer guidelines for cryptocurrency trading.
However, we should also see the revolutionary significance brought by the birth of Bitcoin: financial remodeling -- the advent of the era of digital economy, the advancement of the Internet -- Web3, the meta-universe and other embryonic forms.
Therefore, bitcoin can neither be completely denied, nor be accepted without principle. In the absence of reasonable supervision at the present stage, it is best to treat it cautiously and actively explore the broader prospects of the digital era brought by bitcoin.