The ubiquitous response from the financial community regarding the advent of cryptocurrencies was mostly negative with some representing cautions. Everybody was disturbed by the disruptive potential of the new arrival.
But in order to truly understand the phenomenon, one must contextualize the advent of crypto technology. This means looking at them with a historian lens and not to impose presentism in its analysis.
Niall Ferguson is the one who is applying the financial historical lens to analyze the advent of crypto. He was presenting a seminar to the Bank of England Governors. He told them that Bitcoin is the future’s financial system.
Ferguson was putting the advent of crypto in the context of 2008 market crash. He said that comparative analysis of the both yields that the financial systems are not very different.
What is different is that banks are much more capitalized than before. But that doesn’t mean that they are very well prepared for the next crisis. He said that Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies are the advent of these crises and can trigger them in the future.
The Chinese way of online payment at massive level is also a challenge to fiat based banking which is the backbone of global financial system. He warned that the future can be disruptive.
Ferguson has pointed earlier also that comparison of Bitcoin to gold is much underrated. It is much more precious.
The number of Bitcoins are 21 million and number of billionaires are almost 35 billion. If every billionaire decided to put just 1% of their assets in Bitcoin, their value can easily jump to $60,000. And if they feel secure and raise it to 5%, the value will go up to $300,000.
Ferguson is a Hoover based academician who excels in financial history. He has authored many book including the history of Rothschild’s, counterfactual histories and history of money.
He is currently working on Vol.2 of the Henry Kissinger’s biography. He is known for his sarcastic battles with Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman over inefficiency of Keynesian economics.