I suspect the future will be more pluralistic in many dimensions, including this one. But I think we’re already there in some ways, and probably won’t change much in others.
Most people don’t store significant amounts of wealth in a currency. Investing is greatly preferred. I don’t think that’s likely to change.
Most people DO borrow in a local currency. Corporations sometimes borrow in multiple currencies. And almost everyone transacts in their local currency. Importantly, governments demand taxes in their currency, so everyone must participate at least a little in that format. This anchoring is likely to continue to matter for a long time.
The migration of value between investments (stored value) and currency (immediately usable value) takes a bit of time, and that time is likely to reduce in the future. My prediction is that large-government fiat currency continues to be the dominant transaction mechanism, but it becomes so easy to buy and sell other stores of value that it’s generally only held for minutes at a time. When you buy a gallon of milk, you’ll convert a fraction of your commodities fund to euros, make the purchase, and the store automatically converts their euros to their preferred investment, for 9 hours until they convert it back to pay a vendor (who converts it to their portfolio choice until end of week, when they convert it to pay their employees, who also instant-convert it to something else).
With, of course, some chance that it all falls apart and bullets (as a valuable trading commodity, and as enforcement for transactional integrity) become the key measure of value.
Yes, I agree that governments will be likely to “defend” their local fiat currencies, since they both have incentives (like control of the currency and production of more, and often relies on creating more to fund budget deficits), as well as the means to defend it.
I personally would really like such a bank account, that automatically invested the money in the account in the way I want, if the fees were low enough.
I suspect the future will be more pluralistic in many dimensions, including this one. But I think we’re already there in some ways, and probably won’t change much in others.
Most people don’t store significant amounts of wealth in a currency. Investing is greatly preferred. I don’t think that’s likely to change.
Most people DO borrow in a local currency. Corporations sometimes borrow in multiple currencies. And almost everyone transacts in their local currency. Importantly, governments demand taxes in their currency, so everyone must participate at least a little in that format. This anchoring is likely to continue to matter for a long time.
The migration of value between investments (stored value) and currency (immediately usable value) takes a bit of time, and that time is likely to reduce in the future. My prediction is that large-government fiat currency continues to be the dominant transaction mechanism, but it becomes so easy to buy and sell other stores of value that it’s generally only held for minutes at a time. When you buy a gallon of milk, you’ll convert a fraction of your commodities fund to euros, make the purchase, and the store automatically converts their euros to their preferred investment, for 9 hours until they convert it back to pay a vendor (who converts it to their portfolio choice until end of week, when they convert it to pay their employees, who also instant-convert it to something else).
With, of course, some chance that it all falls apart and bullets (as a valuable trading commodity, and as enforcement for transactional integrity) become the key measure of value.
Yes, I agree that governments will be likely to “defend” their local fiat currencies, since they both have incentives (like control of the currency and production of more, and often relies on creating more to fund budget deficits), as well as the means to defend it.
I personally would really like such a bank account, that automatically invested the money in the account in the way I want, if the fees were low enough.