THE METAMORPHOSIS OF MONEY || IS CRYPTOCURRENCY THE FUTURE OF MONEY?

The etymology of money.

History revealed that barter was the foremost means of exchange in the ancient societies. At that time, people exchanged goods directly from one person to another, that was the standard. There were no paper money or coins.
This method had it's limitations as there must be coincidence of want before trade by barter can take place.
Perhaps, things began to bite harder and harder as many could not exchange their goods, simply because they could not see someone that wants what they have and vice versa. This resulted to people in some societies standardizing items like livestock, shells, grains and other commodities as means of exchange.

The economy at that time continued to evolve till they invented a more sophisticated and generally accepted means of exchange; "the use of money".

There is no exact date associated to the invention of money, however, we know it dates back to the ancient times.
Money did not just take its current form, it developed from one form to the other until we arrived where we are today (Fiat money), this is the reason many think that someday, cryptocurrency will become a standardized means of exchange over fiat currency.

Various development stages of money.

1. Commodity money :- This is the foremost form of money. Here, items with inherent values were used as standard means of exchange. Example of such items are; shells, grains and livestock. Gold and silver were also used as a means of exchange because they are widely accepted even as they are durable.

2. Metallic Money :- At this stage, Metals were shaped into specific units to facilitate smooth trade. Gold and silver were mainly what were used because of their durability and universal value.

3. Coinage :- The first coins were minted around 600 BCE in the ancient kingdom of Lydia.(Modern day Turkey). With the invention of this coins, trades became easier and seamless.

4. Paper Money :- Because coins are very very heavy when in large quantities, people continued to search for better answers.
   In the 17th century, the first paper money was developed in Tang dynasty, China. Then, it was called flying money. However, the true papper monies were minted in the 11th century. The emergence of paper money represented value while items like gold and silver were held in reserves.

5. Fiat currency :- Money is currently at its fiat stage. This is not backed by its physical state but it is a government issued currency. The central bank of all counties have control over fiat currencies because they determine the qualities to be printed and left in circulation.

At this juncture, we will pause to highlight the difference between fiat currency and cryptocurrency. This will help us with a clearer vision while we peep into the future.

Fiat currency vs cryptocurrency, advantages and disadvantages.

What is fiat currency?

Fiat money is a government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver, but rather by the government that issued it. The value of fiat money is derived from the relationship between supply and demand and the stability of the issuing government, rather than the worth of a commodity backing it. Source

Advantages of fiat currency.

• Cheep and easy to produce.
• Wide acceptance.
• Government control.
• Facilitates easy trade.

Disadvantages of fiat currency.

• When the government misuse their control to print more money not backed with the guiding principles, it may trigger inflation.

• Because it's value is not backed by a physical commodity, it can lead to loss of value.

• Poor management of Fiat creates economic instability.

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Source

What Is Cryptocurrency?

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency secured by cryptography, which makes it nearly impossible to counterfeit or double-spend. Cryptocurrency exist on decentralized networks using blockchain technology—a distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers. Source

Advantages of cryptocurrency.

• Eliminates middle men (third parties).
• Streaming of remittance.
• It is easy to transfer funds.
• Generates returns.
• Single point of failure is eliminated.

Disadvantages of cryptocurrency.

• High volatility.

• Security issues with the offline chain.

• expensive to participate in a network and earn.

• Pseudonymity of transactions.

Is cryptocurrency the future of money?

As demonstrated above, history have shown that money have continued to develope and evolve from one stage to the other. With the arrival of cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology, it seams another stage is at hand judging from how they have developed and their impact to the value system of money accross the world, one can posit that cryptocurrency is the future of money.

But to answer the question!
Will fiat money go extinct someday? I do not think so.

One can even say that the fiat money will continue to be the most popular money for spending and saving. This is because it is safer and easier to use than cryptocurrency.

However, cryptocurrency has lots of potentials and prospects and will continue to grow and more people will continue to know about it and adopted it.

Conclusion.

As discussed earlier, fiat currency and cryptocurrency both has their advantages and disadvantages. Cryptocurrency has lots of potentials (security and it's decentralized nature) to play very key roles in the future of money. Since it's introduction to the mainstream in 2019, it have recorded tremendious improvements in popularity, usage, growth etc. There are still more capacity and areas for improvement. This means that cryptocurrency can't be entirely written off from the future.

Therefore, the future will depend on certain factors like regulatory bodies and their developments, widespread adoption, and technological advancements.

I think it will be a hasty conclusion to say that cryptocurrency will unseat fiat currency or that cryptocurrency can't.
Perhaps, I think that the strength and untapped potentials of cryptocurrency can not be ignored.

At the moment, many companies and business have started accepting cryptocurrency as a means of exchange. Some investors are also seeing it as a good investment to being good returns. Even the government wants to make money of it by taxation.
Hence, I foresee a future where cryptocurrency and fiat would coexist, searving different needs.