There is nothing new in our world. Much of the time, history has already told us the answer when we are confused. The same is true for Bitcoin. To anticipate the future of Bitcoin, we must know the history of human currency clearly, especially the changes of the world currency. Previously, I have talked about the establishment and demise of the Bretton Woods system and the story of the international gold standard system. Today we will proceed with the discussion over Bitcoin from a historical perspective. Focus is on Bretton Woods Conference in 1944.
In 1944, the Bretton Woods system with USD as its core was set. USD is linked to gold, and the currencies of other countries are linked to USD, indirectly linked to gold, and a fixed exchange rate regulation was the solution to supporting the world's monetary system. Factually at the Bretton Woods meeting at that time, USD was not the only way out. Another plan was there but failed. The plan was about the Union for International Settlements proposed by Keynes, an eminent economist, called Keynes Plan, which chooses bancor as the accounting unit.
John Maynard Keynes, one of the most distinguished economists in the United Kingdom, the most influential economists in modern economics, is known for creating the Keynesian Revolution and is called the father of macroeconomics. Bretton Woods Conference is the last stage of him. He devoted himself to the construction of an international monetary fund and world bank. After the meeting, he was overburdened with numerous talks. About one year later, in April 1946, he died for overwork.
At Bretton Woods Conference, Keynes put forward the Union for International Settlements program with bancor as the accounting unit to cope with financial, economic and currency problems of the globe. That program was called Keynes Plan. Another is White Plan raised by the official of the US Treasury Department. The decentralized exchange protocol "Bancor" was named by that. But the Bancor of DeFi has become the modern token exchange protocol instead of the world currency plan.
wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economicsKeynes Plan is approximately composed of three parts:
1.Build an international settlement union as the World Central Bank, a currency called bancor will be issued by it. Governments set up accounts with bancor as the unit. That account would be used in the settlement with other countries in World Central Bank. The number of bancor in each country is determined by a certain percentage of the country’s average import and export volume in the three years before WWII.
2.Connect bancor and gold. As a nominally super-sovereign international currency, bancor is actually not a currency really applied in circulation because it's just a unit in the international settlement union, but the value of bancor can be converted into some value of gold. At the same time, gold can be exchanged for bancor, it is a one-way deal.
3. Establish a restraint and adjustment mechanism between deficit countries and surplus countries. The former is of debt, which means their bancor account is in debt; otherwise, their bancor account is in surplus.
The UK and the US had an intense discussion over the two plans. However, due to World War II, the latter was the largest creditor nation and the biggest beneficiary then while Britain’s economic and military power declined. An agreement was reached in April 1944, which basically reflected White Plan, so Keynes Plan was eventually abandoned.
Does Keynes Plan have anything to do with Bitcoin?
Personally, bancor is the super-sovereign currency that economists came up with eighty years ago. Discarded as it was, bancor provided a feasible solution to world currency system. Keynes Plan is more economically reasonable in theory and has very profound guiding significance for global financial and monetary fabric. I believe, the most basic positioning of Bitcoin in the future is super-sovereign currency as well, playing a role similar to bancor in Keynes Plan and truly functioning as a world currency.
Anyway, my point is, Bitcoin can surely become a super-sovereign currency that affects the entire world economic structure in the future. That is based on certain economic theory and that is decided by the characteristics of Bitcoin itself and the trend that human society will become fairer.
What do you think?