Even if they created their own fork or clone of Bitcoin, it would be an immense revolution away from the centralization and monopoly of fiat money.
Realistically, however, I do not see this happening.
-EFFV
Topic: Could Scotland’s currency be bitcoin? - page 2. (Read 1683 times)
IT would be a nice idea but it's not going to happen. Maybe a cryptocurrency will become the defact currency of a smaller nation but Scotland is too large to experiment with bitcoin at this moment in time. Besides, they'll either just keep the pound, create their own or join the euro.
No it would not be possible. The economy of scottland is in the trillions of dollars, while the market cap of bitcoin is under 10 billion dollars. This is simply not feasible.
Also if scottland were to use bitcoin as a currency then the price of bitcoin would go up so quickly that there would be too great of incentives to attack the network verses the costs to attack the network that bitcoin would be destined to fail.
Also if scottland were to use bitcoin as a currency then the price of bitcoin would go up so quickly that there would be too great of incentives to attack the network verses the costs to attack the network that bitcoin would be destined to fail.
I guess it could be possible for them to do so but I feel they would have to take a lot of things into consideration before they even decided to use bitcoin as their currency. As it stands now not many people know about bitcoin and I would imagine not even half of Scotland's population knows much about bitcoin. For it to be a main currency for a Country as well it would have to be a lot safer than what it is now I feel.
A central question in the Scottish independence campaign has centered on currency. The Bank of England has said repeatedly that an independent Scotland can not use the pound sterling, except for an 18-month emergency period following a yes vote.
No one has sorted out what currency Scotland would use after that period, but there’s been some speculation that digital currency bitcoin might be a good fit.
That idea may seem far-fetched, but it has been posited in at least one high-profile financial forum by the assistant governor of Australia’s central bank and in a publication by a British think tank.
The country does have some experience in experimenting with currencies. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Scotland tested out private currencies in an unregulated banking system before ceding control to the Bank of England.
Under this free banking system, Scotland’s three largest private banks—the Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland and the British Linen Bank— issued competing private currencies after the Bank of Scotland monopoly on note issues ended. These private notes were backed by banks’ gold reserves, while their supply was largely left up to market forces.
Adopting a cryptocurrency like bitcoin would similarly be a return to private money and could offer some benefits for Scotland, such as creating a flexible flow of private capital at relatively low cost, says Pete Rizzo, US editor for Coindesk, a digital currency news site.
But, he warns, the risks would outweigh those rewards. A central bank would have little to no control over setting monetary policy under bitcoin, since the digital currency’s supply is dictated by market forces. Instead of relying on a central bank to protect its value, bitcoin uses high-powered supercomputers and sophisticated cryptography at several unknown locations around the world.
A more plausible solution, Rizzo explains, would be for Scotland to use the underlying technology behind bitcoin to suit its needs and possibly create its own, more flexible digital currency. The move would be almost as radical as the one to break up the UK’s 307-year-old union.
"Source "http://qz.com/267137/could-scotlands-currency-be-bitcoin/"
No one has sorted out what currency Scotland would use after that period, but there’s been some speculation that digital currency bitcoin might be a good fit.
That idea may seem far-fetched, but it has been posited in at least one high-profile financial forum by the assistant governor of Australia’s central bank and in a publication by a British think tank.
The country does have some experience in experimenting with currencies. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Scotland tested out private currencies in an unregulated banking system before ceding control to the Bank of England.
Under this free banking system, Scotland’s three largest private banks—the Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland and the British Linen Bank— issued competing private currencies after the Bank of Scotland monopoly on note issues ended. These private notes were backed by banks’ gold reserves, while their supply was largely left up to market forces.
Adopting a cryptocurrency like bitcoin would similarly be a return to private money and could offer some benefits for Scotland, such as creating a flexible flow of private capital at relatively low cost, says Pete Rizzo, US editor for Coindesk, a digital currency news site.
But, he warns, the risks would outweigh those rewards. A central bank would have little to no control over setting monetary policy under bitcoin, since the digital currency’s supply is dictated by market forces. Instead of relying on a central bank to protect its value, bitcoin uses high-powered supercomputers and sophisticated cryptography at several unknown locations around the world.
A more plausible solution, Rizzo explains, would be for Scotland to use the underlying technology behind bitcoin to suit its needs and possibly create its own, more flexible digital currency. The move would be almost as radical as the one to break up the UK’s 307-year-old union.
"Source "http://qz.com/267137/could-scotlands-currency-be-bitcoin/"
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