Over the past thousands of years, from barter trading, commodity money, precious metal currency, credit currency to digital currency, money has undergone several evolutionary processes, reflecting the continuous replacement of society, the rapid development of technology and the continuous change of people's understanding of money. The scale of value is the most basic function of money, which is used to measure the price of goods. As a means of circulation, money plays the role of "intermediary" in the process of commodity trading. In addition, money also has the functions of means of payment, means of storage, and world currency. For individuals, the life of every social person is inseparable from exchange, inseparable from money, and the change of monetary policy is closely related to the production and life of members of society. From the national level, monetary policy directly affects the state's management of the national economy and is an important means of regulating the market economy. With the boom of the internet economy, a range of other forms of currencies or tokens have emerged on top of traditional fiat currencies.
China's legal tender at this stage is the renminbi, which is issued and managed by the central bank. Traditional fiat currencies have many advantages, such as anonymity, ease of carrying, and reusability. However, its drawbacks are also very prominent: First, due to the limitations of its physical form, it is impossible to carry out fast remote payment settlement, and large payments are also constrained. Second, it is impossible to eradicate the chronic disease that paper money is easy to counterfeit and alter. It is true that the Regulations on the Administration of rmb explicitly prohibit the forgery and alteration of RMB, and the Criminal Law also stipulates the crime of counterfeiting currency and the crime of altering currency, but it is still not enough to deter the above-mentioned acts.
Acts of altering and forging currency occur from time to time, which not only harms the property interests of both parties to the transaction, but also infringes on the normal circulation of RMB and the state's management order of currency. Third, the anonymity of fiat money indirectly stimulates the breeding of crimes such as embezzlement, money laundering, and bribery. Because traditional fiat currency is anonymous and untraceable, once it is stolen or used by criminals, the relevant departments cannot monitor and manage it, which is not conducive to the prevention and crackdown of crime. Finally, it is impossible to formulate a relatively effective monetary policy. Once the currency is issued and circulated in the market by the central bank, it is impossible to achieve accurate control over it and it is impossible to judge the flow direction. Whether it is invested in entities, or flows to the financial sector, or flows in the asset market, the central bank does not know, can only rely on rough statistical information for regulation, the effect is not satisfactory.
The emergence of electronic money is undoubtedly a supplement to traditional fiat money. Electronic money refers to "the value of a currency represented by a certain claim cleared by the issuer". Electronic money is usually stored on electronic devices, and the par value of the banknote issued is not less than the value of the currency, and is used by the user as a means of payment. The emergence of electronic money has effectively solved the problem that traditional paper money is not easy to pay in large amounts, reduced the risk of currency counterfeiting, and made it more convenient to use and carry. Electronic money has the general characteristics of traditional legal tender, but there are shortcomings: First, electronic money is issued by a third party, which reduces the central bank's control over the money supply and is not conducive to the implementation of monetary policy; Second, the transaction of electronic money must go through a third-party platform, have full centralized characteristics, and be highly dependent on the account; Third, the increase in third-party payment platforms has increased the burden on central banks. The electronic payment platform opens multiple reserve fund accounts, and the relationship is complex, which increases the difficulty of the central bank to monitor the compliance behavior of its account and increases the regulatory burden of the central bank.
Bitcoin can also effectively solve a series of problems existing in traditional fiat currencies and electronic currencies. Although the value of Bitcoin in the virtual world has increased exponentially from the date of issuance, it is limited to circulation in the virtual world, and once Bitcoin moves from the virtual world to the real world, the Achilles heel of no assets behind it is highlighted. Without asset support, it is impossible to maintain stability, and its exchange value cannot be discussed. As mentioned earlier, Bitcoin is based on blockchain technology, the essence of which lies in decentralized, anonymized, distributed storage. However, bitcoin can only be used as a private digital currency and cannot become legal tender for the same reason: First, its complete decentralization makes it impossible for central banks to monitor the flow of money and ensure the effective implementation of monetary policy; Secondly, the anonymity of Bitcoin will bring great difficulties to supervision, and it is easy to breed crimes of embezzlement, money laundering, bribery, etc., which is not conducive to social stability; Finally, Bitcoin is issued by units and individuals, and its credit is difficult to guarantee.
The central bank issues fiat digital currency, drawing on the advantages of traditional currencies, electronic currencies and bitcoins, while making up for their shortcomings, so as to highlight the value and significance of issuing new currencies. Fiat digital currencies are issued by the central bank and have the characteristics of controllable anonymity, traceability, security and distributed storage.
First of all, the design of controllable anonymity and traceability is the core element of the orderly operation of fiat digital currency. "Certificate Authorities" and "Registration Centers" are important links in achieving controlled anonymity. In detail, the certification center is the central bank's centralized authentication management of the information of legal digital currency institutions and users, using identification technology to conceal identities, and users' personal information is not disclosed. The registration center records the legal digital currency and the corresponding user, and completes the ownership registration. At the same time, it is also necessary to record all the flow of digital currency from issuance to circulation to recycling. In other words, the fiat digital currency is associated with the identity issued by the certificate authority, and the ownership registration is completed, at which time the registration center cannot correspond to a specific user. The key to achieving anonymity and controllability is to create a barrier between the certification center and the registration center, and not to arbitrarily associate the two without legal reasons and without legal procedures, thereby protecting user privacy. This mechanism is the basis of "voluntary front-office and back-office real-name".
Secondly, the use of encryption technology ensures the security of the transaction. Fiat digital currency is transmitted through the network in the form of strings when trading, in order to prevent being destroyed and changed, it can not rely solely on hardware to protect, must use cryptography to escort the circulation of money.
Finally, distributed storage makes transaction data safe, reliable, and trustworthy. Copies exist of all operating institutions, and the Central People's Bank keeps the ledger of the main center.
This article is original by crayon chat the most dazzling technology, welcome to pay attention, take you along with long knowledge!