Jürg Conzett: Money is always changing

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The founder of Zurich’s MoneyMuseum, Dr. Jürg Conzett discusses the history and evolution of money on this episode of CoinGeek Conversations.

As Dr. Conzett tells Charles Miller, money creation today is unlike the coins of the Middle Ages in the sense that its value remains the same even after a historical event has taken place. “If there was a pandemic, you close shop, put the coins on the shelf, waited six months then opened again, the coins still have the same value.” he said. “Not so with our money, a pandemic hits and the next minute the money begins to disappear.”

Dr. Conzett believes that money creation is changing right in front of our eyes with the digitization of central bank money to make CBDCs—central bank digital currencies. According to him, the digitization of central bank money was governments’ response to fear and uncertainty triggered by the rise of Bitcoin. “Governments around the world were frightened because when Bitcoin has risen substantially, they say, ‘what do we do if people go to an exchange and transact with Bitcoin? What happens to taxes?’ They must be in horror and say ‘we have to do something’, so what they decided is to tokenize.”

Dr. Conzett describes a future where most of the banking money will be replaced by digitized central bank money under the control of governments, giving politicians power over the money supply. “They [politicians] have a tremendous responsibility and we will see how they go about fiscal responsibility.”

For his part, Dr. Conzett sees no direct or necessary relation between the digitization of money and Bitcoin and blockchain, citing China as an example. “China has digitized their currency, but not with Bitcoin, not on blockchain.” He notes that Bitcoin and blockchain will only surface if and when politicians decide to incorporate blockchain technology into the digitized money system. “There will be pressure to bring all the money onto the blockchain, because once it’s on blockchain, at least in BSV, it will be public knowledge.” But in order to get there, he believes people must increase the token economy.

As for the future of blockchain, Dr. Conzett believes only one Bitcoin ecosystem will prevail. “In my opinion, there will be one blockchain which attracts most because it will be the most efficient, and the most efficient, I think will win.”

To learn more about central bank digital currencies and some of the design decisions that need to be considered when creating and launching it, read nChain’s CBDC playbook.

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