Crypto Assets and Non-Crypto Currencies. From the outset, the two authors, experts on the technical, economic, and geopolitical aspects of payment methods, warn us against fundamental errors in the assessment of so-called “crypto currencies”, such as the bitcoin. They do not fulfill the attributes of a currency, which are to be a unit of account, a means of intermediation of exchanges, and finally a reserve of value; the authors prefer to speak of crypto-assets which, in the absence of effective regulatory bodies, present considerable risks, essentially linked to an uncontrolled volatility without concrete counterparts and do not constitute, in any way, a reserve of value. A large part of the book is devoted to the risks generated by the uncontrolled expansion of crypto assets. For example, the anonymity of asset ownership and the impossibility of tracing the underlying transactions, the extreme volatility of the prices of these assets, the meteoric expansion of illicit transactions related to money laundering or arms trafficking on the dark web. Overall, in the absence of a framework by central banks, the flow of crypto-assets poses a threat to the monetary and financial order. The book then develops the opportunities offered by the underlying technologies around the blockchain. This technology, properly used, that is to say, exploited in an appropriate regulatory framework, can serve as a platform for the decentralization of part of the financial activities, for example for certain specialized and duly regulated credits and secured payment operations. The major issue is the sovereignty of Central Banks, which may be dispossessed of their role in regulating official currencies. In this respect, the book is a driving force for a controlled use of crypto assets which must not, under any circumstances, become an official currency.
Denis Molho