Digital Currencies – inevitable in a very near future all around the world

Resumo

Digital currencies are already booming in the modern world and will be essential, particularly in geostrategic terms or in international trade. Digital assets will essentially use two different types of technology: whether they will be centralised (like the Chinese CBDC, or the digital Pataca currently being implemented in the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China), or decentralised (like the various cryptocurrencies, already accessible in the Western world through numerous exchanges). This text focuses on the leading role of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and cryptocurrencies (as digital currencies) in the world as a whole and the leading role of digital assets in “emerging markets”, namely in various countries whose economies and financial markets are still emerging or developing, such as in Africa. Digital assets, being a CBDC or, differently, a legally private crypto like bitcoin or ethereum, for example – just to name the most popular ones around the world today – will play a decisive role in improving some economies commonly known as “emerging markets”. These are markets that still need a lot of improvement, particularly because they are related to weaker macroeconomies, where some social and economic relations are strongly and usually linked to some lack of (traditional) money (or “fiat” currencies, such as the US dollar or the euro).