The new director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, supports blockchain technology. Mark Calabria, chief economist to Vice President Mike Pence has expressed his support for alternative currencies, stating, “While I’m an economist, not a tech guy, I’m very excited about Bitcoin, as I am about alternative currencies in general, and perhaps even more interested in the blockchain.”
Silicon Valley billionaire, Trump supporter, and member of the Trump administration transition team Peter Thiel has his own views on money and banking and they are not mainstream. Thiel started PayPal as an online currency before it became an alternative payment system to the big banks.
New Presidency Supports Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
This all adds up to something that is quite interesting in the world of money, monetary policy, and monetary systems. The administration that is driving the agenda for the world’s lone superpower and issuer of the world’s reserve currency is keenly interested in the emerging financial and monetary world known as FinTech. It is a world that is driven by technology and knows few boundaries when it comes to payment systems and alternative currencies.
We have never experienced this before. The United States has embraced a single national currency monetary system for over one hundred years. Prior to that, state banks were allowed to issue currency backed by gold and silver.
This however, is very different.
The Future of Money
How exciting would it be to unleash a multiple currency system that contains both public and private currencies? There is a persistent view among many economists (mainly those who foresaw the 2008 financial crisis) that we still face major problems with a debt laden global economy that is built on monopoly protected national currencies. If we enter into a new financial crisis, could it be the catalyst for this type of major and much needed reform?
It is not out of the realm of possibility that money may be changing in the not too distant future. And because gold and silver have been viewed as money in nearly every culture for the past 5000 years, it would be safe to assume that they will play an important role in any new system that should arise.
We do live in interesting times indeed.