Currencies

Monetary value has taken various forms over time—beef, salt, mother of pearl, amber, metal, paper, shells, etc. Today, there are two types of money issued by countries via their central banks: fiduciary money or fiat (money and banknotes) and scriptural money (checks and transfers). But private players are competing with these currencies and offering the so-called ‘electronic’ or ‘decentralised cryptocurrencies’, which issue peer-to-peer digital assets without the need for a central bank because they can be used through a decentralised computer network. There are more than a hundred cryptocurrencies, but...