Many analysts and experts within the world of cryptocurrencies still do not know the answer to this question. What they certainly know is that Ethereum has a lot of potential.
A few months ago, a debate was triggered over whether or not Ether can be considered as money. To that, its creator Vitalik Buterin remarked that “Ether absolutely can be money if the community wants it to be.”
This statement was made at a meeting held in October 2019, when Buterin was asked whether he believed that Ether could be a global store of valuable assets, but more functional and without the need of permits.
Discussion about Ether
It should be noted that the discussion about whether or not Ether can be a “valuable asset” did not end with Buterin’s comment. Other experts such as Joseph Lubin, Founder of ConsenSys, claimed that this cryptocurrency has the potential to be a better form of money than Bitcoin.
However, Lubin also recognized that Bitcoin still holds the position as a reserve of value, at least for quite a while. He considers that Ethereum still needs to evolve.
People’s Comments on Ethereum’s potential
Buterin’s opinions received a mixed response from the community, especially on Reddit. Some of them even commented on things like the possibility to use ETH as a drug, if desired, of course.
Additionally, this issue of the classification of Ether as money was also discussed by Bob Summerwill, the Executive Director of the ETC Cooperative.
Summerwill believes that one of the characteristics of hard money, which is present in Bitcoin but not entirely in Ether, is certainty. He stated that it has to be tamper proof, a system that cannot be changed after it is implemented.
Emphasis must be made on system changes as, although Bitcoin is not known for being immune to market manipulations, it is known for the advantages of blockchain technology.
To this, Summerwill added that how things become hard money is, at least, through certainty. There is a huge taboo against changing anything in the monetary policy, which was always the case with Bitcoin.
Summerwill also noted that Bitcoin had a fixed supply, a block reward rule, and a block size. Then he added that there cannot be any more certainty than that.
What Can Be Considered Money
According to Summerwill, anything can be money, even a bus ticket, depending on people’s desires. However, for a bus ticket to be real money there must be a fixed monetary policy.
On the other hand, it should be remembered that this was the path that Ethereum Classic chose in its first year when introducing a monetary policy in ETC.
However, the executive director said that this is not the case with Ethereum, considering all the changes that have been made regarding mining rewards.
Besides, he said that there has been uncertainty with Ethereum’s monetary policy since the platform announced that it would move from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS).
Considering all this, many claim that Ethereum is not a good option to be considered as money. Users seem to have the last word in this respect, according to some experts.
By Willmen Blanco
