Some experts say that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may trigger another major financial crisis.
More and more individuals and financial institutions around the globe are getting interested in digital currencies. If they get systemically significant, they will also turn into systemic risks, especially if there are rapid chances in the financial sector. As the amount of those individuals and institutions owning cryptocurrencies reaches critical mass, this is when they become really crucial for the global financial system, especially when there is enough cryptocurrency debt and leverage.
As you probably know, Bitcoin has come rapidly from 1000 dollars per BTC all the way up to 20000 dollars per BTC, which clearly made all kinds of investors interested in the asset. Even big-scale players start thinking about investing in Bitcoin in the near future.
On the other hand, the more expensive those cryptocurrencies become, the more hostile to them the American and European governments become. Apparently, they are afraid of mass money laundering and terrorism financing.
At the same time, as more and more financial institutions catch this crypto-fever, the bubble inflates, thereby increasing the chances of a new major financial crisis further down the road. In particular, more and more hedge funds are now investing in Bitcoin now that the CBOE and the CME have launched their Bitcoin futures. Those derivatives opened a whole new world of investment opportunities for them.
Other experts say that the key problem boils down to the fact that cryptocurrencies are two far away from conventional financial markets. Which is why the chances of cryptocurrencies triggering another major financial crisis are really small at this point. However, the distance is getting shorter and shorter. So, we have to get ready for tighter integration. Indeed, cryptocurrencies will definitely be integrated in the global financial system over time.
There is another threat. The thing is, investing in cryptocurrencies opens an easy way for institutional investors to transition out of the conventional banking system, which may aggravate the crisis.
The biggest risk associate with cryptocurrencies is that their true value is hard to measure. Those have been highly speculative assets, with thousands of investors inflating prices for the sake of taking big profits. Amid such a market environment, its next to impossible to figure out how much those cryptocurrencies really cost, especially as there is no clear algorithm of doing that.
