BITCOIN enthusiasts may want to study a satirical etching, published in 1792, that is now in a collection at London’s National Portrait Gallery. In one half, titled “French Liberty,†an emaciated French revolutionary gnaws on raw onions. In the other, “British Slavery,†a corpulent Englishman feasts on a giant slab of meat. The etching’s message â€" that a revolution is a farce if it fails to provide the basics â€" hangs uneasily over the world of virtual currencies.
For Bitcoin or its peers to emerge from their niche, they have to one day provide all the crucial benefits that come with the current system of money. For now, people are forgiving of currency innovations. No one expects fledgling digital money to quickly be the equal of the status quo â€" a system that has come into existence over centuries. Still, it is not clear that virtual currencies will ever have the strengths and scope of the current system, which, let’s face it, functions nearly all of the time.
One big reason we have not had revolutionary forms of new money in recent times is that the current system more or less works. That was even hinted at in the seminal 2008 paper about Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto, the real or made-up name of the currency’s creator or creators. “While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust-based model,†the paper says.
Anyone struggling to understand why digital currencies are not widely used ought to look at consumer behavior. Consumers have no problem rapidly adopting new technologies if they find them attractive. But they get a lot out of the current system. With minimal inconvenience, they can make secure noncash payments online and in stores, and they can do so around the world at any time. The existing system also allows people to store their money safely in insured banks, and those banks have the ability to create new money out of thin air when they lend to other consumers.
The virtual currencies are nowhere near achieving those things, and more to the point, they often do not want to. “As a consumer, not only am I using a real currency, I also have access to credit and access to a secure bank,†said Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer at MasterCard.
Over the last 30 years, the banking and payments system has not remained static. Credit and debit cards are now widely used, as are A.T.M.s and Internet banking. And the creativity continues as the widespread adoption of mobile phones has spawned easier ways to pay for things and do basic banking. In mid-April, Samsung is expected to release a phone that will allow users to buy items with a PayPal app, using only a finger swipe to verify the transaction. “You can look forward to a world where we don’t have user names and passwords,†Hill Ferguson, chief product officer for PayPal, said.
Virtual currencies are not close to offering such convenience and security on a broad scale. And it may be that the very stability of the current system is what provides the platform for inventing new products. “Innovation happens so much faster when it happens on a strong foundation,†Mr. McLaughlin said.
Consumers did not seem to be uppermost in the minds of Bitcoin’s creators. Instead, they seemed motivated mostly by a desire to reduce the cost of a payments system. Such savings would most likely benefit merchants far more than consumers.
And it is not necessarily the case that virtual currencies, if they ever gain broad acceptance, will ultimately be that much cheaper. One way Bitcoin tries to keep its costs down is by using its own self-reinforced method of transaction verification. The 2008 Nakamoto paper lays out an elegant mechanism by which a potential attacker of the system would instead be induced to protect the system. “He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules, such rules that favor him with more new coins than everyone else combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own wealth,†the paper contends.
But that mechanism may not be enough to reach the broader security of existing currencies. In recent weeks, large amounts of Bitcoin have apparently gone missing. And even if a virtual currency proves over time that its own system is secure, governments may demand wider types of compliance â€" to prevent abuses like money-laundering and fraud â€" that push up the costs of using it.
“There are real costs that go along with managing those risks,†said Jim McCarthy, global head of innovation and strategic partnerships at Visa.
Many supporters of virtual currencies would naturally resist government interference in their systems. At the same time, the authorities may feel uncomfortable allowing too many transactions in them, especially if they are hard to monitor.
In contrast, one of the advantages of the existing system is that it has long operated within the confines of society. The dollar is embedded in America’s democracy. That gives voters some say over the government entities that back, spend and print the nation’s currency. Law enforcement knows it well and is able to demand that banks provide information on potential criminal activities.
One of the most persuasive arguments for new currencies is that over the years, governments have had a tendency to debase and mishandle existing currencies, leading to financial instability and inflation. Some libertarians support virtual currencies because they stand apart from government interference, like a digital gold standard.
But again, such aspirations show little concern for the needs of ordinary people. The current system was, after all, able to right itself after it nearly failed in 2008. The authorities prevented a grim spiral that could have pushed unemployment even higher than it was after the crisis. The efforts that brought the system back from the brink, including printing money and shoring up the banks, were made possible by the dollar’s inherent flexibility and its roots in America’s democracy.
Virtual currencies may never have the ability to bend during times of emergency, and that may be their undoing or, at least, the reason they do not go far.
The status quo is, of course, imperfect in many ways. There is a chance that some aspects of virtual currencies will be adopted by the current system, making it stronger. But as things stand today, digital money is highly unlikely to become the new status quo. Anyone hoping to feast on Bitcoin may not get anything more than raw onions.
