MU professors predict the future of cryptocurrency | Local | columbiamissourian.com – Columbia Missourian
It’s an icy December morning. You stop in your local coffee shop on the way to work to grab your usual morning brew.
The young barista tells you the total. You reach into your pocket and pull out a pile of gold coins and drop them in the barista’s hand.
How would they react? Bewildered, entertained, concerned?
What if I told you that in this lifetime, the reaction the barista would give to you handing them a five dollar bill will be equivalent to sliding over a stack of shiny doubloons?
At an event hosted by the Trulaske Business School on Nov. 10, two professors with a deep interest in the world of online banking made a big prediction: Cryptocurrency is inevitable, and we need to get ready for it.
“Blockchain technology is being applied to law, shipping, contracts, government, health care, and more,” said Scott Christianson, a teaching professor who has been following bitcoin since 2013.
Another prediction: Bitcoin, one of the first and most well-known cryptocurrencies, will not be our next currency. Instead, Ether will be what comes to mind when we think of our finances.
Christianson said crypto’s hold on the future of the monetary banking system is a matter of when, not if. The purpose of their presentation and this article is to unravel this financial force that few fully understand.
What is cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency is a digital currency in which transactions are verified by a decentralized system rather than a centralized authority like the U.S. banking system.
The U.S. and other developed countries use interbank payment systems, a system that transfers funds between two separate banks, that are slow, costly and prone to cyberattacks, according to MU Assistant Professor of Finance Matteo Binfarè.
Bitcoin, the most widely known cryptocurrency, is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. This means you can transfer money between two parties without needing a financial institution.
This is where people lose trust in crypto. Without a bank, who is preventing double spending of the same electronic cash? Who is monitoring transactions?
“This is where cryptography comes to the rescue,” Binfarè said. “Cryptography is just a branch of mathematics that deals with the secure transfer of data.”
Cryptocurrency uses “proof-of-work” to show the cryptography used on a blockchain. A blockchain is a system in which a record of transactions made by cryptocurrency is maintained across several computers that are linked in a peer-to-peer network.
For example, the blockchain for Bitcoin is in an open source program called Bitcoin Core. Anyone with a computer and internet …….