World’s largest Bitcoin exchange’s collapse has forced
investors in this virtual currency to rethink about their investments. As per
the reports, security system of Japan’s based exchange was compromised and lakhs
of Bitcoins worth around $400 millions were lost/siphoned off.
It’s an eye opener for the developed and developing
economies which were balancing their act together to introduce these “cryptocurrencies”
in their economies for daily transactions. The volatility of this intangible
currency was astounding, from $30 to $260 then touching $1000 and now dropping
back to $550 within 8 months time is quiet tough for any economy to absorb.
In one of the conference, late last year, RBI Governor
Raghuram Rajan explicitly highlighted the instability of such currency a threat
for the economy. Although, never brushed away the reach-potency of such
currency in a country like India where there are about 900 million mobile
subscribers out of which 20% have internet connections on their sets but with a
tighter control over Bitcoins.
As MT GOX has started counting its days before it completely
perishes, similarly one day even Winkdex (active
qualified U.S. dollar denominated bitcoin exchanges)would
wink off completely until a tighter control is imbibed in its system.
Though one should never undermine the importance of such
virtual currency, which would certainly have the next big transactional value as
the world takes another leap virtually, a better control/regulation is
something which would make such transactions more secure, reliable and worthy.
How to regulate such currencies? What are the steps involved
in measuring inflation through these currencies? How to increase the
transactional reliability among the users? The world’s biggest economies should now take
some comprehensive steps towards dealing with such issues and making such
currencies a viable option for future transactions.
A step in this direction is a must now.
