Virtual Currencies: Concept and Implications

Abstract

The emergence of virtual currency technology, with its profoundly serious and ambiguous implications, has sparked widespread debate among economists and decision-makers, both locally and internationally, due to their differing perspectives and views on the potential economic impacts—whether positive or negative—with some believing it will significantly contribute to shaping a new global economy, while others believe that its risks to the global economic system outweigh their benefits. Given the undeniable reality of accelerating economic developments and the demands of international trade, virtual currency technology has emerged to remove geographical constraints, and it is toward the decentralization of economic transactions, moving toward a decentralized role for intermediaries, through direct communication between buyer and seller, which constitutes a modernization of global trade, while noting the risks of using this technology given its existence outside legal and institutional regulation.