Cryptocurrencies in the modern world

On March 9, at the recently opened “Boiling Point – IvSU”, an event was held by the Institute of Social and Economic Sciences in the format of a discussion on a topical and still not fully studied theme: “Cryptocurrencies in the modern world”.

The organizer was the head of the Department of Finance, Accounting and Banking Vladimir Nikolaevich Yegorov. The participants and listeners of the discussion were the rector of IvSU Aleksey Aleksandrovich Malygin, the director of the Institute of Social and Economic Sciences Irina Valerievna Kournikova, as well as students of the 2nd and 3rd courses of the Economics department (“Finance and credit” and “Economics of enterprises and organizations”).

Vladimir Nikolayevich opened the event by touching upon the issue of money, its history and the place of cryptocurrencies in the course “Money. Credit. Banks“. Then Vladimir Yarchenkov, a 3rd year student of the EP “Finance and Credit”, presented the audience with a report describing the essence of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, the principles by which they operate, as well as interesting facts about cryptocurrencies and their history.

Ekaterina Muzhzhakova, a 2nd year student of the EP “Finance and Credit”, spoke about fraud in the field of cryptocurrency circulation.

The question was raised for discussion: “Is cryptocurrency money and how does it perform the functions of money?” Students expressed 3 points of view:

1) Cryptocurrency is money, but in a small number of countries, since in them cryptocurrencies, although limitedly, still perform the main functions of money;

2) Cryptocurrency is a digital financial asset, but not money, and it is more like shares or shares of investment funds (you can invest money in it, and in our country, rather speculative demand prevails for cryptocurrency – they buy it to benefit from a change in the exchange rate);

3) The world does not need cryptocurrency at all, since it does not create anything new and only interferes with the normal functioning of the global economy and the monetary system.

The debate ended with a discussion of trends in the development of decentralized programs based on cryptocurrencies (metaverses).

Summing up, the rector and professors emphasized the activity of ISES students speaking on the issue of cryptocurrencies at various venues, and also expressed their hope for continued discussion on topics related to improving financial literacy in the field of digital currency and financial assets.