货币会消亡吗?——兼论数字货币的未来

Will Money Finally Disappear: The Future of Digital Cash

不同于西方主流经济理论的货币交易媒介论,我们从价值贮藏视角探讨货币的起源与本质,并结合交易成本理论分析货币的发展演变规律。研究发现,不完全监测和信息不对称等市场摩擦是货币产生的内在动因,而商品货币、金属货币的内在价值或者法币之法律效力赋予货币信用,从而实现价值在交易者之间的瞬时转移和暂时贮藏。交易成本递减和信用风险递增主导着货币形态从商品货币、金属货币向纸币、电子货币的演变。区块链技术解决了交易不完全监测和信息不对称问题,数字货币应运而生。而数字货币因其真实、多点分布、不可更改的交易信息记录与储存特性,扬弃了货币的信用属性,凸显了货币的价值尺度属性。执行价值尺度功能的数字货币也因共产主义社会的到来、交易行为的终结将彻底从人类历史上消亡。

Different from the western mainstream economic theory taking money as the medium of exchange, we tend to explore the origin and essence of money from the perspective of its ability to store value, and then analyze its rule of evolution by taking transaction cost theory into account. Our studies show that market frictions, such as imperfect monitoring and imperfect recognizability are the intrinsic motivation for the generation of money. Meanwhile, the inherent value of commodity money and metallic currency and the legal validity of fiat money endow money with credit, which makes it possible for value to be instantaneously transferred and temporarily stored among traders. Decreasing transaction cost and increasing credit risk are the main factors that prompt the forms of money to evolve from commodi- ty money, to metallic currency, to fiat money and finally to electronic money. Block-chain technology can solve the prob- lem of imperfect monitoring and imperfect recognizability and lead to the advent of digital cash. Due to its validity, multi-note distribution and unalterable characteristics about recording and storing of transaction information, digital cash sublates the credit attributes and highlights the valuation function. However, digital cash, performing the valuation func-ion, will finally disappear from human history when communist society arrives and transaction practice ends.