Pandemy accelerates the introduction of digital currencies

In February and March of this year, over 3,000 consumers were interviewed for the Digimentality 2021 report, which includes a number of countries, age groups and backgrounds. The results showed that consumers' expectations that their country has become cashless since last year.

The respondents stated that the greatest obstacle to the transition to a cashless society was that the habits in dealing with physical money were too deeply rooted, closely followed by a lack of understanding of technology.

Many people have got used to making contactless payments last year to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. In fact, 46% of the respondents stated that the pandemic had made the arguments for digital currencies more convincing.

In terms of the type of digital currencies, 40% of consumers agreed that Covid-19 had tightened the application for digital currencies of the central bank (CBDCS). In the meantime, 46% said the same about digital open source currencies like Bitcoin.

The report also contains a survey of 200 institutional investors and corporate treasury managers, of which 61% are of the opinion that open source digital currencies have an application when processing.

A much higher proportion (three quarters) of the respondents from institutions and companies believed that their countries would become cashless compared to consumers, while 78% agreed that the emission of CBDC is necessary to create a functioning market for new financial instruments.

A majority of respondents also believed that the development of CBDCs would increase the demand for other forms of digital currencies that are not supported by the government.

The acceptance of the cryptocurrency as an asset for storing or increasing value seems to grow in the institutions. 80% of those surveyed agreed that digital open source currencies are useful as a diversif in a portfolio or treasury account.

In addition to the introduction of CBDC, many survey participants were of the opinion that the availability of an exclusively institutional platform for the digital change of money would be a trigger for larger portfolio and treasury activity in cryptocurrencies, especially in respondents from the USA.

The report seems to show a trend towards increasing acceptance and introduction of digital currencies in both consumers and institutions.