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Digital currency has so much potential to make our lives so much easier and make transactions more straightforward. Still, there are specific barriers that are preventing it from reaching the majority of Australians.

Although Australia is a somewhat progressive country when it comes to human rights, we are not the best when it comes to adapting to new technology. A large part of this is due to the age of our population, which mostly consists of those who are over the age of 60. History has shown they are not well versed in technology to the point of being uncomfortable using it.

When self-serve registers first came out, there was pushback from the older generation as they wanted to be served by a person rather than a machine. This does stem back to them not liking computers taking the place of jobs, but what they did not understand is people were still employed to make sure those machines ran smoothly.

Will the older generation embrace digital currency?

One thing that makes us think they would accept it is their adaption to using tap and go, which is an excellent bridging concept towards digital currency. There has not been much push back as the tap and go method is fast, reliable, and much more convenient to use.

What about the big banks?

You would think that the big banks would be opposed to a digital currency. Still, in fact, the Australian Reserve Bank has been working with the co-creator of Ethereum on an Australian CBDC. This follows places like the UK, which has been talking about releasing a digital euro.

This would be huge for Australia as if we do go forward with it after the trial, we would be the first country to go digital with our currency. That would set the tone for the rest of the world to follow suit, but where would that leave cryptocurrency?.

Would a digital currency eliminate the need for cryptocurrency?

No, cryptocurrency serves more needs than simply being digital as by its nature it is decentralised and therefore is not regulated by banks or the government. It is this aspect that most people want with their currency as a trust for banks has been decreasing recently.

Many people are now distrusting the US dollar, and it is mostly the fault of the US government as from the beginning they did not take COVID-19 seriously. They have also spent over $6 trillion which could send the US into another recession. Many are now looking in cryptocurrency to subvert any impacts that the recession would have on them, which is why we have seen so much interest in Bitcoin recently.

It does seem that Australia will adapt to some form of digital currency, but whether that is a cryptocurrency or CBDC is yet to be seen. What we do know is that physical money is on the way out.

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