The Money Is Not Actually Moving

Economic Growth and the Production Possibility Curve (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If all money is digital, and if M-Pesa is the future, not just in Kenya but also in the rich world, and if the blockchain technology does to money moving what the Internet did to information moving, as in bring the costs down to pretty much zero, then the money is not actually moving, is it? You are just managing accounts, you are adding and subtracting.

And that digitization allows for a potentially massive increase in the velocity of money. If the same dollar exchanges hands 200 times instead of 20, that is a ten times increase in economic activity and hence economic growth. Moving money should be instantaneous and free globally. Just like when you send email, there is no lag. In the old fashioned ways, it can take days for money to move. There is no reason why it should be that way. That "lag" is a tremendous drag on economic activity.

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