Why the US Preparing for More Crypto Acceptance will Put its Economy at Risk?

The US may be looking forward to the highly volatile economy after accepting more crypto

In what can be described as a very significant observation Deloitte, a leading digital firm has come out with a survey which has a key finding that more and more American merchants are not just showing inclination but expressing a strong preference for crypto and accordingly they are indulging in appropriate groundwork. The report based on the survey titled Merchants Getting Ready for Crypto is prepared in collaboration with PayPal. The finding has raised some concerns which revolve around the apprehension that if materialized with cryptocurrency it may adversely affect the functioning of the US economy.

The survey was conducted between 3 December and 16 December 2021, "to gain greater insights into the overall attitudes and investments in the adoption of digital currency payment systems." Such apprehension stems from the fact that the survey was quite large and also quite representative in terms of the respondents and their industry background.  It had a sample of no less than 2,000 senior executives at retail organizations across the US and they were from the consumer goods and services industry, with a 10% contribution from each of the following subsectors: cosmetics, digital goods, electronics, fashion, food & beverages, home/garden, hospitality & leisure, personal & household goods, services, and transportation. It is evident that various segments of the US economy were part of the survey and the fact that there was an overwhelming preference — to the extent of 85% of the respondents falling in the category of "agree/strongly agree" — for the "ubiquitous" use of digital currencies or cryptocurrencies within five years — it cannot be undermined in any way.

Those who express concerns about the possible embeddedness of cryptocurrencies in the US economy in near future identify several issues like loss of investment due to market volatility, cyber-attacks, fraudulent transactions, and scams of numerous kinds. Apart from these concrete issues, there is another broader issue— the decentralized architecture of digital currencies with the free play of anonymous and pseudonymous organizations— which can not only threaten the stability of the US dollar but also come in the way of managing the physical currency system by the central bank. It is obvious that all these factors which run the risk of happening in simultaneity will have a negative effect on the industries in general and the US economy in particular. On a still broader scale, mainstreaming of cryptocurrency will also result in a host of non-state agencies taking control of the US economy and weakening the state's control over the economy through the highly volatile cryptocurrency market. Cryptocurrencies have proved to have possessed enormous economic power. How it will exactly impact the US economy after gaining a greater presence remains to be seen. But the risk concerns are already here, and they are not going to evaporate.