A Digital Means of Payment in the Digital Age: Bitcoin and Digital Money

2017Murat Volkan DülgerArticle

Abstract

This work was written in Turkish. The summary on this page is a translation; the citation gives the original title in parentheses.

When we speak of money, what first comes to mind is money with a tangible, visible physical existence, in the form of coins or banknotes. But must money have a concrete reality? For some time now, the enormous development of technology has been leading us to ask these questions as well. For it is inevitable that technology, which plays a major role in every area of our lives and brings about change, will affect money, the economy and therefore trade. First of all, the question “What is money?” needs to be clarified.

Although it has no single settled definition, the generally accepted definition of money is that it is a common and generally accepted medium of exchange used to pay the price of goods and services and to settle debts. There is therefore no requirement as to what form money must take. Money is merely a representation and a common medium of exchange. Anything that is used to pay a price and is generally accepted can be regarded as money. In primitive societies in which goods were bartered, goods of value such as salt, tobacco, hides, dried fish and head of livestock were used as a measure of exchange. This type of money is called commodity money. It is known that forms of money such as coined money, paper money backed by gold and silver, and banknotes were used afterwards.