Money has evolved and been used from its initial emergence in the form of various commodities, including cowrie shells, salt, and metals for as long as we can trace civilization. We are now undergoing a significant transformation of money into distributed crypto-currencies (eg. Bitcoin) and centrally controlled central bank digital currencies (CBDC eg. Digital Yuan). While Bitcoin does satisfy the main functional requirements as a form of money, it is mainly seen as a store of value and is treated as a speculative asset. Many governments, concerned with this rapidly growing decentralized form of money, are scrambling to either try and ban it (USA, India) or to closely regulate it (China, Canada, EU etc). See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnz2oo8MRas). At the same time many countries are developing their own central bank digital currencies. - Explore and explain the main differences between de-centralized cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies. - Will governments be successful in banning Bitcoin? Why/Why not? - How will this evolution in money change our financial/currency markets? - Do you envision the value of Bitcoin increasing or decreasing over the coming years? Indicate why.