What is Scotcoin?

If you have heard about Bitcoin, and chances are that you have, you can already make an assumption about what it might be. But let's look into it a bit. What, why, and where?

Countries around the world are moving towards becoming cashless, or at least towards becoming mainly cashless, and it is also a big goal of Scotland.

"The move to a digital technology is a natural evolution that all our societal technologies are going through. We still have a monetary culture that focuses on the system. Now different payment systems and different structures are emerging – such as Scotcoin – which make for more of an ecosystem of moneys." -- Duncan McCann, researcher at New Economics Foundation.

So what is Scotcoin?
Scotcoin is digital cash like Bitcoin, but meant (mainly) for the people in Scotland, and gives them a good alternative to the pound Sterling. It's an online currency that compared to bank transactions, is more like cash.

Established in 2013 it is the first country-related alternative digital currency. The size of Scotcoin economy is limited, and there can always only be maximum of 1 billion Scotcoin, which means that the Scotcoin economy is unable to hyper-inflate, unlike usual monetary systems.

Difference with banks?
According to a survey by Cartridge Save brits don't like government to be able to track their every transaction. So while they might, or might not, like the country to go cashless, they definitely don't like that the government has an overview of all of their banking activities. And that's where Scotcoin is different. Using Scotcoin is not like using a bank account, it's more like using your cash in this sense since it's all anonymous. No account numbers, you don't have to share your info with a bank or anyone else.

Will Scotcoin become a widely used digital currency in Scotland and/or around the world, only time will tell. But for now, it's definitely a good-looking project.

If you want to read more about countries' efforts to go cashless, check out this article.