, money, and payments i was asked to provide some brief thoughts about digital developments in the world of monetary policy and central banking. at the start of benoit ’ s ecb term, bitcoin ’ s market capitalization was small, and only a handful of cryptocurrencies existed. in the eight years since then, bitcoin ’ s market capitalization has grown rapidly and now exceeds 100 billion euros, and thousands of cryptocurrencies have been created. 3 the potential of “ global stablecoins ” to scale rapidly is evident from the increasingly fast rates of technology adoption and the growth of large networks. adoption rates for new technologies have accelerated over time. in 1921, 35 percent of u. s. households had telephone service, and it took 40 more years for telephone lines to reach 80 percent of homes. in contrast, the internet achieved the same level of adoption in only 13 years. more recently, smartphones and social media have achieved the same level of u. s. household adoption in less than a decade. 4 rapid adoption is also evident in the payments landscape, where network externalities figure prominently. between the first quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2019, transactions through venmo grew over 66 times to $ 21 billion ( 18. 5 billion euros ). 5 systems in other countries have also scaled rapidly. in china, mobile payments grew over 35 times during the same period to $ 8. 2 trillion ( 7. 2 trillion euros ). 6 india ’ s unified payments interface ( upi ) has grown even faster : between the fourth quarter of 2016 and see https : / / www. blockchain. com and https : / / www. coinmarketcap. com. hannah ritchie and max roser ( 2019 ), “ technology adoption, ” published online at ourworldindata. org, retrieved from https : / / ourworldindata. org / technology - adoption [ online resource ]. “ venmo ’ s monetization will be worth watching, ” business insider, january 31, 2017, www. businessinsider. com / venmos - monetization - will - be - worth - watching - 2017 - 1. see http : / / www. iresearchchina. com /. roughly 90 percent of mobile payments in china from 2014 - 19 were through alipay and tenpay. - 3the first quarter of 2019, the transaction value grew nearly 400 times to $

be adopted globally in a short time period and to establish itself as a potentially new unit of account. unlike social media platforms or ridesharing applications, payment systems cannot be designed as they develop, due to the nexus with consumers ’ financial security. this is why in many jurisdictions, including the european union, there is a regime to oversee retail payment systems. without requisite safeguards, stablecoin networks at global scale may put consumers at risk. cryptocurrencies already pose a number of risks to the financial system, and these could be magnified by a widely accepted stablecoin for general use. estimated losses from fraud and thefts associated with cryptocurrencies are rising at a staggering pace – from $ 1. 7 billion ( 1. 4 billion euros ) in 2018 to over $ 4. 4 billion ( 3. 9 billion euros ) in 2019, based on one industry estimate. 9 the hacking of exchanges represents a significant source of the theft, followed by the targeting of individual users active - user network includes people who were using at least one of the company ’ s core products ( i. e., facebook, instagram, messenger, or whatsapp ). ciphertrace ( 2019b ), cryptocurrency anti - money laundering report, 2019 q3, november, https : / / ciphertrace. com / q3 - 2019 - cryptocurrency - anti - money - laundering - report / and ciphertrace ( 2019a ), cryptocurrency anti - money laundering report, 2018 q4, january 2019, https : / / ciphertrace. com / cryptocurrency - anti - money - laundering - report - q4 - 2018 /. - 5through scams using qr codes, malware, and ransomware. these estimates reflect only known fraud and thefts ; it is likely that not all losses are reported and some amount of cryptocurrencies is lost or forgotten. in most cases, customers bear the losses. by contrast, over many decades, consumers in the united states and euro area have come to expect strong safeguards on their bank accounts and the associated payments. statutory and regulatory protections on bank accounts in the united states mean that consumers can reasonably expect their deposits to be insured up to a limit ; many fraudulent transactions to be the liability of the bank ; transfers to be available within specified periods ; and clear, standardized disclosures about account fees and interest