. having said all the above, i wish to conclude by making the following points : crypto - assets are not money or currencies. so people wishing to invest or speculate ( a ) in crypto - assets should do so without harbouring the unrealistic expectation that they would one day become money or currencies that can be used as a means of exchange. central banks must take extra care in making sure that the issuance of fiat ( b ) currencies is managed prudently in order not to diminish the purchasing power of the currencies or people ’ s confidence in them. overseers of payment systems must take proactive steps to ensure that large value as well as small value retail payment systems, making use of commercial bank or central bank balances, are efficient, convenient and at low cost to the users. this is increasingly important as the public now expects and demands a faster and cheaper means of electronic payment or digital cash, as some would call it, for their day to ( c ) day transactions. if the central bank fails to do this, the market will certainly come up 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches with some alternatives for this purpose. in this connection, you are no doubt aware that the hkma has just launched the faster payment system a few days ago. once the system goes live on 30 september, people in hong kong will be able to enjoy almost instantaneous p2p payments, making use of either mobile phone number or email address, free of charge to the users. while the distributed ledger technology used in crypto - assets creates many issues, the technology has shown great potential in many other applications. for example, the hkma and the banks in hong kong will soon launch a digital trade ( d ) finance platform using dlt. we are also in the process of developing a dlt interface that can link the domestic trade finance platform with those of other trading partners, such as singapore, on a bilateral basis. this new interface is expected to be launched sometime next year. despite some improvements made in the past few years, cross - border payments, especially retail or small value, remain inefficient and costly. this is unsatisfactory as it is not conducive to financial inclusion in relation to remittances by smes or ( e ) individuals. in this connection, i am pleased to note that progress is being made recently, as some banks and non - bank e -

to time. the average fee per transaction in december 2017 was us $ 34. to put the matter into proper perspective, electronic payments, using either balances kept by commercial banks at central banks or retail payments using commercial bank balances, typically take a few seconds and cost a fraction of the transaction fees in bitcoin transfers. store of value : crypto - currencies such as bitcoin have displayed very high volatility in value. crypto - currencies have no intrinsic value and are not backed by any institution or body regarding its value or purchasing power. their price and thus value are determined solely by the supply and demand forces prevailing at the time, which can fluctuate sharply depending on the appetite of the participants. it is true that in some countries, there has been high volatility in the value or purchasing power of their ( b ) money, too. however, one must bear in mind that this kind of volatility normally happens in times of crisis or in jurisdictions that have rather bad macroeconomic, fiscal or monetary discipline. but for bitcoin and most other crypto - currencies, their volatility seems to be structural in nature and the market dynamics that determine their price or value is rather opaque and hard to discern. with such high volatility in value and opaqueness, it poses great risks to the parties in accepting cryptocurrencies as a store of value or means of exchange for goods and services. ( c ) unit of account : with very high volatility and limited use as a means of payment, it is hard to envisage how any society could adopt crypto - currencies as a unit of account. 5. as far as i can see, crypto - currencies are not qualified to become money based on the analysis mentioned above. it is not a question of time that they can become more widely accepted as money. quite the contrary, the design of these crypto - currencies, such as bitcoin, is such that the transaction time and costs would go up if more people use or transfer them. unlike other forms of electronic money using central bank or commercial bank balances, crypto - currencies are not scalable, which undermines its prospect of gaining “ moneyness ” over time. for this reason, i would like to call these “ crypto - currencies ” as crypto - assets for the rest of our discussion as