playing games in their daily lives. some estimate that over 90 percent of the data produced in the history of humanity have been created in the last two years alone. data processing capabilities have also improved substantially. the importance of data is increasing in a wide range of economic activities and businesses, and it is becoming a new asset which can create added value. in such an environment, cashless payments are gathering great attention as platforms to collect and utilize a variety of data associated with economic transactions. many data - giant companies known as bigtechs, which have grown rapidly in recent years, are starting to provide cashless payment services with a view to collecting and utilizing big - data. crypto - assets and central bank digital currencies meanwhile, we have also witnessed the emergence of new mediums, that is, " virtual currencies " or " crypto - assets. " after the birth of the first crypto - asset, " bitcoin " in 2009, there has been a torrent of newly issued crypto - assets. nowadays there seems to be around 2, 000 types of crypto - assets. crypto - assets have the following common characteristics : they use " distributed " types technologies such as blockchain and distributed ledger technology ( dlt ), they do not have a specific issuer, and they are not denominated in sovereign currency units such as yen, dollar and euro. recently, there are proposals in academic and international forums that central banks should also utilize new technology and issue digital currencies which could be used as alternatives to banknotes. some central banks are now seriously considering whether they should issue such digital currencies. for example sweden, where the use of banknotes is rapidly decreasing, and some emerging and developing countries, where the infrastructure supporting banknotes has not yet fully developed, are now making extensive studies about the issuance of central bank digital currencies. iv. the future of money now, the question arises as to how money will evolve in the future. in view of the rapid pace of technological progress and the drastic change in the environment surrounding payments, settlements, financial services and the economy, it would be difficult for anyone to predict how money will evolve in the future. bearing such constraints in mind, i dare to present my own views on the future of money for discussion, and i will be touching upon the fundamental nature and functions of money discussed in the previous sections. i would like to summarize my remarks into five key

operations lengthened, running for ten months in bill - purchase operations at the final stage of the quantitative easing policy. “ quantitative easing ” is often used in a rather vague manner, but the policy action we adopted can be regarded as a pure form of “ quantitative easing. ” third, the bank adopted “ credit easing ” in the current terminology. the assets purchased included asset - backed securities ( abss ) and asset - backed commercial papers ( abcps ). fourth, the bank made a commitment to continuing with the zero interest rate policy and the quantitative easing policy. the conditions for commitment were expressed as “ until deflationary concerns are dispelled ” at the time of the zero interest rate policy and “ until core cpi inflation becomes stably zero or above ” at the time of the quantitative easing policy. fifth, the bank took unprecedented measures to secure the stability of the financial system, including purchases of stocks held by financial institutions. you may find the striking similarities between the policy measures formerly taken by the bank of japan and those currently taken by central banks in major countries. i never imagined that a host of unconventional measures taken by the bank of japan would be adopted by other central banks just a few years later. i also guess that my colleagues at central banks in other countries never imagined employing such policy measures. of course, such measures are not perfectly identical, reflecting the differences in the structure of financial intermediation and severity of stress in financial markets, as well as the differences in legal and social restrictions on policy measures available for central banks. notwithstanding such differences, the aforementioned striking similarities stand out. it is quite natural that a central bank facing a financial crisis takes similar measures, because a central bank, after all, pursues the same objectives with the same capacity, that is, the capacity to adjust the amount of liquidity in the economy. 3 among the papers contributed to the conference, goodfriend ( 2009 ) argues central banking under financial turmoil by classifying central bank initiatives into monetary policy, credit policy, and interest rate policy. importance of liquidity this leads me to discussing liquidity, which, i think, is the most important concept in understanding the current financial crisis, though it is hardly possible to sort out a single factor. during the expansion period of the credit bubble, it was complacency based on unfounded expectations about the unlimited availability of liquidity behind the aggressive risktaking attitude. by contrast, during the period of bubble bursting, it was fear of the