That’s actually a very interesting question and i hope that others will also share their views.

Let me start by talking about the hierarchy of money. Whether we want it or not, we are still, to some extend, on a gold standard schema (banks have to have reserves at the Central Banks).

For starter, the money you have on your bank account (deposits) is nothing else than a promise (from the bank) to give you currency whenever you want (bills/coins), and currency is a promise to pay a certain amount of gold (or FDR). This is why when a crisis hits (or volatility starts to increase), the price of gold goes up (refuge).

So the question is to know if a cryptocurrency is implicitly backed by gold or not. If it is, then it is nothing more than a deposit (promise to pay currency → promise to pay gold or FDR). The same mechanisms and effects would apply.

If the cryptocurrency is not implicitly backed by gold, it would mean that this is the ultimate money (the highest level of hierarchy). It requires a really strong level of confidence. Which is why i would eliminate that possibility.

Cryptocurrencies would (have to) find their place within the hierarchy. One interesting feature is the ledger (blockchain), which brings openness, transparency, security and speed. It has some limitations. Cryptocurrencies relies on the internet and computing power (to mine). Attacks are more likely to come from the cyber space and we could definitely imagine some scenario where those currencies would be at risk.

Until now, cryptocurrencies have been really volatile and weakly correlated to the use case: value tend to increase when more use are created and tend to plummet when use is limited (we’ve seen it with Bitcoin, following some decision in China or from the FED).

The HUGE advantage that i would see is that cryptocurrencies travel faster and without borders. If a recession happens in one country or one region, i would expect to see the cryptocurrency act as a refuge (easier to transfer capital). I would also expect that to happen in case of a global crisis (the intensity of the crisis will not be equally distributed).

Another factor is that cryptocurrencies are, for now, a micro-niche. Very few people know about it or own/use them. In my entourage, i’m the only who ever had Bitcoins and was considered “a crazy freak”. It is more “widespread” in China for example (because it is a way for them to have assets outside of China).

I will keep thinking about it and update my answer later.