Regulating Digital Currencies: Bringing Bitcoin within the Reach of the IMF

Abstract

This Comment examines the potentially destabilizing effects of emerging digital currencies on the international foreign currency exchange market. Specifically, it examines "Bitcoin," a decentralized, partially anonymous, and largely unregulated digital currency that has become particularly popular in the last few years. This Comment argues that the International Monetary Fund, the institution responsible for coordinating the stability of foreign exchange rates, is ill-equipped to handle the widespread use of digital currencies in the foreign currency exchange market It highlights the inability of the Fund to intervene in the event of a speculative attack on a currency by Bitcoin users. This Comment concludes by suggesting two interpretations of the Fund's incorporating document, the Articles of Agreement, that would allow it to intervene in the event of such an attack.

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