Money is now an internet ''content type'', according to a keynote speaker at New Zealand's first digital currency conference.
Californian-based expert Andreas Antonopoulos gave an insight into the potential future of the controversial crypto-currency bitcoin in Queenstown.
The tech-entrepreneur, author and chief security officer for popular bitcoin wallet and explorer service Blockchain explained the ramifications of money basically becoming decentralised, organised data.
''As we move into this world where money is a content type, the gatekeepers of the old payment systems will cling to the illusion that traditional banking is quality,'' he said.
''But we're going to move on and open up the range of expression that's possible with money to unimaginable levels.
''And they'll still cling to their ideas of grandiosity, the great old banks with the vaulted ceilings and chromed vaults.''
Mr Antonopoulos said those vaults were already empty, due to technological change, becoming cocktail bars, because they now ''serve no purpose other than grandiosity''.
''They'll try to persuade you that through their control, they protect you from evil, from terrorists, from money launderers, when all they're doing is protecting their own incumbency from competition.
''We have now separated the money from the medium. Money is now a content type and we're never going to go back.''
But Mr Antonopoulos says, as with the internet circa 1992, no-one can accurately predict the scope of digital currencies and the change they might bring.
A total of 120 people attended the two-day Bitcoin South conference last weekend. The conference is expected to return to the resort in future.
