"Following the growth of bitcoin, the most well known cryptocurrency, there are now more than 1,000 similar digital currencies being traded over the internet, said Arvind Narayanan, a computer science professor at Princeton University in the United States.
Most of these new digital offerings, however, are used for speculation - investors hoping the currency will gain popularity and then rise in value - rather than buying and selling tangible goods and services, Narayanan said.
“People are trying to get the state out of money and various forms of property,” Narayanan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “regulators and law enforcement are trying to adapt to a new technological development.”"