Scotland’s second independence referendum seems to be on the table, after the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon said.

A paper by Dr. Craig Dalzell, MSci and PhD in Laser Physics and Photonics, discusses “Scottish currency options post-Brexit”. Dalzell noted that one of the weaker aspects of the 2012-14 Scottish independence campaign was the debate around currency and attempts to take further the currency debate by explaining the concepts required to fully understand the details.

Released by Common Weal, a Scottish think tank, the paper examines all of the options that a newly independent Scotland could reasonably select in terms of each of their unique advantages and disadvantages. This includes a formal currency union with either Sterling or the Eurozone; Unilateral use of either currency; or a new Scottish currency, dubbed the £Scot, managed under various options of fixed, flexible or floated pegs; along with an interesting mention of “cryptocurrencies”.​

“A comparatively new entry into the financial field and one which has yet to be fully tested at a national scale, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin could represent a future direction for the concept of money in a digital age”, Dalzell said.

He discusses various advantages and disadvantages of cryptocurrencies with particular reference to the Bitcoin protocol. Dalzell noted that while this method of creating money and verifying payments is attractive for those who wish to remove the middle-person involved in processing the transactions, the reliance on an unknown verification system rather than a bank may disincline people from making large purchases using the currency.

He went to state the technical challenges currently seen this new technology including the dependency of transaction processing time on the total processing capacity of the miners, the incentive which will be offered to the miners once all the coins are mined and others.

Dalzell further referred to Warren Coats’ argument, saying that while cryptocurrencies should be considered seriously as a potential transaction medium they should not be “over-idolised” as a total solution. In his concluding remarks, he said:

“Economics is a dynamic event and no single currency option is likely to remain the optimal choice for an independent Scotland for all time.”