# Is web3 a means to rebuild the global financial system?
**Web3 is not a means to rebuild the global financial system.**

Crypto assets do [not have the capacity](is-bitcoin-currency.md) to function as [money](../concepts/money.md) which serves as the foundation for a financial system. Without money which can mediate transactions, serve as a medium exchange, be used to denominate contracts and issue debt products in, all of modern finance could not exist. 

Crypto has no theoretical basis as a foundation for a financial system because it is not fit for purpose and is not a [currency](../concepts/currency.md).

## References
1. Steele, Graham. 2021. ‘The Miner of Last Resort: Digital Currency, Shadow Money and the Role of the Central Bank’. Technology and Government, Emerald Studies in Media and Communications, Forthcoming.
1. Varoufakis, Yanis. 2021. ‘What Is Money, Really? And Why Bitcoin Is Not the Answer (Even If Blockchain Is Brilliant & Potentially Helpful in Democratising Money)’. Yanis Varoufakis (blog). 2 August 2021. https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2021/08/02/what-is-money/.
1. Dini, Paolo, and Alexandros Kioupkiolis. 2019. ‘The Alter-Politics of Complementary Currencies: The Case of Sardex’. Cogent Social Sciences 5 (1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2019.1646625.
1. Petz, Marcus. 2020. ‘When Is Money Not a Currency? Developments from Finland of Proto-Community Currencies’. International Journal of Community Currency Research 24 (2): 30–53.
1. Gorton, Gary B, and Jeffery Zhang. 2021. ‘Taming Wildcat Stablecoins’. Available at SSRN 3888752.
