Cash will be gone in a decade, predicts an academic, and a new national property exchange says the vast majority of property sales will happen without cheques in three years, but not everyone's buying the claims.

Promoting the launch of digital cash studies in its first year money and banking unit, Rabee Tourky, director of the Australian National University's Research School of Economics, said there will be no paper cash in 10 years.

"The big question is what's going to replace it in Australia? Will it be Bitcoin? I don't think so. More likely it will be 'AusBit', an Australian government issued digital cash," he said.

"It's quite clear that the central bank in Australia is going to have to issue electronic cash."