The head of the European Central Bank recently shared his thoughts on crypto, as reported by CoinTelegraph. At the ECB Youth Dialogue Conference, Mario Draghi described cryptocurrencies as “very, very risky assets”.
According to Draghi, “Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoins and such things are not real currencies: they are assets. One euro is one euro, today, tomorrow or in a month: it will always be one euro. And the ECB is behind the euro”. He warned that, with cryptos, their “value is extremely unstable”.
A number of national central banks have recently been toying with the idea of creating a digital version of their fiat currency. The European Central Bank is presumably less sold on the benefits of blockchain tech than others, having indicated that it has no plans to do something similar for the Eurozone with a Euro-based crypto.
Draghi also believes that the current size of the crypto market isn’t sufficiently large for central banks to get involved with the process of regulation: “I would say that it is more something that falls within the field of consumer protection: we want to ensure that buyers of these assets know what they are doing, and are aware of the risks”.
