Bitcoin regulation shall be addressed through “multilateral action” Lagarde says, “If there is an escape, that escape will be used.”
The president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde said today that Bitcoin is a speculative asset that must be regulated.
Lagarde says that Bitcoin is a “highly speculative asset, which has conducted some funny business and some interesting and reprehensible money laundering activity.”
She said that Bitcoin’s vicious activity is demonstrated “very clearly” by previous and recent criminal investigations. Last month, Italian police arrested the CEO of crypto exchange BitGrail and accused him of laundering $2M in cryptocurrency.
Lagarde continued, “There has to be regulation. This has to be applied and agreed upon … at a global level because if there is an escape that escapes will be used.”
“Global cooperation, multilateral action is absolutely needed, whether it’s initiated by the G7, moved into the G20 and then enlarged. It’s something that needs to be addressed,” she said.
The G7 nations, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US, pushed for regulation in a previous statement last month. A spokesperson for US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin advised a “need to regulate digital currencies.”
Talking about Bitcoin’s recent bull run, which raised the price of the coin from $10,500 by the start of October to highs of over $40,000 this month, Lagarde stated that Bitcoin is a “speculative asset by any account.”
“For those who had assumed that this might turn into a currency, [I’m] terribly sorry but this is an asset.”
Lagarde frequently called for regulation against Bitcoin. Last November, she stated that “crypto-asset pose risks,” given that there is no identifiable issuer. This emphasizes Bitcoin’s volatility, she stated. The price crash last Sunday has proven her point.
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