Bitcoin is not real, and any purchase amounts to speculation, says ECB’s ex-chief as he pours cold water on cryptocurrency. The European Central Bank’s former president Jean-Claude Trichet said he is doubtful that cryptocurrencies can ever become the future of money, becoming the latest monetary authority to pour cold water on the simmering technology that seeks to disrupt and disintermediate global central banks from their control of currencies.
“I am strongly against bitcoin, and I think we are a little complacent,” Trichet said during a panel discussion at Caixin’s 10th annual conference on Sunday in Beijing. “The [crypto]currency itself is not real, with the characteristics that a currency must have.”
Buying a cryptocurrency is “in many respects pure speculation,” said Trichet, who led the ECB from 2003 to 2011, after a decade as governor of the Bank of France. “Even if [the cryptocurrency] is supposed to be based on underlying assets, I am observing a lot of speculation. It is not healthy.”
Trichet’s comment echoes the concern shared by global central banks about the threat posed by cryptocurrencies, for their decentralisation of traditional currencies, disruption of the global financial system and hindrance to monetary authorities in controlling the value of money. The ECB’s board member Benoit Soeure went as far in September as warning that cryptocurrencies could “challenge the supremacy of the US dollar,” in a report on CNBC.