new 11|new 11

An executive board member of the European Central Bank, Benoit Coeure is in the crypto news today for his statement that he considers Bitcoin as the ‘evil spawn of the financial crises.

Coeure made this statement at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel. The bank’s general manager has also shown skeptical thoughts about cryptocurrencies especially describing Bitcoin as a combination of a Ponzi scheme, a bubble, and an environmental disaster.

The executive board member continued his criticism towards the number one cryptocurrency by referencing the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy ten years ago. He believes that to be the reason for the economic disaster that happened and the entire global recession.

He explained:

“Few remember that Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin, embedded the genesis block with a Times headline from January 2009 about U.K. banks’ bailout. In more ways than one, Bitcoin is the evil spawn of the financial crisis.”

He acknowledges the enormous interest in this technology but he believes that it is highly unlikely that a central bank digital currency will be issued soon, especially not in the next ten years.

The director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde spoke at the Singapore Fintech Festival where Lagarde urged the entire community to really consider endorsing central-bank issued digital currencies because they could potentially satisfy public policy goals such as financial inclusion. Of course, Coeure’s arguments were totally on the contrary.

Also, Stanley Yong’s opinions who is the Chief Technical Officer of IBM, totally different from those of Couere’s, noting that the central-bank issued digital currencies are the only way to mitigate risks that once happened in the Lehman case back in 2008.