The incoming governor of the Bank of England has told a British government committee that there is “no guarantee of the value of Bitcoin” and has claimed that it has “no intrinsic value”. Andrew Bailey, who will take over as the country’s most senior banker on March 17, has reiterated statements he made during Bitcoin’s peak in December 2017, as he sets out his stall after four years as CEO of the regulatory body the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
BREAKING: The Bank of England governor-designate, Andrew Bailey, says those holding bitcoin should “be prepared to lose all of your money” and “bitcoin has not caught on much”
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“Be Prepared to Lose all Your Money”
Bailey was giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee this week following a series of high-profile financial scandals that took place during his tenure at the head of the FCA. During the session he touched briefly on “crypto assets of the Bitcoin variety”, reaffirming his dislike of such assets:
If you want to buy Bitcoin, be prepared to lose all your money. Understand what you’ve got – it has no intrinsic value. It may have extrinsic value, but it has no intrinsic value.
Bailey also claimed, extraordinarily, that, “It (Bitcoin) hasn’t caught on as much as people predicted it would”, despite several factors and even reports from big banks suggesting the exact opposite.
Bailey Not the Most Trusted Source
As well as being one of the heads of the ‘establishment’ that Bitcoin was created to compete against, there are reasons to suggest that Bailey’s judgement should not be trusted. He is the man who allowed payday lenders with exorbitant rates of interest to proliferate up and down the country, preying on those in desperate financial straits, which meant that, in the words of one MP, “Millions of people up and down the country suffered on your watch.”
Bailey was also in charge of the regulator when British investment firm Woodford Investment Management, worth $3.1 billion, went bust last year after numerous complaints and the freezing of investors’ money. If he’s really worried about investments going to zero, maybe Bailey should start looking a little closer to home before castigating Bitcoin.
