In an interview with Bloomberg, Adro Hansson – an ECB Policymaker and Hungarian economist – said that he feels crypto is a load of nonsense and will die in the coming years. He based his argument on the fact that crypto markets are incredibly volatile and that it lost more than €700 billion in value across 2018. On top of this, he pointed to the fact that there are still many illegal uses for cryptocurrencies, making this new “asset class” rather dangerous to investors.
Hansson Looking at Crypto All Wrong
To a certain extent, Hansson is spot on with his claims about the crypto market, but he is taking cryptocurrencies as an investment rather than a utility. All currencies fluctuate on a daily basis, and while they might not fluctuate as much as crypto over the course of a day, they still fluctuate. Once cryptocurrencies become a recognized means of payment around the globe, volatility will smooth out and Hansson’s claims will become totally invalid – especially when you consider how many illegal transactions are made with cash every day.
Crypto is an “Evil Spawn”
These are not our words, but in fact the words from a prominent member of the European Central Bank (ECB) board. In November 2018, Benoît Cœuré launched a scathing attack on the crypto world, calling it an evil spawn that merged from the 2008 financial crisis. Cœuré kept repeating his favorite mantra “Bitcoin is bad, blockchain is good”. Considering he is on the board of the bank for central banks, that’s not a bad starting place.
No EU Cryptocurrency
Back in September, Mario Draghi – president of the European Central Bank – said that while the ECB is exploring blockchain technology to speed up the remittance process, it’s not looking into creating a European cryptocurrency. Draghi went on to explain that in Europe, cash is still king and will remain king for the foreseeable future. Draghi’s visions could be short-sighted as more online banks begin to pop up and cryptocurrencies gain popularity in Europe. If more countries can follow Gibraltar and Malta in creating crypto regulations, Draghi’s vision could become outdated very quickly.
Adro Hansson’s comments have shocked many in the crypto world, but it’s nothing the industry can’t handle. It’s only a matter of time before the ECB is forced to accept that the public wants to use cryptos and in a bid to remain on top, it will likely be forced to create its own European cryptocurrency.
