ECB blog: Bitcoin is on the 'road to irrelevance'

Neither payment system nor investment

Bitcoin is on the “road to irrelevance” and the financial industry must be cognisant of the long-term reputational risk of promoting investments in the cryptocurrency, according to a blog post published by the European Central Bank.

Written by the ECB's Ulrich Bindseil, director general of market infrastructure and payments, and Jürgen Schaaf, advisor, market infrastructure and payments, the article argued that bitcoin was neither a payment system nor an investment, and its recently stabilised price was an "artificially induced last gasp". Three quarters of wealth managers planning to embrace crypto Bindseil and Schaaf pose several rebuttals to traditional talking points for proponents of bitcoin, focusing initially on its proposed use as a currency. They argue that due to its "conceptual design and technical ...