A statement by Ardo Hansson, a member of the governing Council of the European Central Bank, is sort of a study in strange timing.
Cointelegraph reports today that in yesterday’s comments at a Riga conference, Hansson was derisive of digital currencies calling them “a complete load of nonsense” and “a fairy-tale story.”
Reporter Ana Alexandre cites statements last fall by European commission VP Valdis Dombrovskis as part of a counter-narrative – that cryptocurrencies are a real part of the financial market and that they are here to stay.
Hansson apparently disagrees – but his comment is even stranger when you consider that he is also the governor of Estonia’s central bank.
Just yesterday, we reported on the opening of the DX Exchange, an Estonian platform that is bringing groundbreaking crypto coin functionality and coin trading to a global audience along with the emergence of ‘digital’ stocks tied to real-world equities for big companies like Google, Apple and Facebook. DX Exchange is open for business – users can trade Litecoin or Ethereum or Ripple, whose XRP token has been hailed as a game-changer for payment and transaction handling.
It’s odd that Hansson would pick such a time to criticize the idea of cryptocurrency – when Estonia has just made headlines for the kind of innovation that leaders around the world are chasing – unless, as a detractor, he feels threatened by the rapid emergence of national crypto infrastructure.
In terms of actual concerns, Hansson talked about investor protection, echoing the widespread criticism of cryptocurrencies: that bad actors can use them for money laundering or to avoid sanctions or to conduct ransomware activities, or for any other kinds of financial mischief.
He also cited a lack of regulation, which is a prominent point for U.S. regulators who are trying to keep crypto currency users honest – case in point, our recent reporting on Kraken versus the New York Attorney General’s office.
All in all, Hansson seems to believe that cryptocurrency assets of all types are heading for the graveyard.
“I think we will come back a few years from now and say how could we ever have gotten into this situation where we believed this kind of a fairy-tale story,” Hansson reportedly said.
However, DX Exchange tells a different tale – despite some of these voices coming out against the idea of using cryptocurrency, we have actual operations and practices that do utilize cryptocurrency in positive ways, and maybe now is the time to say that doing is more important than talking.
Cryptocurrency investors have lots of new options, from DX Exchange to the ever-growing list of merchants who will take Bitcoin as payment. Look at this wider, broader commercial arena and decide whether you want to put in an entry point for Bitcoin around $4000, or invest in any other altcoin or cryptocurrency asset.
