- ECB’s Lagarde has stated that BTC isn’t liquid, protected, and stuffed with crime to be thought-about a reserve.
- However Bitwise’s Andre Dragosch has debunked these allegations.
The crypto neighborhood has criticized Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Financial institution, for her opposition to a Bitcoin[BTC] reserve amongst member nations.
In a current presser, Lagarde stated,
“Reserves need to be liquid, safe and protected and never be tormented by suspicion of cash laundering or felony exercise. Because of this, I’m assured that Bitcoin is not going to enter the reserves of any of the central banks of the overall council.”
Nonetheless, the neighborhood shortly countered her argument, stating that Bitcoin meets all the standards she highlighted.
BTC meets the ECB’s reserve standards
Andre Dragosch, Head of Analysis at Bitwise Europe, famous that BTC is extra liquid than essentially the most liquid conventional asset (S&P 500). He stated,
“Is Bitcoin liquid? SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) – trades round 22 bn USD in quantity per day. Bitcoin simply had 54 bn USD in buying and selling quantity over the previous 24 hours.”
For security, miners safe BTC, essentially the most decentralized community with no counterparty threat. Dragosch added that one would want upward of $20B to deprave BTC’s system, rendering it a comparatively safer choice.
As for felony exercise, crypto accounted for lower than 1% of crime-related circumstances, per the 2024 Chainalysis report. The analyst added,
“Solely 0.14% of all on-chain transactions are associated to illicit actions, together with cash laundering. Bitcoin is just a fraction of that.”
One other consumer, Daniel Sempere, echoed Dragosch’s sentiment, reiterating that the Bitcoin community secures $2T in wealth and has by no means been hacked.
It’s price noting that Lagarde’s remark was associated to the current Czech Republic’s move to diversify its nationwide reserve by including BTC.
Earlier within the week, the Czech’s Central Financial institution Governor, Ales Michl, reiterated the financial institution’s intention so as to add BTC to its reserves if authorized.
Whether or not Michl will again down on BTC after Lagarde’s warning stays to be seen. Within the meantime, Polymarket odds of one other nation adopting BTC briefly soared +70%.