Due to the high cost of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, they should be banned “excessive ecological footprint”This week, the top European Central Banker spoke out.
Fabio Panetta serves as the chairman of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board called for ban on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin that require proof-of-work verification for transactions. It is a time-consuming but energy-efficient process where computers must solve complicated equations in order to get the right to perform the transaction.
The Italian economist said that due to the European Union’s commitment to combatting climate change, those “crypto-assets deemed to have an excessive ecological footprint should be banned.”
However, the environmental excuse appears to be a smokescreen for the real desired outcome by the ECB, namely the formation of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and the elimination of non-government-controlled alternatives such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
“Only central bank money can provide an anchor of stability. The solution is to extend today’s two-tier monetary system into the digital age. This system is built on the complementary roles of central bank money and commercial bank money,” Panetta said.
“Central bank money is currently available for retail use in only physical form – cash. However, the digitalization of payments is diminishing cash’s effectiveness as a monetary anchor.
“Central bank digital currencies would instead preserve the use of public money for digital retail payments. By offering a digital, risk-free common denominator, a central bank digital currency would facilitate convertibility among different forms of private digital money. It would thus preserve the singleness of money and protect monetary sovereignty. The ECB is working on a digital euro precisely for these reasons.”
Fabio Panetta, Executive Board Member at the @LBS“Insight Summit” 2022
The crypto-assets you can use are not real money. Many are just a new way of gambling https://t.co/S3YOJcq9QM1/4 pic.twitter.com/2VmYAtWGja
— European Central Bank (@ecb) December 7, 2022
The European Commission stated earlier this year that they plan to introduce legislation early in 2023 to establish the foundation for their own CBDC.
“It would ensure that money continues to be denominated in euros. And It would be based on a European infrastructure, facilitating intermediaries to scale payments innovation throughout the euro area and thus strengthen Europe’s strategic autonomy,” ECB chief Christine Lagarde said last month.
In the meantime, the UK’s Prime Minister Rishi Sonak was a prominent voice supporting implementation of the CBDC by Bank of England. However, there is no timetable for when it will be implemented.
Sunak was last year’s finance chief under Boris Johnson. claimedAlthough a CBDC can be used alongside coins and psychic bank notes, there are concerns that it could eventually replace cash.
Bank of England, who admitted in 2013 that they might be made, has warned of the dangers of Central Bank Digital Currency. “programable”So that citizens could choose how they spend their money.
Tom Mutton of the Bank of England said: “You could introduce programmability – what happens if one of the participants in a transaction puts a restriction on [future use of the money]?
“There could be some socially beneficial outcomes from that, preventing activity which is seen to be socially harmful in some way. But at the same time it could be a restriction on people’s freedoms.”
Great Reset: World Economic Forum Pushes Cashless Society Central Bank Digital Currencieshttps://t.co/HXTnXfqFvM
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 12, 2022
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