The U.K.’s most prominent central banker is making his disdain of cryptocurrencies clearer than ever.
Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, said Thursday that if you buy Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, or any other digital currency, you should be “prepared to lose all your money.”
“They have no intrinsic value,” Bailey said at a press conference. “That doesn’t mean to say people don’t put value on them, because they can have extrinsic value. But they have no intrinsic value…I’m going to say this very bluntly again. Buy them only if you’re prepared to lose all your money. I’m afraid currency and crypto are two words that don’t go together for me.”
His comments echo a 2017 warning that used very similar language.
Bailey’s damnation of crypto came after a question about whether the BoE was worried about the recent volatility in the digital currency space. Year to date, Bitcoin is up 96%, Ethereum is up 371%, and Dogecoin—the crypto that no one was meant to take seriously—is up 12,718%.
Earlier this year, Bailey told the World Economic Forum that he did not believe current cryptocurrencies would survive as a form of payment.
“Have we landed on what I would call the design, governance, and arrangements for what I might call a lasting digital currency,” he said. “No, I don’t think we’re there yet, honestly. I don’t think cryptocurrencies as originally formulated are it.”
Bailey’s objections notwithstanding, the BoE said last month it would join forces with the U.K. Treasury to consider creating its own central bank digital currency. No decision has been made on that idea yet, however.
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