Economic gatekeepers are rounding on cryptocurrency as media attention intensifies amid the Bitcoin boom and Coinbase listing.
Finance officials on both sides of the world take the opportunity, following Coinbase’s direct listing of Nasdaq, to criticize the value and value of cryptocurrencies as the media focus increases in space.
Governor of the Bank of Korea Lee Ju-yeol stated, after Thursday’s monetary policy meeting, that cryptocurrencies have “significant limits” for their payment, reported local outlet KBS World.
Although Lee claimed that because of its volatile price fluctuations it was difficult to accurately assess cryptocurrencies, the BOK had not changed its position that they had no intrinsic value.
Lee also referred to Jerome Powell, President of the United States Federal Reserve, noting that the head of the Fed spared his views about crypto-space.
Hours before, Powell stated that cryptocurrencies were purely speculative and that they had not been easily adopted as a method of payment during a virtual interview to The Economic Club of New York.
“Truly they are speculative vehicles. According to CNBC, they are not really active as payments,” Powell said.
The recent adopted of cryptocurrency by major global payment processors is flying in the face of Powell and Lee’s comments.In the past several months, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal have all begun implementing cryptopayment options, while Tesla has implemented Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment option for the company.
This does not mean that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are sure of the methods of payment. The average transaction fee for Bitcoin is around $30 because of its small block size and consequent congestion in the network. Therefore, payment processors are often forced to consume transaction fees as business expenses until, as with Steam in 2017, they can no longer afford.
The idea that cryptocurrency may be compared to gold is one point of agreement that Powell and the crypto community agree on—but for totally different reasons. Cryptocurrency proponents (particularly Bitcoin) argue that technology can be used in the same way as precious metal as long-term store-value.
But the comparison, Powell, intended, was ridiculous. Gold does not seem to be better in the Fed Chairman’s opinion than crypto-monetary one.
The chairman of the United States Fiat Printing Centre, said: “For thousands of years people have been giving gold a special value they have not,” he said.
