Lagarde: “My son disobeyed me and lost money in cryptocurrencies”

There is no prophet in his place, including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, who admitted on Friday that her son lost “almost all” of his investments in cryptocurrencies, despite ample warnings from the side.

“It wasn’t much, but he lost everything.”

As Reuters noted, Lagarde has publicly disagreed with cryptocurrencies, calling them speculative, useless, and a tool often used by criminals for illegal activities.

Speaking to students in Frankfurt, Lagarde admitted: “He ignored me royally, which is his prerogative.” “He lost almost all the money he invested.”

“It wasn’t much, but he lost everything, about 60 percent,” Lagarde added. “So when I talked to him about it again, he reluctantly accepted that I was right.”

It is noteworthy that the President of the European Central Bank has two children in their thirties, but she did not specify whom she meant.

However, she admitted that she does not know much about the specific industry: “I have, as you can tell, a very low opinion of cryptocurrencies.” He added: “People are free to invest their money where they want, people are free to speculate as much as they want, (but) people should not be free to engage in trade and business subject to criminal sanctions.”

The position of the European Central Bank

It is worth noting that the European Central Bank called for global regulation of digital assets to protect consumers, who are unaware of the risks, and to close a loophole that could be used to direct financing to terrorists or to launder money by criminals.

Fears that private currencies could replace government money were among the reasons the European Central Bank launched its digital euro project, but the bank is still a long way from issuing digital money.

Last month, it began the “preparation phase” for the digital euro, but said it would take another two years to be able to decide whether to launch it or not.

The path to a digital euro

The European Central Bank began investigating the creation of a digital currency in 2021 and has since studied various design features. Although doubts remain, European Union officials are pushing in this direction. It lists benefits, including global acceptance of the digital currency for payments across the 20-nation bloc and the absence of the volatility prevalent in cryptocurrencies.

However, the ECB clarified that the start of the new preparation phase “does not constitute a decision to issue a digital euro.”

Together with the European Central Bank, the EU is working on a framework that would provide the legal basis and regulate the basics of virtual money – with the final decision on whether to go ahead with it left to the central bank.

Rulers

As for the plan’s critics, late last month a group of EU parliamentarians urged the ECB to delay its decision to proceed to the next phase, saying the added value for the general public “remains unclear” and that implementation is uncertain. Fabio Panetta, the ECB Governing Council member responsible for researching the development of a digital euro, responded that the next steps are just further preparation, not a final ruling on the launch of the project.

Attitudes towards cash are not uniform within the EU, with Germans remaining staunch supporters of physical currency. However, the head of the Bundesbank defended the project, despite warning that he expected the digital euro to only be ready for use in “about five years.”

source: Ot.gr