The European Parliament has told lawmakers not to “ban” or “ignore”
cryptocurrencies in a new report released this week,
forecasting they “will remains with us for a while.”
The report, ‘Virtual currencies and central banks monetary
policy: challenges ahead’ commissioned by the Economic and Monetary
Affairs Committee, contains a wealth of supportive statements on
virtual currencies (‘VCs’).
Its publication diversifies the broad EU standpoint on the technology, which continues to
include legal projects to monitor
residents’ usage and clamp down on anonymity.
“Thanks to their technological properties, their global
transaction networks are relatively safe, transparent, and fast,”
the report’s abstract reads, describing VCs as “a contemporary form
of private money.”
“This gives them good prospects for further development.
However, they remain unlikely to challenge the dominant position of
sovereign currencies and central banks, especially those in major
currency areas. As with other innovations, virtual currencies pose
a challenge to financial regulators, in particular because of their
anonymity and trans-border character.”
As mainstream media and legacy finance figures continue to call
the ‘death’ of Bitcoin in particular under current price
conditions, the European Parliament’s perspective appears
remarkable.
In addition to staking its belief in their longevity, the report
takes aim at naysayers, directly accusing them of being “mistaken”
if they think cryptocurrency technology is an inherently illegal
apparatus.
Specific reference is made to findings by economist Robert Shiller, who has become
infamous in recent years for his bearish stance on Bitcoin.
“The economists who attempt to dismiss the justifications for
and importance of VCs, considering them as the inventions of
‘quacks and cranks’ (Skidelsky, 2018), a new incarnation of
monetary utopia or mania (Shiller, 2018), fraud, or simply as a
convenient instrument for money laundering, are mistaken,” the
authors add.
“VCs respond to real market demand and, most likely, will remain
with us for a while.”