Central banks must clamp down on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to stop them “piggybacking” on mainstream institutions and becoming a “threat to financial stability”, the head of the Bank for International Settlements has warned.
Agustín Carstens, general manager of the BIS — known as the bank for central banks because it is where they hold accounts — condemned bitcoin as “a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster”.
His comments came as growing signs of a backlash against cryptocurrencies by mainstream financial institutions contributed to another steep fall in the price of bitcoin, which means it has lost almost two-thirds of its market value in a month.