Christine Lagarde Reaffirms ECB’s Crypto Policy as Bitcoin Becomes Legal Tender in El Salvador

The president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, has shared her view on El Salvador making bitcoin legal tender. She confirmed that the central bank’s policy on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has not changed.

ECB’s Lagarde Comments on El Salvador Making Bitcoin Legal Tender

ECB President Christine Lagarde has shared her view last week on El Salvador’s move to make bitcoin legal tender. The country passed a bill last week making bitcoin legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar.

Lagarde first admitted that since she left the International Monetary Fund (IMF), she is “no longer familiar with the situation in El Salvador.” The ECB chief noted, “I know that it is a country that is under the IMF program.”

While pointing out that “the issue of having dual tender in a particular economy is a difficult one,” Lagarde confirmed:

That certainly does not change our approach to crypto assets and to regulations, supervision, and proper classification that they should be under to avoid misinformation and misleading representations.

After El Salvador passed the bill making bitcoin legal tender, the IMF said that it saw legal and economic issues regarding this move. A BIS official also commented recently that it is an “interesting experiment” but it does not change the BIS’s view on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, insisting that BTC fails a means of payment test.

Lagarde warned last month that cryptocurrencies are prone to money laundering and have no intrinsic value. In January, she said: “It’s a highly speculative asset, which has conducted some funny business and some interesting and totally reprehensible money laundering activity.”

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